Hyper awareness

How is it that we are the most insensitive to the ones we love the most and are closest to?

Familiarity.

What is the antidote to familiarity? Hyper awareness.

When we read in Chassidus about hisbonenus, what we are trying to cultivate is an awareness to an alternate reality. One which demands that we consciously relate to it and not take it for granted. And this applies to Mitzvos, Berochos and relationships equally.

The Four Worlds, The Garments and the Body

As a student of Jewish mysticism you will hear a lot about the doctrine of the Four Worlds. According to the Kabbalists, the process of creation begins with the infinite light descending to create the spiritual world of “Atzilut”/”Emanation”, a world which has ten Divine attributes, or Sefirot. The en attributes of the world of Emanation then move to create the lower three worlds of “Creation” “Formation” and “Action” (Hebrew acronym: “Biy”a”); the universe as we know it is the world of action, which is the lowest of the four worlds.  

Thousands of pages have been written to describe the nature if these four worlds, the differences between them, their purpose and so much more. If you are like me, you want a one phrase soundbite that captures the essence of the difference between the highest world, where the Divine reality is felt, and the lower worlds, where the reality of creation is felt.  

The Tikuney Zohar, offers a strange sound bite; it writes that the lower worlds are “garments” the higher world is a “body”.

Both the body and the garment serve to enclothe something else, the body enclothe the soul, while the garments enclothe the body. Yet there are important differences between them. These differences capture the essence of the differences between the worlds.  

The garment tells it’s own story.

The garment industry is a multiple billion-dollar-a-year industry, because people are attracted to the beauty and personality of  garments. I too wear a specific garment because I want the garment to tell a story. I want it to attract attention to it’s beauty and artistry, I want it to to highlight it’s unique features. I want it to hide behind its story.

I am in love with my garment. In fact, every now and then I catch myself standing in the closet holding a garment in my hand, feeling it’s texture, admiring it’s beauty and enjoying it’s elegance hanging there on the rack.

A body, while also serving to enclothe the soul, is a completely different story.

The body serves no function other than expressing the soul. When the soul departs the body, we don't display the body on a shelf to admire it’s remarkable complexity. Instead, we bury it in the ground. Because a body’s purpose is, not to showcase it’s own features, rather it is is to serve as a vehicle for the soul’s expression.

We live on a magnificent planet that is part of a universe that is a “garment”, the lowest of the three worlds of “Biy”a”. As such, our world is shouting to us about its beauty, about it’s importance, about it’s physicality, and about reality from it’s perspective. The truth, hidden within the garment, the life-force that is the source and sustenance of the universe, is hidden within the garment, waiting to be discovered by the spiritual seeker.

In the highest world of “Atzilut”, or when the creations of the lower world succeed in elevating themselves to the level of “Atzilut”, there are no garments, only a “body”. In the reality of that world there is only the infinite light. Although it is a world comprised of definition, such as kindness, judgment, compassion etc., these defined realities are like a body, for they contain a soul of infinite light, yet they do not hide it. They tell a story but their story is not about themselves, it’s about the infinity within them.

Loshon Horo

It says in the Gemara that Loshon Horo kills three people; the one who says it, the one who hears it and the one it is said about. There are different explanations as to what exactly is the meaning of this, with a Sicha talking about the damage to the one it is about. There are many ways one  can understand the damage to the person who says it and the one who hears it.
An interesting idea is to focus on Loshon Horo being true and the knowledge that there is someone going around and talking about someone and judging them, The one who hears Loshon Horo may think that today I am in but tomorrow I might be the object of this judgement. He might be afraid to give his opinion or to try something new or to just act natural as he shuts down some part of his personality that just doesn't conform.

Start With One Or With Eight?

I want to change.

Should I stop engaging in destructive behaviour abruptly, or should I gradually focus my effort on introducing positive behavior into my life? My eating habits are terrible, should I cut out all the sugary and fatty foods all at once - because ‘what’s the point of eating a vegetable with one hand, while holding a bottle of Coke in the other?’ - or should I slowly introduce broccoli and lettuce into my diet, increasing the health foods gradually. I want like to write a book. Should I stop everything that I am doing and devote every minute of the next year to the task, or should I focus on writing for ten minutes each day?

