The shelamos to wholeness and completion for us all, may the light rise above all of it and see Hashem's Hand in everything.

Today we will address a situation and conceptually and then next week practically.

There is tremendous doing during the week.  As the days move forward we separate from the previous Shabbos, Sunday through Tuesday bring out the past Shabbos and then Wed Thursday and Fri prepare for the next.  The days of the week are about the shabbosims. 

The spirit of urgency hits on Thursday night.  We have only 24 hours to get all the preparations done, cooking, laundry, guests.  There is hurriedness. 

What can we learn from this hurriedness erev Shabbos

How can we relate to it, running madly and trouncing others and being destructive in the process?  Are we to run crazed?  Is that getting ready for Shabbos?  Is there a positive way to relate to it? 

After we light candles all will be complete and good.  

Let's talk about the element of wind, ruach, to connect to inner will.  How to use the element of wind in the context of erev Shabbos to lift up one's hurriedness so that hurriedness takes on a whole different dimension on getting ready for Shabbos.

There are two ways to be rushing.  Rushing means to rush aimlessly, moving quick fast and frenzied.  Or moving with a goal, where are we going and what do we need to do to get there.

When we rush erev Shabbos we can rush the rushing itself, doing all we need to do to get ready for Shabbos. There is a special thing erev Shabbos. what would it mean to rush purposefully, directively with an ultimate inner goal. If we understand the element of wind on this topic, we can get exhiliration from the hurriedness but stay ahead of it.

What does that look like.

We are talking about wind ruach in the context of ratzon, will.

The wind is movement. Movement is the ability to go beyond stagnation and work towards something.  the wind can go in six diretions forward, back, right left up and down and these six directions of movement are how we meander through this world. Are we moving with purpose or aimlessly.  To know which at a soul level, look at the inner koach of will, ratzon.

Why ratzon?  Why not pleasure or emunah?

The Maharal in Pirke Avos says ratzon first two letters are ratz, to run.  Inner will , an inner yearning for something, and that inner yearning createes movement, and that movement creates inner purpose with direction.  And it is also connected to aretz, which also has to run.

This whole world is driven by movement.  it means the act of moving.  Ascent is about movement.  What are we creating.  There is a force around ruach to direct our movement in the six directions  What does movement have to do with our existence and especially erev Shabbos.

What the Maharal is telling us that ratzon, with ratz in it, the way we will our selves to be is what we move towards.  we move in the direection of that which we want. the very reality of ratzon shows the element of ruach.  if we harness our ratzon we understand why we do it. what is the underpinning, the underlying motivation, the reason passion and yearning behind it.  and that comes to a head erev Shabbos.  it is time for preparing itself.

In the hashkafa class we had in the beginning, the whole 6 days of the week we exist to transcend ourselves in a limited way and work to santify ourselves for Hashem to bring out His Glory.   In our own lives, the movements that I have are very significant and I have to reflect on that movement and we look at our inner ratzon for the basis of ratz. 

Let's look at it on three levels.  Who are we  

What do we distance from , what do we work towards.  What is driving us is avoidance of pain.  Simple pains or deeper pains of anxiety or worry, sadness, depression, burdensomeness and on the heaviest level existentially we have our sense of aloneness and separateness in creation.  In the ratz, we quell those pains and fears and hurts, to calm this existential aloneness, the pain and heartache we have of feeling alone, unfulfilled and empty. that can actually fix up erev Shabbos!  That is one level of pain that drives us on some level.

how are you?  I can't complain.  but in that language, we are avoiding the pain, the troubles.  that is what someone might say.

Upgrade is the pursuit of pleasure.  Pleasure is a fundamental drive for motivation.  the physical pleasures, the temporary and fleeting ones, the pleasure of truth, the pleasure of feeling loved and then loved by Hashem. that level is really seen as how we relate to creation and how everything works together. i am going after things, qualities, experiences that make me more whole, more complete and integrated in my being.  it is drawing in things within me, things to refine myself, to make myself more complete. this is a deeper drive of ratzon.  

The Highest Level of pure Taanug is to look at the Wholeness of Ourselves

to reclaim what is outside of me and bring them into me.  we spoke about the taanug of the interconnectedness of the world.  our deepest yearning is to unify creation in a way that we want to see the divine wholeness of everything and our place in it.  that is ultimate taanug, it relates back to ratzon, the core drive of ruach with movement, because it is about knowing that is motivating it to move.  

Is it to get away from pain, is to pursue pleasure. Healing ourselves and making ourselve whole is about fixing ourselves and building it back to us.  Darke shalom is about connecting to Hashem, the Source of life itself.  

Reb Yitzchok Isaac Hubb, in a commentary on Eitz Chaim, says that Ratzon is gematria 346.  what else has that gematria?  Makor / Source.  Give me a source of something, what is a bonafide source ties back to the Torah.  when we move from the realm of pain to go to a place where we see how everything connects to everything, that is the origin of our being seeking the origin of Hashem. Ratzon drives. Now tie in pleasure.  

Ratzon is connected to pleasure because wind is a force of movement expressed through water or upward in fire.  How do we mix these together to make ourselves more holy and refined.

We don't just have the four primary elements, they feed off each other.  

Ratzon, movement is the basis for all movement in six directions and three dimensions and we want to run purposefully and truthfully with high goals.  be as mindful and as aware so that this three tiers - what pain do we avoid, what are we running towards to reclaim parts of ourselves and to draw in.  This is the deeper ratzon to be more whole, to be more.  And ratzon itself is connected to taanug, is it real or counterfeit.  the marahal is telling us that we are running to elokus but to the left is nothing, non existence.  why would we want to do that.  that is why it is important to understand the elements, the movements that are linked to pleasure that motivates us and connects and unifies us.  that is what drives us at the deepest levels that animates all the directions we go.  all the elements have to be linked up together. 

How does this Relate to Erev Shabbos?

We are doing all week and then 24 hours before the rush begins. That creates a sense of hurriedness, urgency.  that urgency, if we channel it to the neshama, the nefesh elokis, and we activate the element of ruach in it and we use the power of our inner movement to direct ourselves towards something purposeful, to get to a place where we stop all forms of becoming to get to a state of inner divinity relative to what we created during the week. that ability to release ourselves from all creative activity is the body's way of feeling that hurriedness and with mindfulness, then hurriedness is actually getting the body to conform to the inner will of the soul. we can feel the inner movement of the self and we can feel the inner source and say Hashem You know why we are in this world.  we are getting ready for Shabbos.  we are rushing to build our finite existence and then we release ourselves from the limitations of the physical world into the infinite dimension of shabbos.  so paradoxically the rushing, the inner will to become more refined, more spiritually integrated, then we use our mind to be more divine.  come lighting candles we go from a state of limited finite existence to divine infinite existence.  that moment we mekabel shabbos and we feel this ultimate inner peace, inner rest, inner menucha because the juxtaposition of hurrying with purpose and intent and then stopping and directing it back to Hashem.  that allows the hurriedness to turn into inner tranquility.  the ruach, wind with fire water and earth, then creates the tranquility.  May the shabbos be completeness and restful that we are in Hashem's realm.  we are not hurrying any more.  we hurried with purpose and then we feel the ultimate release and that inner peace and tranquility comes. the paradox is the profundity of all that movement allows us to feel the stillness, we have arrived, there is no where else to go, we are nestled in Hashem's reality.  all there is to do is have pure simple existence within His divine reality.  it is full holy and it is relative to how much we move during the week, relative to the wind. then we pull away.  lighting candles is when we leave our finite existence and enter the infinite realm.  we are in this world for a limited period of time, using the rushing to go to total stillness.  that is preparing us for the next world. we are prepared to confront our own mortality through the rushing and calmness and stillness.

