Independence

A kid goes off to college, At last he is independent. He awaited this moment for eighteen years. Nobody can tell him what to do. He can make his own decisions, he can do what ever he wants.

Never mind that his mother is paying the tuition, that every class he takes, every meal he eats and the bed he sleeps in at night are given to him only because of the check his mother sent in the mail, that does not bother him, he still feels independent. You see, the check – his mom's influence is not in his face at every moment, it is therefore easy for him to ignore.

If a mother would move into the college town and say to her son I will support you. Before you go into a class I will write a check for the class, before every meal I will come into the cafeteria and pay for the food. Every night I will come to the dormitory and pay for the nights stay. The son would say no way! I need my independence, Send the check in the mail and get out of here.

The check is in the mail it is not in his face, it’s very easy to ignore and it does not get in his way.

Chasidus explains that Hashem revealed himself to the Jewish people at midnight of the fifteenth of Nisan to take them out of Egypt. The revelation was so powerful that the Jews were nullified, they lost their felling of independence from Hashem, they felt that the only true existence is Hashem. The revelation did not allow their bread to rise, for rising bread represents the ego and when Hashem is revealed one cannot feel independent of Hashem.

In truth one should always feel that way. After all Hashem gives us everything we have including life itself, but usually the check comes in the mail it's not so obvious and it’s easy to ignore.

When there is a "GILUY ELOKUS" a revelation of G-dliness all of existence is nullified.

Don't be fooled by the illusion of independence, he is with us every step of the way, he's paying all the bills, waiting to see if we will say "thank you".

(from a Chasidus class taught by my Shver)

Fight For Your Lifestyle

What am I trying to accomplish today?

I am trying to live a life worth fighting for, worth sacrificing for.

People often look at a religious lifestyle and see only sacrifices. You can’t do this and you must do that. They look and say to themselves that’s not for me, it’s to much to give up.

The truth is any life worth living demands an enormous amount of effort and sacrifice.

On the most basic level if you want to be a doctor you can’t be a lawyer at the same time. If you are putting in extra hours at work to earn that bonus so you can save money for your kids, you may save money but you will miss spending more time with them.

If you want to be healthy and fit you must exercise and give up those potato chips that keep you going when the going gets tough.

You want to live a spiritual life. You realize that as hard as you try to achieve happiness by feeding your body, it simply wont work. You’re soul craves for nourishment, and you must feed it. Don’t be surprised if that is going to take some effort and sacrifice.

My neighbor wakes up at 4:45am to catch a 5:45am train to the city. He does not think that’s too much to give up to make a living. Maybe I should wake up that early and study Chasidus, after all you must fight for your lifestyle.

History

Look at history.

Thousands of years ago there was human sacrifices.

Comes along Avraham and starts teaching a new idea. One G-d. It caught on pretty quickly, but only for a limited number of people. And it didn't have a permanent affect. Those people went back to doing their thing of like "yo' man! You mind if I sacrifice you?"

There the Jews are in Egypt. Not only has Avrahams students long forgotten this One G-d, now his family are also forgetting.

In comes Moshe Rabbeinu and Hashem taking us out of Egypt. The giving of the Torah. And we started a whole new mission. Change the world. Every man on this earth should believe in the One G-d. And keeping the 7 laws.

And we started at home. We learned the laws. We taught it to our kids. Until Shlomo Hamelech. We had transformed the world. But only our world. We hadn't gotten to every last person on the face of the planet.

Then Galus happens. Together with a few very significant developements. Jews are now going everywhere. And the world relegions adopt basic Jewish ideas and even our Torah. Yet they where still doing things like the Gladiatorial combats. Watching and actaully enjoying humans being ripped apart by animals.

And history continues with more wars, more killing and even more of that stuff.

Fast forward to today. You can go up to a non-Jew, tell him "Hey. You've heard about the 7 Noachide laws?" Not only does he not rip you to pieces on the spot, he's like "Tell me more. Much More."

And war? People are so sick of it. Could you imagine what people living not to long ago would think of us panic-at-the-sight-of-blood type guys?

And this is all besides the fact that by now so many single individuals have already had universal impact on people. Like America for example. Authors that their books are global best sellers. Companies that are household names globally. Including companies that have not existed 15 years ago!