I would like to climb out of my spiritual darkness. I can put all my effort into stopping the negative behaviour, or, understand that, for the time being, I will not be able to stop sucumbing to my evil inclination, I should put my effort into introducing productive activities into my routine, and overtime all the positivity in my life will eradicate the negativity.

This question, explains the Rebbe, is the source of the Talmudic dispute about the amount of lights kindled on each night of Chanukah. The house of Shammay maintain that on the first night of Chanukah we light eight candles, and then decrease one candle each passing night. While the house of Hillel maintain that on the first night we light one candle, and then increases one candle per night, until the eighth night when all the candles are lit. As the Talmud explains:

Beis Shammai say: On the first day one lights eight and after that gradually reduce; but Beis Hillel say: On the first day one is lit and thereafter they are progressively increased. Ulla said: In the West [Israel] two Amoraim, Rabbi Yosi Bar Avin and Rabbi Yosi Bar Zevida, argue: One maintains: The reason of Beis Shammai is corresponding to the days still to come, and that of Beis Hillel is that it shall correspond to the days that are gone. But the other maintains: Beis Shammai's reason is that it shall correspond to the bulls of the Sukkos, whilst Beis Hillel's reason is that we rise in [matters of] sanctity but do not descend.

Let’s examine the second explanation: Shammay says we decrease corresponding to the bulls offered in the temple on Sukkot, and Hillel says we increase because, as a rule, we are meant to increase in holiness and not decrease. This requires additional explanation. How does Hillel explain why the Torah commands to decrease the amount of bulls offered each day of the holiday, does that not contradict his principle that we much increase in holiness? As for Shammai, does he not believe in the message of increasing holiness?

Shammai says that the first thing you must do is fight your evil. Completely. When you want to fight the evil you can’t take baby steps. You have to come out swinging. You must tell yourself things like “I will never touch alcohol again”. If you say “I’ll only have three drinks instead of four”, says Shammai, you will never win. Taking small steps in the right direction, argues Shammai, is like building a sand castle on a beach, it will be washed away by the first wave of the raging sea.

Therefore, on the first day of Chanukah you must kindle all your lights, as you need every ounce of energy to fight the evil. The good news is that tomorrow it will be a bit easier. You weekend the evil on the first night, so there is less of it on the second, hence all you need on the second night is seven lights, and eventually you will rid yourself of the darkness and you won't need any light to fight the darkness.

Hillel says: forget the evil.

Perhaps in temple times we had the spiritual strength to battle the darkness head on. In exile, bereft of the spiritual power of the holy temple and the bulls of the Holiday, we need a new strategy altogether.

We need to focus on positive action.

Don;t worry about the darkness, just take one small step in the right direction. Just light one small candle. No big deal. Anyone can do it. The key, however, is tomorrow you add a one more light. Small but consistent steps. Before you know it your Menorah will be full.      

Your Heart and Your Mind - Jacob and Esau

Your mind and heart are opposites.

Your mind breaks everything into small bite size pieces, while your heart sweeps everything in as one. 

Your heart, knows no details. If your heart is in love, it is in live completely. If it loves someone, then the totality of that person, with all his or her complexities, are all swept up in the love. In the moment of love there can be no annoying details. If someone tells you ‘I love all of you except for one small detail about you that annoys me’, then you know it is not their heart talking it’s their mind talking. for the heart is blind to detail. If her heart loves you then she sees no bad in you.   

Your mind, on the other hand, is analytical. It breaks an idea into small parts, it analyzes them, accepting some polishing others and throwing some out. When something exciting happens, your mind’s job is to cool you down. It knows that, indeed, the news is exciting, but it is smart enough to know that ‘the devil is in the details’. The mind gets paid to tell you things like: ‘sure you love the new job offer, but are you really willing to put up with the extra commute time?’, or ‘sure he makes you happy, but is he really right for you?’.

So the next time you are not sure if what you love is right for you, and you take a sheet of paper and list the pros and cons, what you are doing is applying the analytical mind to the passionate heart. This application does not come without a cost. You see, the reason the heart can get so much more excited then the mind is precisely because it does not look at details. For when you weigh every detail individually, somehow, the magic escapes. 