Hashem gives us an Ability to Incorporate the Hurriedness as Our Identity

Hashem gives us an ability to incorporate the hurriedness, the quick fast movement as our identity.  the rushing is purposeful and focused and deliberate and we are getting ready to flip it at the end, and have tranquility.

If we begin to look at the rushing of erev shabbos as the wind within our nefesh and if we subjugate our ego, our rushing our food, if we diminish the powe rof the anochius, then the rushing is rushing not for myself or my own honor - we are afraid of our own annihilation and abandonment, everything has to be about how I am truly lovable - because in the end that is nega.  we want instead to invest in our own inner elokus, which is what movement and purpose during the week is.  we are not rushing for ourselves bur rather to convert our human existence to our own portion of infinity.  when we light, when we mekabel and feel that inner peace , menucha of the soul and body, and it is from the hurriedness.  it is the paradox to rush towards with purpose and not to avoid the pain of feeling I don't matter or that I am not cared for.  we are trying to convert our own anochius into a divine reality and reinvesting it into a higher expression of elokus with hurriedness and focus and mindfulness and when it is built during the week and flipped, we elevate powerful wind within us, the koach of will ratzon to be complete and complete others and to turn ourselves over to Hashem.  My very existence is being absorbed back into You. paradoxically the lack is what we are working for the whole week. 

This is how we elevate the hurriedness to tranquity

as nonbecoming as a state to be with Hashem's divinity.  Shabbos is the ultimate vacation.  we are returning back to the Source itself and that is our deepest week.

Class 8 – Ratzon - Taanug - Emuna

Jan 6 / 9 Teves

REVIEW - Using the strength of the hurrying we do erev Shabbos to fix the element of wind in us by using it for a higher purpose

A quick review.  We spoke about alacrity and moving quickly erev Shabbos as the basis for preparing ourselves to get ready for Shabbos.  we said to use the koach of hurriedness to move quickly to fix the element of ruach in the nefesh. we use wind to move for a higher purpose and we tied it into ratzon as the basis for movement.

Practical ways to use wind – will for  a higher purpose

Now let's look at it practically. how do we work that so that we can use it erev Shabbos and through the week.

Pirke Avos says: 2nd perek 4th mishna: You should make His Will your will, that He should make your will HIs Will.  You should nullify your ratzon for the sake of His ratzon.  Why? In order that you should nullify other's ratzon to yours.

Make His Will Ours – Why?

Let's get practical.  The first question is why do we make His Ratzon like our ratzon.  Why not start with our will and make it His?  The Mishnah says to start with His and make it like ours so that it will come that He will make His like ours.

When  we do something not for the sake of Hashem but for self-interest, it is not so simple that it is lo lishma, because we may eventually come to doing it lishma, altruistically.  Rabbi Dessler says that doing something lo lishma so that eventually we come to do it lishma  only works if at the outset, before we start climbing the lishma ladder, that we focus on the end goal – which means that our will is for lishma, and that is our end point.  Then our self-orientation that is involved naturally can come purer, closer to the lishma.  The process is leaving the lo lishma to get to the lishma.  But it only works if our end goal  is lishma.  The process is leaving lo lishma to get to lishma - the end goal is His ratzon first, as the driving force the end point, and that is the goal, to get to the top of the ladder.

Why start with Hashem's will first and make His like ours?  If we are not driven by His Ratzon as the core basis of the Torah and mitzvahs and His operating system in the world,, it does not matter how much we work on ourselves. we cannot propel higher.  It only works to get to a more pure form if His directive is the driving force, no matter where we are holding.

The Mishnah is telling us to make His Will ours, to seek lishma before we start, in order that we will make our ratzon His Ratzon.  The lo lishma inherent in our will can then evolve into His Will.

Ratzon is the very source of one's being and yes we have to use our will as the basis to drive us during the week to get to Shabbos. we go lo lishma into lishma, using self-serving steps, slowly bypassing ego but that only works if we are seeking kiddush Hashem, that we are truly wanting His Will.  If we are after our ratzon, cloaking and disguising it as His, it stays lo lishma.

Moving ourselves from depending on nature to living as an emanation of Hashem

If we give up our ratzon to Hashem by making Him the Source of everything and defining ourselves in relation to Him, then we can define ourselves back in relation to Him. 

We start with His ratzon first. practically, we start with our less altruistic, our self-serving state, and slowly see it, understand it, identify the pure parts, see more of a mixture in both, and as we sift and work through it, increasing degrees and proportion of altruistic versus self-oriented.  This works if we put His Will as the driving force even before we begin the work.

The pleasure of experiencing divine Oneness - taanug

The second example is based on the ten sefirot, the ten elements of creation, the highest is keter, crown, the realm of super-consciousness of Hashem's presence in creation.  In keter there are three unknowable heads, but in simple terms these are the three levels of super divine consciousness, emunah, taanug and ratzon, faith, pleasure - divine delight, and will.

Will is an aspect of the super-consciousness that drives our yearnings and innermost will, the basis for our passions, our drives, including when we are not as passionate or motivated or if we have a mixture of passion or motivation. the emanation of that is in ratzon and comes from the highest sefira of keter.

Based on the first example, we use inner refinement to refine the will throughout the degrees of ego-centricity and increase the degrees of altruism and selfless activity.  the bigger question is can we stay within will itself?

no.

The approach is that each level of the three unknowable heads is based on the one above. so will is based on pleasure.  ratzon is wind, and taanug is water.  So if we want to increase the passion of will, one way is to do it within itself as in pirke avos, and the second is to go to pleasure.  The body's pleasure is ego based and the soul's pleasure is experiencing divine oneness.

if a person would go to the depths of why pleasure is so important, that it is the vitality energizing the force of creation and we renew the quality of pleasure during the week and on shabbos, then that itself creates a reservoir for new ratzon to fall into. Taanug spills down into the sefira.  If we want to grow in inner ratzon, do a deeper examination of self, where are we holding in pleasure, from physical to divine pleasure.  “Hashem I want to see every part of creation as an expression of You, I want to see not only Your Hand in my life but that every creation IS an expression of You and interconnects and my soul yearns to see that it is really all one and that divine unity is the depth of what pleasure is.  The more I am committed to pleasure I can pass it back into my ratzon, and it has a higher level of lishma and that flushes out impurities of lo lishma

It is not just purifying within.  we can draw taanug.