So what does it already take for someone to give the right message that will just turn everyone around saying "This is just the coolest thing. Even better than facebook. And it truly makes me happy, makes sense and G-d really wants me to do it."

We haven't even spoken about the material and physical world. Like solar energy. Or what I can relate to a little better nuclear energy. If a couple of atoms can destroy a million people. How many atoms can it already take to supply 6 billion people with all the energy they need? Do you get my point?

So the question is, how on earth has this not happened yet?

The Addict

Yossi, allow me to elaborate on your point and take it a step further.

If I understand correctly you are saying that right now we (or at least part of us) despise the evil and unholy. So when Mshiach comes when all the evil will disappear, it is not going to be a new reality because deep down that’s always who we really were.

An addict trying to recover. Part of him hates the addiction part of him craves it. The first thing any therapist will tell him is “buddy, you must admit that you’ve got a big problem”. Recognizing the sickness is the only motivation to become healthy, you can’t find the strength to overcome if you don’t recognize that there is a problem.

The addiction can be the motivation for the cure. The cure did not just knock on the door and show up. It took a long time to ferment. The cured addict is not a new person. His current state of being is an outgrowth from the person he was yesterday and the day before.

In Gulus we are “sick”. Part of us craves evil. The other part of us can't be satisfied with material pleasure. It does not make us happy. We yearn for something more, something truer, we yearn for Hashem.

Moshiach is the cure. The cure does not come in a vacuum, it takes nineteen hundred years to achieve. When Moshiach comes are personality isn’t a new one, it’s the outgrowth of all the challenge and addiction that we suffered through.

Moshiach

We're perfecting a world. So what happens? After 2000 years of galus. Boom. Moshiach's here. All of a sudden there is miracles all day long. Peace everywhere. No one fighting or jealous. Is this some kind of joke? I thought we're perfecting our world and we get a totally different world. The one we lived in was never perfected it's gone. It made way to the new world! So I repeat myself is this some kind of joke?

This is the classical understanding of Moshiach. And truth to tell, in my mind this is how I picture Moshiach. So I struggle with this whole Moshiach concept.

Comes the Alter Rebbe and says. No. You got it all wrong. The work we do today is what is Moshiach later. Or in the words of the Rambam, "there will be no difference between now and then. Except who's in charge". No miracles. No supernatural stuff. And no Sheep grazing with lions. That aint gonna happen. It will be the same street, the same car and the same person. Yet no jealousy or fighting.

This week I heard a class from der feter Rabbi Manis Friedman. He put it this way: The world is ready. People are sick and tired of war. They're sick and tired of cheating and thievery. They're just sick and tired of all the garbage. They've had enough. Genug shoin.

Materially also. We are so close to tapping in to endless resources. We can actually see it. Even feel it. It's at our fingertips. We just need one little .... and it's all there. Enough for everyone and more.

So all we need is one person to say the right word and in no time everyone will jump on the band wagon.

The question then really is not, how is it possible Moshiach could happen? It's how on earth did it not happen yet. We're there so what's missing?

For someone who sees this, it's very frustrating every minute that it didn't happen. Because why did it not happen?!

Maybe that's the Rebbe meant when he said and Mincha we'll daven in Yerushalayim with Moshiach. And get up and daven. Because to the Rebbe it made more sense to be with Moshiach. To stay here makes no sense at all.

Gave this over tonight in a class about Moshiach

Joy

Being happy comes from bitul.
When you think you deserve everything, you'll never have enough. On the other hand if the world doesn't only spin your way you'll be happier with what you've got.
Same thing spiritually and emotionally.
If all you do is think about yourself than today your happy 'cause you had a good day. Tomorrow you woke up on the wrong side so you're miserable. You don't care about what your doing, or Hashem for that matter, you care about yourself. So when you feel accomplished you're happy 'cause you're a somebody. When you're not accomplishing you are a nobody so you're miserable. Again you don't really care about anything other than yourself.
If you did you wouldn't be miserable, you'd work on the problem.
If I may talk about myself...
This past Sunday I related to this concept. there was a huge Israel 60 event in the JCC. We went to put on teffillin with people. Generally I'm pretty timid in such situations. For various reasons this time i gave some thought to the fact that I'm doing the Rebbe's work not mine. It's really not about me. And truth to tell I was on fire. Walking over to many a person with: "When was the last time you put on Teffillin?". B"H we had much success. In all each of us probably had about 25 Teffillin and in all over a hundred.
One older man walks by. When was the last time you put on Teffilin? Never. He was probably in his eighties. His wife had recently past away and he's just there to walk. I ask a few times. My uncle asks. Unfortunately he didn't put Teffillin on. I didn't feel like a failure. I said a kapitel Tehillim for him. And kept my eye out for him. He never came back.