But following the passionate heart, is also not a great solution. Sure, the passion and drive are powerful forces that can propel you to great heights, but, like the saying goes, it’s like ‘the blind leading the blind’. Follow your hearts passion, without the mind’s approval, and you may end up in places you don’t want to be. For the heart is from the world of ‘Chaos’, intense passion bit no direction, and the mind is all about ‘Order’. And the holistic lifestyle is the one where the mind, cool and collected, shows the heart where to express it’s passion. In Kabbalistic terminology: only the world of order can elevate the world of chaos.

This, says Chasidic philosophy, explains all you need to know about Esau and Jacob.

Isaac loved Esau. Why? Because he saw the energy of chaos. For the Judaism to survive, argues Isaac, you need passion, commitment, and emotional strength. The intellectual may have the right ideas, but he also has no drive to fight to protect those ideas. You need an Esau to carry the safeguard and implement your message.

Rebecca disagrees. Esau has awesome potential. Indeed. But he needs Jacob as his compass. Give Esau the blessings and you risk him using them to further his base desires rather than the perpetuation of his grandfather's legacy. So she convinces a reluctant Jacob to steal the blessings designed for Esau. She understands, that we need Esau’s great quality. But Esau’s chaotic power needs direction.

It needs a Jacob.     

Sync Your Calendars - New version of old post.

Humans have always looked up to the sky for a clue into the mystery of the universe, and for an understanding of their place within it.

Some fell in love with the moon. Intrigued by her soft and gentle glow, comforted by her light illuminated the night sky. As they watched the waxing and waning of the moon, completing a cycle in just about thirty days, they realized that she offered a convenient and straightforward way to mark the passage of time.

As people became more sophisticated, inventing technology and developing agriculture, they began to realize the power of a solar calendar.  although the changing in the sun's position in the sky is harder to notice as compared with the changing shape of the moon, they  understood the power of the solar calendar to predict major economic events. From following the agricultural cycle to predicting the overflowing of the Nile, you need to look to the sun. Craving the sun’s power, strength, and brilliance, they began moving away from the lunar calendar and adopting the solar one.  

The first Commandment G-d commanded the Jewish people, just as he was about to liberate them from Egypt, and establish them as an independent free people, was the commandment to establish a Hebrew calendar. As slaves they did not control their own time, nor were they free to think about time on their own terms. Their time and their perspective on life was enslaved to the powerful Egyptians. To be truly free, they would have to learn to think about time, it's purpose and meaning, on their own terms.  

So which calendar should they choose?

Which would be their primary one? would they identify with the mighty, powerful, masculine, sun, or with the more subtle, reflective, feminine, beauty of the moon?

The essential feature of the Hebrew calendar, is that it synchronizes the lunar and solar cycle. It does so by establishing a leap year, adding a lunar month approximately every three years, closing the eleven day gap between the lunar and solar cycle.  

While not the first to do sync the calendars (ancient Egypt, for example, eventually moved to eliminate the discrepancies between the solar calendar, wit's primary one, and the lunar calendar, by introducing a leap year with a thirteenth month), the Hebrew calendar is the first to place the synchronization of the sun and the moon as it's central feature.

The way we think about time informs our attitude to the universe as a whole: Is there a purpose to creation? Is there meaning to life? Is there meaning to the time that is ticking by?  The Jew’s answer is that the purpose of everything is the unity of the sin and the moon, of giver and receiver, of G-d and the Jewish people.

The brilliant sun symbolizes the consistent, powerful and illuminating light of G-d. The moon shining in the dark sky represents the Jewish people, whose job it is to reflect the light of G-d into a dark world. The Jewish people, therefore, are subject to challenges imposed by the world, at times they shine in all their glory and at times their light is invisible.

The first commandment demonstrates the goal of all the following commandments, which is to synchronize the sun and the moon. Every Mitzvah we perform draws down Divine energy and connects the light of G-d with the Jew in this world, uniting them, forming one reality where “in the heaven above and on the earth below there is nothing beside him[1]”.