Emunah -Hashem is the only Being that exists and having emunah renews our strength

The third one is emunah

Emunah is Hashem is all present, all good, for a higher good. but when you go to the root of your inner soulful capacity, that is the highest part of keter.  That means emunah has to do with Hashem's reality is so great we cannot understand it because it is so high and refined we cannot go there and exist. The highest level of His will is not contained or confined in any way.  So in our earthly terms, we work on emunah but our highest soul that wants to nullify our existence to Hashem, that I don’t know- He does know, and when I go to a place in my soul above taanug and I renew it and dedicate and go to self-nullification regarding existence being Hashem as the only thing that is real, we renew our koach. 

Then we can emanate that renewed strength into our taanug, our core desire for pleasure, and our yearning to see how it all connects together.

Hashem is true existence and that will renew desire for pleasure, and once we strengthen pleasure, the innermost drive, the true soul pleasure, to see everything as Hashem - and I can only do that by experiencing His true existence of which I am an essential part - then that taanug goes back into ratzon.

The ratzon is renewed -the reservoir, of what we truly want, more inner purity, elokus, is all about negation of self.  Emunah is the highest level of self-abnegation because it means the deepest inner commitment for Hashem's true existence and not to the “ me”. 

Taanug brings it down a little to pleasure, the deepest pleasure seeing how everything joins together.

And when it comes to ratzon, that is the basis for generating movement. The highest part of my soul is seeking a purer expression of Gdliness and that goes into all our activities in this world. 

Summary of renewal

The three unknowable heads, ratzon, taanug and emunah, going up and then down into our existence, is renewal. 

Pirke avos is the same thing from a mussadik perspective. 

Nullfy yourself for His Will. make the focal point all about Hashem, that He is all of existence, absolutely everything, in all of creation there is nothing where He is not everything.

When we can get more real with that, and our will conforms to His, His will can now be used to express to other people.  This is the basis for how a person can begin to increase, deepen and nullify human existence and connect to nefesh elokis, connect to Hashem so His will can come through ours.

that is the basis for erev Shabbos, and for Shabbos - that all there is in the world is Hashem.  I have arrived with my new portion. 

The end point is that He is everythingness and I am experiencing a part of myself in His everythingness.  that is the koach of ratzon.

Practical activities during the week - make Hashem the source of all creation and nullifying that it is about me

Let's say you start off with davening.  Yehi ratzon milfonecha...Reb Shimon Schwab says may it be Your will Hashem.  translate the words literally and we see May this will be from before You, meaning my will, my tefilla.  it reflects in the tense to do to one's self.  it is not just that I am making my request, advocating, that I have my own personal relationship.  Hashem is saying your innermost being is tied to your ratzon and you are offering your ratzon in the amida and that new bracha will come down and actualize into you.  Tate, where I am holding today and I now begin to connect to who I am and that I want to relate to You, what part of my ego do I want to suspend to give it up  like an animal sacrifice.  I am putting my ego on the offer and offering it to you. Here is my will may it ascend upwards, through four worlds, to the world of emanation and then drawn down after the 18 bracheas of praise, request  and thanks and having it come back to us.  that is the process of refining our inner will, we put it to Him. I want to make His will mine, so it is all about Hashem.  It is not just about me or tate may I?  I am trying to make Hashem the source of all creation and nullifying that it is about me. It is about making His existence the only real and true existence today as I see it.  In order to do that, that is the first mechalich, make it all about Him.  access my ratzon and make it about that.

Each section in davening is a level of refining our own individual orientation moving out ego through the four levels and then we have more refined ratzon, not just making requests.  each one of the capacities is sourced in You, the source of all lfe.  as we offer up each of those, it is saying I don't have self interest, I know YOu will give me everything I need.  the source is rooted only in You because  You are the only true existence.  Then draw that consciousness down and bring it into this world as a more refined person, ego is upgraded, ratzon is the driving force and that  is expressed more through mine.

In addition, I want to see what I am driven by.  soul pleasure.  and that is not even mine, it comes from keter, taanug of seeing Hashems everything of which I am a part of and the interconnectedness of which I am a part.  The deepest desire to go into the world and see how it relates, with all the various activities and give that back to You, that is the pleasure i want today. I want to strengthen emunah.  I dont need to know, I just need to pay attention and folow your lead and then I can have the deepest pleasure to give it back to You and that goes into my ratzon so that my ratzon will be more refined with G-dliness with less self-orientation , may my tefillos be higher so I can express your will.

In ashrei we say poseach es yodecha, open your hands and satisfy the will of every living thing.  we can also read it may we open up the names of yud k vav k, adnus, and those names come together, 91.  Yud of ykvk, the two yuds meld rachamim together to emanate everything according to the strength of will into the world.  “Hashem emanate more will into me so the extent to which I can see Your will is the basis for everything, please emanate pure will into me so that I can express that through me.”  We are davening for purified will, more divine oriented will, in line with ein od milvado.  That is a tremendous way to say poseah es odecha.

Rochel's name is in the last letter of each word

Rochel's name is in the last letter of each word - the revealed shechina in us. The higher will of Hashem's ratzon should emanate to us and His will should come into the world through us.  that is another entry point. 

Thirdly, any time we are doing something, don't just get caught up with the results.  Focus on your heartset, focus on your speech, focus on your mindset and if you go a little higher, what is driving me, what is my motivation, what is my compassion? is it fear based, love based?  Find inner consciousness for ratzon and if you can grab hold of it.

Rabbi Pliskin  says may it be your will that...may it be my will that it is an expression of Your will.  Pick a mitzvah and express your soulful ratzon before you start. Hashem may it be your will that I perform this mitzvah with Your will and that expressed intentionality before you do something sharpens your innermost desire or yearning for why or how you do something.  you consciously mindfully express that inner yearning for that, you are aligning yur will to His and that brings more purity for us. 

Expressed intentionality from our inner ratzon, and then taanug and emunah is another way.

10th of Teves  Who do we want to be

The 10th of teves, the first of the three fasts that express the beginning of the breakdown of the bais hamikdosh. the Chosom Sofer tells us that there is a din, a judicial system that begins and extends through tisha bav whether this year it will be decreed it will be rebuilt.  why does the decree start 10 teves?  Because of ratzon.  The siege means cutting off from inner vitality.  cutting off from food and water does not mean you are cutting off from the world, you are cutting off from the source, they dont have access.  It is appropriate to start today because our will is who we want to be. 