Tzarat Perspectives.

There is a saying in Hebrew that goes like this: whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.

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In the Portion of Tazriah the Torah begins to teach the laws of the Tzarat that afflict the Human body, after which it teaches the Tzatras that afflicts garments.

The purification of the metzorah is discussed in the next portion, in Parshat Metzorah. After the purification of the metzorah the Torah returns to discus the laws of Tzarat, this time Tzarat that afflicts the home. Immediately after which the Torah teaches the laws of it’s purification.

In other words when we talk about Tzarat that afflicts the person, the tzarat and it’s purification are taught in two separate portions, when discussing Tzarat of the home, the purification is taught immediately after the Tzarat.

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Anybody who looks at life objectively can understand that any set back can be an opportunity for growth. Challenge has the potential to bring out the best in the human soul.

The one struggling has a very different perspective. To him there is nothing good about the struggle, nothing positive. Only pain and despair. Pain hurts it doesn’t build.

When he finds the strength to overcome the challenges, he fells as if he reached a “new” stage of being. there was a change from the prior challenge and pain.

He finaly finds the courage to turn around and begin a fresh start, only to realize that the person he became is very much a product of the previous challenges that he tried so hard to escape from.

When we are imersed in a chalinging situation all we can feel is pain, we can’t see any good resulting.

From our perspective the Tzarat affliction and it’s purification are written in two distinct portions, the purification is a new beginning.

From Hashem’s perspective however, the purpose of the challenge is only to lead us to greater heights. Although not always can we see it that way.

In describing the Tzarat that afflicts the home the Torah says “When you come to the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as a possession, and I place a lesion of tzara'ath upon a house in the land of your possession”. The medrash teaches that from the tone of the verse we hear that this is in fact good news. The good news was the discovery of treasures that the native Cananites hid in the walls of their homes. When the Tzarat would appear and some stones would have to be removed, the treasures were discovered.

That is the Tzarat from the perspective of Hashem. All we have to do is look beneath the impurity and we will discover the treasures of our soul.

keeping Hashem’s perspective in mind will give us the strength to survive all of the challenges that we face. It will help us grow and find the treasure in our most difficult hours.

The Bride

Our Rabbis taught: How does one dance before the bride? Beth Shammai say: The bride as she is. And Beth Hillel say: ‘Beautiful and graceful bride’!

Beth Shammai said to Beth Hillel: If she was lame or blind, does one say of her: ‘Beautiful and graceful bride’? Whereas the Torah said, ‘Distance yourself from a false matter.’

Said Beth Hillel to Beth Shammai: According to your words, if one has made a bad purchase in the market, should one praise it in his eyes or denigrate it in his eyes? Surely, one should praise it in his eyes.

From here the Sages said a persons mind should always be mingled with people.

(Talmud Ketubot 17a)

Hillel's argument would be that since the groom decided to marry her, she must have some detail in her personality that is beautiful. Now, all you have to do is look at her from the groom's perspective and you will find the beautiful aspect of her personality. Hillel's perspective is that as long as one detail is beautiful it is truthful to say that she is beautiful. To illustrate, Say you went to a class that was mostly boring but one detail that you learned had a great impact on you, according to Hillel it would be truthful to say that "it was a good class".

Shammai however looks for the general, he looks for the essence, not at the details. Shammai therefore says that just because one detail is beautiful (Shammai would concede that point) you cannot call her a beautiful bride, because in General she is not beautiful, and Shammai focuses on the general. (Returning to the analogy of the class, Shammai would say it was boring class, he will not be distracted by the interesting detail).