No surprise then, that the commandment to establish the calendar was one of just a few commandments related to both Moses and Aaron: “ The Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying[2]”. If our calendar synchronizes the sun and the moon that it's commandment should be given through our, metaphorical, sun and moon. Moses - the giver of the Torah is our sun. He shines with a radiant light shines from above, communicating Divine wisdom, with great passion and energy.  Aaron is our moon. He teaches us how to refine ourselves to the point that we can reflect the light of G-d. He teaches us how to get along with other people. He is passionate about people. He understands that peace may, in some cases, be more important then truth.

Both the word of G-d and the way the people absorb and reflect it are important to our mission. We need a Moses and an Aaron. A sun and a moon.

---

[1] Deuteronomy 4:39.

[2] Exodus 12:1. 

Tamar's Twins

The Torah is obviously fascinated with twins. Every time twins are born, we hear every detail of the birth; as if we are the grandparents who are desperate to hear about every step of the labor and delivery.  

When Tamar gave birth to her twins, the Torah gives us this detailed description:

While she was in labor, one [of the babies] stuck out his hand [from the womb]. The midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his hand to signify, "This one emerged first." [The baby then withdrew his hand.]

But as soon as he withdrew his hand, his brother emerged, and [his mother] said, "With what vigor have you pushed yourself ahead!" So [Judah] named him Peretz ["breaking through"].

Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his hand, emerged, and Judah named him Zerach ["shining"].

Why do we need to know that the one stretched out his hand, pulled it back, and the other burst ahead and emerged first? Why do we have to know that the midwife tied a crimson thread on his hand because she thought that he will be born first? What message is the Torah conveying?

The Two Paths

There are two paths we can walk on our journey on this planet.

We Can walk the bright and shiny path. We can strive to never succumb to evil temptation, and to always make the right choices.

Or we can take the more tricky path. We can follow our heart even when it directs us to places our mind cautions us to stay away from. Those of us taking this second path will make mistakes.

Like Tamar, we will stumble. Like Tamar we will lose our innocence. We will probably cause pain to ourselves and to the people who love us. We may even reach a place of total spiritual darkness, a place where we can no longer hear the whispering voice of our G-dly soul,  to direct us back to the path of life.

And then we burst forward.

We are not sure where we get the strength from. We are not sure if and how we will able to rebuild our shattered relationships, and we are not sure if we will have the strength of character to sustain us on the push forward and to escape old habits.

But we burst forward and push ahead. And do all it takes to make it back to where we need to be.

And then we discover, that taking the second path has it’s advantages.

While it is not the “firstborn” path, while that is not the path G-d wants us to choose, while at the outset we should have taken the first path, we nevertheless come out ahead in the game of life. For the journey through the raging sea of life forced us to dig deeper, to mine our soul for spiritual courage, and to discover treasures that most people never discover.

We discover within us the power to burst through any challenge, to overcome any obstacle, and to shatter any roadblock. We discover that our commitment to the people and ideas we hold dear, is bulletproof. As the strength needed to burst forward and get us back on the right path is is now channeled to sustain and nurture our commitments.  

We recognize that “one [of the babies] stuck out his hand [from the womb]. The midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his hand to signify, "This one emerged first.". We recognize that our midwife - The Torah and G-d - tells us us to take the first path. The path that has the shiny crimson string on it. It’s the path that will get you the name Zerach which means to shine. It’s the path that the Torah is point toward.

And yet, if we fail to take the preferred path. If we find ourselves in the dark, we must now that we can be a Peretz - the one who bursts forward. The Torah is telling us that ultimately Peretz is the one who achieves greatness, and becomes the ancestor of King David and the future Moshiach.  

For the perfection of the world will be achieved, not by those who never experienced pain, nut by those whose pain was transformed into fuel. Stunning themselves and the people around them who cry out in amazement: “"With what vigor have you pushed yourself ahead!"”

Strive to stretch out your hand and reach for the crimson path of Zerach, but if you fail, burst forward like Peretz. You will be the first born. You will achieve more than anyone would dream is possible

(Based on Leku"s Vayeshev Vol. 30, Sicha 2).