Each one of us start the judicial process of our innermost ratzon and where we want to be. How much do we want the shehina in this world. 

We can use any of the models today to go into this for the next 24 hours and make His will ours so we can go from my own self orientation to lishma and work on purifying it.

If you need to dig a little higher, how seriously do I take my pleasure, not just for me, I want others to have the greatest pleasure of knowing Him, seeing the ultimate of HIs creation , we are one unified people, and to unify His Creation and I want to up the level of taanug by going to emunah and drawing it back down to taanug and ratzon.  my ratzon should be refined, more pure and expanded to express kavod shomayim.

it should be a meaningful fast.  for a purpose.  Hashem will scan the innermost ratzon of klal yisrael and we want to offer our ratzon to Him and we want to sweat so we can create more of an awakening.  We want the building.  Through taanug and emunah I want to refine the lo lishma.  we are focusing on You. It is only about You and Your existence. 

We want our lives to express Hashem’s glory in this world

We don't just want a great life, we want a life that expresses Your glory in this world  what we want in some regards is to go deeper into ratzon and taanug and examine ourselves more honestly and bring up the ego to You and in davening poseach es yodecha, doing mitzvahs expressing our intentionality.  we want to go to our inner source and give up ourselves to you.  there is not really an us, we dont have independent existence, we want your ultimate truth, and we know the bais hamikdosh is being built and the judicial process is starting and we do not want korbon.  No more suffering. we want the greatest joy, from the binyan. 

May we be zocheh to do internal fasting and shteiging so that our ratzon can be part of the building and see and experience and know tangibly that the temple will be built this year.  let's not make this a pipe dream.

 Let’s make this the real geula is coming and we need it now.

CLASS 9 - Healthy Nothingness to H-shem's Everythingness

We are going through an indepth inner exploration not just from our successes but inwardly from our inner essence, our spiritual makeup, from the four elements of wind water fire and earth.  that becomes the basis for our character traits that transforms our human expression into divine elements

We looked at fire for the basis for one’s higher divine wisdom, the character trait is humility or the negative form is arrogance.  To work arrogance into humility we have to work on being mekabel.  We spoke about mekablel shabbos. The time period going into Shabbos is how we let go of the self in preparation to receive the pure potential..

WIND

Wind, we used alacrity, hurriedness, and the reality of movement as the basis  for fixing that part of our ruach, as speech and other facets of wind.

WATER

Water, in the context of taanug, the importance of physical versus spiritual pleasure , that which separates versus that which unites.

EARTH / AFAR

And afar, earth, afar going into the Shabbos,the shamor part of shabbos  is to guard it.  To cease doing melacha.  The separation of doing melacha is the shamor part, is the part we detach from the spiritual harbor and go into the transcendent realm of zachor.

There is an opportunity to curtail or cease the Melachos in the context of kabbalos Shabbos.  What is the real depth of the challenge.  We spoke about alacrity, but there is something even more profound and grounded in a practical way.

FIRE

If we go to fire, and we ask what is the core character trait, humility versus arrogance.  In the mind’s eye, do we see ourselves as a physical earthly being or do we see ourselves fundamentally as a divine being. Then it migrates down to wind water and all the way down to earth.

That core conflict between self orientation versus divine essence reflecting Hashem is going to manifest itself  at the level of earth

How does it come out? 

In all human relationships we want more than anything is that I truly matter to others and to be truly cared for. 

This is an expression of value and love.  There are profound wisdoms there.  Very simple earthly terms.  When you strip all down, all the craziness and the fears down, we want to be valued or loved. But if it goes to our human orientation, then value and love are an expression of something external to us, an action, an accomplishment, something external that defines our value. and based on our perceived value from without, we think we should be loved..  Something that is external that we say defines our value. 

Based on our perceived value from without, we think we should be loved based on our successes.

On the elokus side, if we break it down from wind water fire to earth, we still want value and love but it is intrinsic to my very being, to my inner elokus, my own elokus is Hashem’s divine presence rooted in my own personal divine essence. And the value in me is rooted back to Hashem.  It is not tied to anything external.

This core conflict of value being defined inwardly or outwardly is the earthly expression of the conflict into Shabbos. 

When we know candlelighting is a certain time, and there is hurriedness, we can’t do anymore then, we can't accomplish.  So what is wrong with that/  if I don’t do then I am not something which means I am a nothing and won’t be cared for. Doing something, getting the desired outcome, the final expression of something being manifest in this world is bound to the ego if we say in the elements. Our ego is on the line. So when Hashem says no more melacha, stop.  Uh oh if I can’t accomplish I can’t acquire and then I am not.  That is the depth of the challenge of earth and my perceived sense of somethingness is that I am a nothing.  And I don’t have value and love and guess I don’t really matter.  If I can’t do anything creatively, what am I worth, and  what am I?

After six days, stop. Enough of your own hyuman existence. 

And if wind water fire and earth that we do externally are the basis for our feeling loved and value, then the cessation of Melachos are a mini-death.And shabbos might feel painful -  Hashem is everything and I am nothing. But when we bring fire through wind into water and into earth and manifest in this world in a tangible way, we stop melacha to say we are partnering in our toiling in our divine service, but in the end,  I am not valued or loved based on what is external to me, that only manifests what is inside..  My real true divine identity can only be liberated and redeemed when it is not bound up with Melachos.

Once we get to the point when we accomplish this, when we light, it is a mini redemption because my internal essence is not bound up and cannot be liberated by the body, with that higher elokus we get on Shabbos.  Hashem is hiding less on Shabbos and the greater revelation is I can come to my divine ideinty and I can experience my core identity being bound up with Him, with His everythingness. I am nothing independent of Him.  That is the understanding of afer, earth.  Earth is about solid, stable, but what is stability tied to?  If it is tied to externality, then we get to the counterfeit sense of nothingness. ..if it is tied to something external then the 39 melachos are counterfeit sense of nothingness.  When we go to anava, humility on the level of fire all the way down to earth, we experience positive nothingness that creates a healthy space in which Hashem can now reveal Himself proportionally in you in that space of nothingness relative to during the week. we need healthy nothingness to experience Hashem's everythingness.

In that we are truly something and that is where we find our core sense of value and love caught up in Hashem. That is our elokus brought down to afar. That is afar brought to earth. I am not caught up in self.  That is the whole point of the melacha. create an elokus thing and subjugate the limited  humanness. When we cease and desist the melacha from al lthe generals to specific, I am not independent existence, I am not truly autonomous, that allows Hashem’s everything to permeate us and our true somethingness can shine, as an expression of being bound up with Hashem’s realty.  That is internalizing ein od.  And that is what Shabbos is. That is what stopping the Melachos are.  That is what we are doing, stopping creating.

What is the challenge? 

