The Dreamer

I know a guy who’s a dreamer.

He’s always coming up with a new idea that is interesting but crazy at the same time.  He’s a nice guy (usually), but (almost always) out of touch with reality.

Is the dreamer someone lacking intelligence, allowing his imagination to take over, or is he someone who can go deeper then reason, to try, and sometimes succeed, to make connections that no one has made before, to connect two seemingly opposing ideas, and to innovate beyond any expectation?

We live in a dream.

We live in a reality in which opposing truths can coexist. Where one can love Hashem in one moment and love the world a moment later. Is that a good place to be in? Does that mean that the love of Hashem is just an illusion? 

One must understand, answers the alter Rebbe, that looking from our perspective this reality is indeed contradictory. However, in it’s spiritual source, there is no contradiction at all; because, in truth, the world and Holiness are, not opposites but, one and the same, both expressing the greatness of Hashem. 

We are frustrated because, in our mind, we are like the dreamer who does not realize that he is simultaneously entertaining two ideas that cannot coexist. Yet, in truth, we are not living a contradiction. In truth, we are the dreamers who can reach deeper then the perceived truths, we are the dreamers who are not afraid of apparent contradiction, and we are the dreamers who look at the world and see it for what it really is: an expression of Hashem. 

(Based on Torah Or Parshas Vayeshev, D”H Shir Hmaalos... Hayinu Ki’cholmim).

The Power of Youth

The Akeidah is the greatest lesson of commitment to Hashem recorded in the Torah. We look to Avraham for inspiration to carry us trough the most challenging of times.

Avraham himself also learned something from the Akeidah: he learned the power of Youth.

Avraham commitment to Hashem was inspired by the revelation, yet Yitzchak was able to do the same without any revelation.

Only after the Akeudah did Avraham understand the power and strength of the dediaction of the youth.

Therefore, immediately after the Akeidah, the Torah writes: “Avraham returned to his lads”. He returned to the lads whom he taught about Hashem, yet he returned to “hang out” with them, to learn about true and enduring commitment to Hashem.

He returned to experience the youthful dedication, enthusiasm and perseverance.  

(A "Kutsker" Torah)

Why Him?

From all the people on earth G-d decides to choose Billam as his prophet. 

Billam, the man who wanted to curse the Jews so badly, that when G-d forced him to bless the Jews he convinced his own people to send their daughters to entice the Jews to sin. Every time I read the story I ask myself could G-d not have found someone more moral and deserving for the job?

This morning it came to me.

What if G-d chose Billam so we can appreciate Moses?

We look at Moses and we say to ourselves that if only G-d would speak to us we would be as great as Moses. So G-d decides to speak to Billam; showing that prophecy alone is no assurance to morality. It's not the prophecy that makes the person great, rather it's the person's own effort that makes him a great prophet.

The same is true for every person. When we feel an inspiration from above we must know that the inspiration alone will not make us Mosses-like. To be like Moses we must ensure that we, inspired by the gift of inspiration, will work hard to improve ourselves.

What on Earth is Spirituality?

Reading? Thinking? Swimming? Yoga?

The most accurate description of spirituality is change.

“What does change have to do with spirituality?” you ask.

A spiritual phenomena is undefinable in physical terms, and is therefore not bound to any particular form of existence; beacuse if it has to remain in a specific form then it is bound to a specific definition, thus compromising it's spirituality.

Therefore, the plant, which grows and changes, is more spiritual then the the stone, which does not change at all. The plant, however, is rooted in a specific place from which it can't break away. Thus the animal, which roams the earth freely, is more spiritual the the plant. And nothing in this world is more spiritual then the person who transcends himself to speak to another person.

It follows, therefore, that the act of changing, not being bound by your previous state of being, is the ultimate expression of one's spirituality-boundlessness.

[This explains why the human being is described in Jewish literature as “speaker”, not “thinker”; true, the thinker may feels spiritual beacuse he is breaking loose of his state of being and allowing his mind to roam freely; true freedom, however, is connecting to another person, breaking out of the most difficult bondage to escape, the bondage to the self.]

(Leku"s Yisro 6:1)

The Exalted

We keep doing it.

I never figured it out. Why do we keep exalting him, telling how awesome and removed he is from us, all while trying to connect to him in Prayer.

To me, it always felt strange; I felt that the more exalted he is, the harder it is for me to connect to him.

This Morning the Alter Rebbe explained it: Hashem is exalted, therfire the entire creation is insignificant before him. As soon as I'll realize this truth the world will not be able to interfere with my connection to Hashem; after all it's insignificant.

(Lek"t Masey)

Vows

The Torah summarizes the laws of vows, in the beginning of Matos, by saying “these are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses concerning a man and his wife, a father and his daughter, in her youth, while in her father's house”; omitting from the summary, what seems like the main point of the portion, the commandment that “If a man makes a vow to the Lord or makes an oath to prohibit himself, he shall not violate his word; according to whatever came out of his mouth, he shall do”.

This leads the Rebbe to conclude that the main point of the portion is not, the self understood idea, that one must keep a vow. Rather, here, the Torah's point is the contrary, the laws of nullifying a vow.

For until that point, while the Jews were in the desert they were permitted to make vows and separate themselves from the mundane. Now, however, when the Jews were about to enter the Land of Israel, and were given the responsibility of bringing G-dliness to this physical world, they don;t have the luxury to separate themselves form a physical item, rather they are empowered to refine and elevate it.

(Leku”s Matos 13 1)

Return then Run

Life, like energy, is a constant pull between running and returning. The soul yearns to connect to G-d, yet it must “return” to this world, bringing the light of Hashem down to this earth, through the Torah and Mitzvot.

Then the cycle starts again, after it returned the soul starts “running” and yearning again.   

This idea appears continuously in Chasidic philosophy; yet only this Shabbos did I realize an important detail of the process. In Lekutey Torah the Alter Rebbe explains that the cause for the “running” after the “return” is the “return”. The fact that the Jew drew g-d into his life, return, now makes him appreciate G-dlyness that much more, thus causing another “running” yearning to Hashem.  

(Leku"t Naso)