To challenge our false sense of self, that I am something to be reckoned with.

We have to look deeply within. Where do we get our value  In that place of groundedness, solid, in what we accomplish, go back  to that innermost value to feel loved and is it coming from my actions.  What are the net results, what truly is coming out.  If I am defining myself, I am exposing a false sense of self. this way that is untrue.  Our toiling, every week we are detaching from the physical reality of things, that is the reality of afar, and if we cannot let go, that is the overexaggerated sense of self, we think we are independence.  That is the lethalness of afar .  When humility and arrogance in fire comes into the level of earth in this way, that creates a sense of laziness, sadness, nervousness, and worry.  All of that is expressed at the level of afar, it is worri-ness of the soul. It is nervousness of the soul. 

That is the element of afar having perpetual worry, wanting ego expression. 

If I can’t do it, then it can’t be done, then what is the point of me, I don't matter anyway or all the points of anochius,why bother trying.  When we go into Shabbos and our whole identity is based on doing, Hashem demands we let go of ego every week,  willfully so that we don’t define ourselves this way but only as an expression of who we truly are. Every week we come back to who we truly are. When we feel we are not bound up by anything on the outside but I can feel and reveal  the inner elokus in what I do, then I am serving Him and I don’t have to be sad about things. I don’t have to lack compassion or feel complacent or stagnant.  It is all Hashem.  I do my part. 

RABA is an acronym

Ratzon, what we want and where we want to go to

Beis, behira, will

Hishtadlus, our effort

That is in our sphere of influence.

We don't own it, we possess it.  We have an ability to choose. Our effort, that is tied to existing, energy and movement is all a sense of Him.

We access inner greatness that is already there, hidden within us, bringing it to the surface every week.  When we stop melacha, and we let go of the end point, the outcome, outward things that are stable because there is really only Hashem.  Remember, zachor, through kiddush and davening, He is the Creator. The First, the conductor of every part of creation, soul time and space.  He is in everything  we are testifying to His Everything-ness through our nothingness.  We testify to His Everything-ness by our nothingness.

We give up our independence through our toiling during the week in positive melachos and we create a vacuum to draw in His everything ness and it is there we feel that we are truly something as an extension of Him, a manifestation of Hashem.  It is there we feel we are truly something as a manifestation of His Will.

Here is a story

Rabbi was young and found a gold rock and thought that he had found real gold, thinking of all the candy he could buy.  His mom asked what is in the bag and he told her it is gold and she said it is not gold.  They did not agree.  The next day his uncle who is a gemologist came in and he told Rabbi it is not gold.  He felt so crushed on the inside, like he had this wealth and how could something that looks so real turn out to be not real, counterfeit.  If this is fake, what else is fake?

The ego, the human existence, is non-real.  We swear by it and it feels so real in our experiences in every way and it is not reality.  That is the positive sense of nothingness. We transcend the ego on Shabbos by ceasing the melacha.  We really are nothing.  Are we a true nothing or a false nothing that leaves us with non-existence?  A true sense of nothing is systematically subjugating human existence opening a place to allow the divine and then we can experience His everytingness and that is how we become truly something.

The ego is counterfeit.

Hashem says every week, here is a positive way to let go of ego from counterfeit nothingness to true nothingness.  Hashem directs all the results.  Hashem is not just in fire and wind and water, I am in earth too. 

It is all divine cloaked in the natural, and so are you.  Divineness is our elokus cloaked in the human natural existence and we work on getting to a healthier positive nothingness. Then we feel the all encompassing presence of Hashem in our life.  Then we feel it intrinsically tied to our own elements, to our fire, to movement, into core desires in water, into action and toiling and actions and results and let go of frustrations of controlling the way I want. Otherwise we just give up or get sad. that is unrectified fire that convinces us we are nothing  We have to get it from higher level of consciousness and into the ground level of outcome and results and let go of ego and control and power the way we want. If my anger and frustration get inflamed, that is all afar based.  If we do this, we think we don’t matter, get sad and laziness.  We convince ourselves we are nothing in a false way.  We are nothing in a true way that we have intrinsic value and love in relation to Him. That is what we go through every week for Shabbos.

We become refined

The outcomes we have is truly inner ratzon connected to Him, how much is reflected, and wise choices on a moment to moment basis.  We become refined, that is the power Hashem has gifted us.  On Shabbos we give it back , we have no ownership, we never did, we give it back and connect to our immortal existence, the immortality of the next world that we taste on Shabbos, and that depends on how we cocreate during the week. Then we feel Hashem’s presence in our lives.  The outcome is gifted from Hashem, that in that smallness is where we feel Hashem.  That is reconciliation of afar. The positive midda of afar is a constant state of joy.  As long as I know I am connected through the elements back to Hashem, my identity is not independent in any way but completely bound to Him, then no matter how close or distant,  I am always connected and that is  a constant joy.  When I get very earth based and rigid and controlling, then my ego is weighty , it is all on me, and the burden of life feels crushing.  I can’t I won’t or I am not able to.

May we merit to continue living six days a week giving up human existence so that we have true divine existence  and on Shabbos to uncover the hidden treasures within and know Hashem in the greatest way and bring the elements as yud k vav k, integrated parts of our divine self, for us to reflect Him into this world. This is why we exist.  This is our avoda let’s get to it.

CLASS 10 - 23 Teves

The practical side of afar as it relates to going into Shabbos. This will give us the framework for looking into earth water wind and fire as the core inner constitution of our soul, as Reb Chaim Vital tells us, and we will use this framework and then go into each melacho positively as we create ourselves during the week.

• Fire is strengthening our inner will to be a recipient, minimizes our gaiva.

• Wind is the ability to move rapidly erev Shabbos, and the hurriedness is to move with purpose and focus and intensity.  We are taking the direction of the wind and channeling the fire for Shabbos

• Water is taanug, spiritual delight. The ultimate pleasure the soul has to experience different aspects of the world to interconnect and fold into each other, so see and experience Hashem’s oneness in the world and in my life

• Earth is the physical manifestation of an end process, the outcome, the results, the external realization and actualization. It brings a core stability and security and a deeper rootedness in Hashem.

When we cease and halt by candlelighting of actions, we get out of an outcome oriented way of life to go to that ultimate state of submission where it is not us, He is the playing field and basis for everything to come out. When we stop the melacho we detach from the external expression. The world does not need us for it.  It is all Hashem.  That feeling of nothingness, sadness, laziness, worry and the like.  In the soul, it produces rootedness in Hashem.  Nothing has any independent separate existence.  Everything has length and height, but we stop melacho but we are elevating the koach of the earth and our being is nothing of itself and directed back to Hashem’s everything, His presence in creating and sustaining and bringing Him to fruition.  That is how we produce real simcha.  We are rooted in Hashem and we are nothing in ourselves.

Let’s bring it out in a few applications as we go into Shabbos.

1.     If that is the case, what is the point of it all for us, a lower world, revealing Him.  Do we matter, do we have purpose?  We clearly do. We have the koach of free will and redirect them back to Hashem. We are reformatting our internal identity.  We are unmasking His Presence in the world. He reveals hImself on Shabbos to the extent each of us individually and collectively work on it during the week.  We can come to see it is all Hashem.  Our contribution is reish beis hai, inner will, free will and hishtadlus.  As opposed to orienting toward outcome for defining ourselves and our worth, we internalize that we are living to journey along a path He is guiding us.  We have to be inwardly collected to our ratzon, how to keep it sharpened, trying to refine it. That is what directs us during the day.  We have to get on with what we do, we have to use behira, the battle of the yetzers, the side of truth. We are not living in a self oriented way.  That has to be driven by will and then goes into action.  Hashem produces results and is the end game.  We are really saying it is all Hashem in a potential way, and we are nothing in effect.  Our importance is how we manage the process, what we want, and how we superimpose it into our day and apply it to our efforts. He is the one endowing everything. The pure potential of who I am and what I want, my greatness is my soul and spiritual path and I want to reveal them through me as sourced in Him.  I want Your greatness revealed in all the world including this world.  That is the spiritual imperative.  Within anochius, it is His greatness manifest through me.  It is our strengths and capacities gifted to us. It is His greatness we can manifest for our greatness.

2.     What if I am not such a growth oriented person?  Everyone seeks value and love, that I matter and am loved. The soul wants to feel people care about us, that we have value and love. If in the end the outcome and results create external things, we feel empty and hungering for something more.  We can just bring it all the way down to earth. The outcome is the manifesting of Hashem’s reality in this world through me but does not define my value or worth or my inner love. That is rooted in my soul and back to Him.  When we stop the melacho we realize how exclusive we are with Him, rooted in Him and bound with Him in a way we are not reliant on the outside world in any way.  We do not need any part of the physical world to see this.   This is lifelong work.  It is a commitment to seeing my value and love is less defined by external things and more defined by internal things. Then we are not justifying our existence.  As it manifests we have to work and toil.  we are going to see on the raba level to manifest Hashem in this world. Look at our inner woundedness to upgrade ego into divine realm, and to use Shabbos for our intrinsic value.  As we stop acts of creation, we say we are giving our existence back to You, and all that I toiled is for You, I want to reveal something, as if I am leaving this world.  We are not doing acts of creation and it is there we can feel the depths of our soul andinner spirit.  That is what we want to create, this inner identity.  We are mekabeling this divine spirit.

3.     We spoke about the four elements with earth the end point, the result of a process.  The end goal is to cross the finish line. Over time we see the interconnectedness is that we have all four elements in each, in our inner identity.  We want the elements all working together.  Otherwise it can fuel deficiencies in earthiness, laziness, sadness, habituation, not creating anything new.  It is like the hei separated from yud k vav.  We want to feel the depths of humility coming into the physical expressions, and then we see how these are spiritual expressions.

Beir mayim Chaim says:  there is a deep paradox that express something physical rather than spiritual . Physical things like eating drinking and washing have the upper two letters of shem havaya.  But if we look at..then it is vav hai.  When it comes to a spiritual activity like torah and mitzvah we reveal it into the physical world as something divine, intrinsically divine.  The toil is to superimpose on earth so it is luminescent of heaven.  But if we start with physical like food or water or washing, there is a spiritual root to each of those activities.  The physical self is actually rooted, to take shemayim and convert the physical world, and then the physical parts of the world and convert them back, we see it is all purely divine, masked in the molecular makeup.  In reality, as we work on the elemental level, we see it is the misappropriation of the elements in the soul that is creating negative forces.  We want to know the proper revelation of Hashem’s elements.  That is how the very elements can be concealed.  We want to unveil and reveal.  Look at the elements as a combined unit to get into the realm of earth so earth is not stagnate.

EARTH  has the word heart in it. When we bring heart into earth, we see something revealed in earth.  HEAR is part of the word earth and heart.  If we don’t listen from the inside and create this inner silence, we will get caught up and get very distracted with the loudness of olam haze, we can’t hear deeply in our mind and soul and how to reroute the elements.  That is how we wil use the elements to build the mishkan so we can really experience being a soul bound up with the creator of all existence.  That is how important we are, where we feel intrinsic value and love. Don’t get caught up in seeking those from this world.  When we think self is everything, that is nothing.

Arizal says there is a hiddur mitzvah of washing our hands to rub the hands and hold them up.  The hands represent action.  We can think our actions are disconnected from our hearts and minds. We wash in the morning to remove the tuma, we wash for bread.  The arizal says right side is chesed and left is gevurah, and rubbing them shows how they are connected and when we uplift them, we say we want our hands to be connected to a process, with our higher consciousness connected to You so that when You bring the results, You know we know it is You.  There is a remez in al netilas yadaim.  Netila is to lift up.  We don’t want to just wash, we want to direct our actions to the root, from mind to heart to actions.  If you look at ayin, nun yud, it is ani, someone completely dependent on something else. Our actions have no independent reality.  Hashem animates our existence, He directs our hands towards something.  We are so impoverished, we are nothing. It is all from You.  When we lift our hands up, we are ani, and enriched, drawing from Him, but nothing of our own, receiving from His everythingness.  We are washing our hands and are potentially changed forever.

The Chida says that acts of charity giving save us from death.  On a simple level, we are going beyond self. There is something beyond, because death is a force that clings to self centered existence.  Tzedakah is read from right to left in atbash, it spells tzedakah again.  Tzedakah rectifies the din.  Make it more about Him.  We can see Hashem’s all encompassing power.  If we take a coin, representing a yud, and the hand extending, that is the vav, and the receiver is a hei. Take from above, receive it, extend it, and give it to them, knowing you are the conveyoer of the blessing, you can understand Hashem’s Name in a way that brings in more elokus.  Earth means I work hard, I do what I do, I hold onto my money – m -one -y,  giving tzedakah connects us to the life force and we feel the fire water and wind going into the earth and manifest back to Him.

We are no body, a parallel manifestation of the soul, that is here to reveal the soul.  We don’t need to hide any more.  We don’t want Hashem to be hidden, we want Him to be found, revealed in practical ways on the ground.  Everything in this world is a representation of something in this world. We will come to see in a more revealed way that all there is in the world is Hashem.

We want the positive expression of melacho to knock out self orientation and then revealing Him on Shabbos.  Our lives are dedicated to reconstruction of the beis hamikdosh.

We can restructure our core identity.  All the strivings are gifts from Hashem to reveal His divine presence in the greatest way.

CLASS 11 - 1 SHVAT

How the four elements of creation, wind water fire and earth are embedded in ourselves

We have the puzzle framework of how to look at the four elements of creation, wind water fire and earth and how these are embedded in ourselves, to be awakened and refined through Shabbos. Both with Melachos and cessation on Shabbos.

Today we will explain nine thoughts. Moleches machsheves.  When we talk about an act of creation, there is an internal process.  There is precise language and a process and ordering through which the tabernacle is created.  These steps, the inner processes that the mishkan was constructed are related to Shabbos.

We guard the Shabbos by not doing a melacho, an act of creation. 

We are adding it as something that changes the physical structure.  The process through which the tabernacle was built has nine steps in three processes. 

The mindset is the first three conditions, then in the actions, and then in the outcomes, the end point when we produce a melacho.  There is a process of separation.

We are looking at the melacho on Shabbos when we don’t do creative activity.  Now that we have created ourselves during the week we stop the earthly human existence to a taste of divine eternity.  To access that on Shabbos we must refrain from the melacho

If we don’t do the melacho with the nine conditions, it doesn’t take on a Torah prohibition but is prohibited rabbinically.  There are three categories if we do the melacho with, it is severe.

These conditions make something prohibited, permitted.  If a melacho is an act of creation and we refrain from it, and we do it six days a week, we are acknowledging that we do it, there is an element that is positively creating in each melacho, using it positively to create oneself spiritually, to draw down divine influence, to awaken soulful identity and break down human existence.  What does a melacho mean?  It is a creative action that changes the actual structure of something.  We are trying to change our ego, our selforientation and make it more divinely oriented. 

We want to awaken the various elements through the co-creative energy in the melacho and give birth to ourselves in a small way during the week and on Shabbos.  This is a way to see melacho in a positive way spiritually where we are co=creating ourselves

In the moleches machshavos, if it is a full prohibition, it includes each of the following nine conditions.  So during the week, if we want to rework ourselves during the week we want to make sure we use each of the nine conditions as an essential part of creating ourselves. 

Otherwise it is less potent.  If we want to thrive and actualize our divine being, in potential and fullest form, we want to know each of the nine and activate them and see that they are working together in harmony to work together to create us spiritually.

Not only are we not going to look at this with reward and punishment but we will look at it during the week as a way to restructure the core identity as we live each day.  We want to create in the most meaningful way, with maximum potency of what we are doing.

The first three are mindset:

Awareness: In terms of the negative a person has to be consciously aware that they are performing a prohibition on Shabbos.  If a person is not aware, it just happened, not in consciousness, it is not a Torah prohibition.    If a person is aware on Shabbos, that is one of the nine conditions.   Awareness is a very important essential ingredient of the inner process of creating a mishkan. If we are doing without being aware, we are dropping the potency of creating during the week.  We have to be aware of this struggle of being human versus being divine is the tension of our free will and how we apply it.  If we are not aware, without consciousness, then we might be growing intuitively, or a random way.   When we put this into the Melachos, it is an important part of the process.  It is so fundamental, divine consciousness.

Intention:  A person has to intend the net result they are looking for is what they want.  If they do something and it is not what they intended it for, then it is not a Torah prohibition.  The intention has to be specific of what we are focusing on.  The expressed intention consciously is to serve Hashem with the mitzvah of…that is awareness and intention.  That is a transcendant experience.  These thoughts will be applied to the four elements and it is dynamic for growth, deliberately, methodically, systematically. 

Purpose: 

We have to do the melacho for the sake of what we want to accomplish.  The purpose means what is the actual thing we want to accomplish and not secondary  benefits.  We want to do things during the week with an underlying purpose, with intent, as the mindset before we do it.

These are the mindset basis, how focused to be as we do.  We are purposefully and mindfully creating.  We are releasing the divine sparks.

Now come the action itself.  When we refrain from a melacho, there are three conditions to avoid Torah prohibition and then doing during the week to create ourselves.   We are trying to awaken a process to create a mishkan to draw the Shechina into ourselves during the week and on Shabbos.  We can appreciate the inner anatomy of creating.

Conventional:  When we do it the normal way, that is conventional, as opposed to an unconventional atypical way.  That takes it from a Torah prohibition to the rabbinic level.  There are ways to do things. What is the ideal way to achieve something spiritually as the Torah tells us to.  The same goes during the week on developing ourselves using the most wisdom given to us, to co-create ourselves.

Directly: 

In the straightest way means the shortest distance.  When we do something in a very direct way, that is the most potent way.  If we do it indirectly, that drops it from a Torah prohibition to a rabbinic prohibition.  During the week, we can maximally create ourselves using these nine points to have the greatest impact.

Efficient:  We can do something conventionally and directly but efficiency is important too.  Efficiency means making good use of time.  A week is 144 hours.  Our time and resources are limited and bounded. We are accountable for the use of our time and resources. He gives us everything we need to create over our life time.  We don’t want to waste opportunities, we want to maximize what we are doing, to grow through things.

The final three are regarding the outcome.  We can have mindset and the active way of doing things, but what about results.  Yes Hashem is in charge of results but He blesses our efforts.  He blesses our free will with results because He wants us to reveal everything on high here in this world. He wants us to express it here and then He converts it to its spiritual reality. Otherwise we are not partnering with Him.  We want results but we do our part, co-partnering with effort, and we can look for the results with mindfulness.

Constructive: 

If it builds something great. But if it is destructive, it doesn’t have a constructive purpose, it is not a condition.  Many times we sabotage ourselves, that diminish what we want, what we are going after.   We can push away the very thing we want, and push away what we are looking for.  We have to look for what we want, the mishkan, the ultimate construction, a building meant to last.  We want it constructive and not destructive.   Are we constructing our divine identity or are we concealing it by putting the human front on it.

Permanent: 

Not only are we providing a place to reveal, but it is not temporary.  By doing the Melachos during the week, we want to start, continue and finish.  We want to generate something from nothing, move it forward, and to close it and wrap it up.  Permanence when it comes to co-creating ourselves, just like each week of pregnancy, to have a lasting effect is self-sustaining. The first two Beis HaMikdoshim were four hundred years each.  The final one is going to have true permanence.  We appreciate when something is there in truth, permanence, lasting and enduring.   We want to make sure that what is created will be lasting.  Slow gradual incremental effects sustain the long-term way.  We build it into ourselves. Praiseworthy is the one who comes to the next world with the Torah in his hands, a part of us that we can come to the next world with it.  When we acquire things spiritually, we want to build it to a midda, to an inner elemental part of our identity to bring out the inner divinity we can see within ourselves. That is everlasting.

Quantitative: 

There is a certain amount of quantity.  Everything has its minimal measurement for something to be permanent and lasting.  Little results are good but we value incremental processes.  We feel the incremental growth, we appreciate each little thing and the summation of each element of growth, of substantial quantity.

This is the general outline.

In summary, we see the very process of constructing the mishkan was exacting.  Each of the nine thoughts was essential to reveal the Shechina in this world.   We should see this within ourselves through the Melachos and see ourselves as creational partners with Hashem for a divine world in a here and now way, by converting our actions into Melachos, co-creative activities, to create our identities and become a makom to house the shechina.

Every single hour of every day can have this creative element.

We should be zocheh to learn and apply these to our daily lives and realize what we are doing in our lives and impacting on the whole creation that we are testifying to on Shabbos.  We are partners in revealing Hashem as the Creator and know His will in the very best way.

CLASS 12 - 8 SHVAT

The 9 conditions

The first section is how to have a personal divine relationship with oneself, with the elements, and how it gets superimposed on the 9 conditions, the act of creation, the Melachos.

Each melacho will reflect on what we are doing today. We are here to thrive and actualize beyond surviving, paying the bills.

Each day is a recreation of the creation of the world, recreate ourselves to our divine essence. Tapping into the koach of a melacho is there to become divine. The internal structure of a melacho is going to follow a pattern. Mindset, action, and outcome

The nine conditions are organized within these three categories.

It is not a checklist.  It is much deeper. Mindset has three conditions that generate the pure potential

Action begins to reveal it. Results is the full actualization.

The 3 areas are
1. pure potential,
2. partial actualization and
3. full actualization

A melacha goes through each one. Mindset requires pure potential intent and purpose

Action is intentional direct and efficicently Results -Constructive permanence and substantial quantity

We need all three groupings of the melacha and all nine aspects. This is the inner anatomy to bring out the full expression of each melacho.

How can we have full awareness as people?  We reflect on being Gdly and not just human.  The more we incorporate into a mitzvah of the divine avoda, the more potency we will generate in using the melacho to develop our own divine reality. The more potent, the more the fuller expression.  Imperfection is where we start.

Every little bit of every level is needed, working in harmony, the three groupings of three.  We are learning the nine, familiarizing ourselves to the language, and over time we will see them unfold in our lives.  It will become a natural way of operationg.

Mind, action, results is one complete expression of Hashem

How do we see during the week, in rushing, in lighting, is there new awareness, do I have a new purpose?  Look at growth in a constructive way.  What is the ideal way to pursue something, am I being direct?  How effective am I?

We remember each Shabbos creating ourselves during the week spiritually. Each time we label it as one of the nine conditions we are connecting it to Shabbos.  Each time we focus a little more, even when we go to the restroom we see the unbelievable expression of mode.  See it in a melacho framework and so everything is an expression of divine avoda, and we can have an influence on our spiritual becoming. Everything can be purposeful and meaningful and we can ask hashem for the koach to do that melacho.  We are co-creating our divine being.

Women’s lives are very busy and we can turn it into avoda in a melacho framework.  We may as well grow from it.  Otherwise we are missing the opportunity of a lifetime.    We begin to have a melachich framework.

The melachic framework is all encompassing of nature.  It includes every detail.  It is Hashem’s world.

With the melachich structure, the first part is mindset. Pure potential, partial actualization, full actualization.  We need potentiality first.  Mindfulness. Spiritual awareness of being inwardly attuned to having a divine identity. The more we are aware of what is in our mind heart and desires, checking in with ourselves, what am I thinking, how am I feeling, what is going on?

When it comes to plugging into mitzvah, maisa, awareness, that mindset is quicker, less scattered.  If we are scattered we must become more inwardly attuned and grounded in our divine identity. Then we gain more continuous awareness of Hashem and can reveal it outward.

How do we have intent? 

It is based on awareness and purpose.  Even if we are doing laundry. I am getting ready to serve You through the action of laundry and melacho of..and I am doing this to provide clean clothes for my family and thank you for the clothes, the laundry machine, the process of clothes getting dirty and clean, I am doing this so we can be tznua, to serve You.  It is not mundane.  We can become so overwhelmed by the kedusha in mundane things.  Constant awareness of Hashem is an inner awakening.  If a laundry machine with soap can clean shirt how amazing is teshuva.  We are deeply grounded in yira and ahava and that removes our spiritual blemishes! 

It takes being plugged in.  If we want to live in melachich reality to bring out divine identity, get used to our actions as acts of creation. When we have intent and express that purpose, we are doing laundry to be tznua and modest and reflective of something divine and we get dirty and pure and I am inspired by laundry. My intention is to remove dirt and get clean. Intent goes very far and into the purpose.

The potential goes into action, but what we are doing is bringing mindset.  Look at ourselves, what is this all about, from human to divine? We will categories into actions, and into fire wind and water and shift from humanness to divinity and through these 9 conditions, the potency will shift me and transform every little bit.  Hashem will belss it. Do your best with the mindset.  He wants to know we are trying in a concerted way.  Put things through the conditions of mindset action and result and we come to see we will look at ourselves in a whole new way not only through actions but in my essence, feeling our capacity and middos. We see we are redirecting to something divne, we are guarding Your divine identity in us, a protector of those elements as they come into our middos. We will watch over them to make sure they are used appropriately.

Our avos paved the way for our divine ascent. Everything here is fleeting and impermanent and we take that into the Torah, internalize it, and that makes it lasting and permanent, and everlasting.

The avos lived their lives where they mekadeshed, internalized, and it became eternal.

It is time for the third temple, permanent, we will be crying with joy.  But we are saying Hashem we need to create a home within us for You, there is a makom in the elements and in the Melachos. Come home in each one of us.  To build it within and without.  If we create a critical mass, may we see Hashem home.

We are creating a makim for Hashem to dwell

Outline

Summary

Key Ideas

CLASS 13- 15 Shvat

https://youtu.be/7UidXvO_Ovo

CLASS 14- 29 Shvat

https://youtu.be/lX19Rn931qA

CLASS 15- 6 Adar / March 2

https://youtu.be/7XLkV2bibHE

1st Melacha: Plowing: Summary

We are discovering the creational power of the melacha to help redefine our human identity into a Gdly one, using each melacha.  Nine mindsets to understand the creative process to return it to Hashem.

The difficulty of new beginnings is relevant to plowing, the first melacha.  In a field there is nothing there and we have to go through plowing to get to the top.  Have a vision for what we are inspired to do and create the necessary momentum to move forward.  The hardest part is starting, to create momentum from nothing to something.  And we may not see direct or indirect results.  The power of plowing is the ability to create new beginnings.

Then a little deeper, why do we need to plow?  From the first melacha to carrying is a complete cycle of potential to actuality, and the higher level of carrying from going from private to public domain, the future private domain of our portion is what we created from our potential in this world.  That is one through 39.

Each week the 39 melachos apply and then we rest and we get into feeling our simple existence meshed with Hashem and we don’t want to leave.  However we relate to it, there is an end of Shabbos and we go back to toiling.  There is a constant cycling of new creational energy each week.  We cannot force or control time, we just work within that process.

Once a full cycle of a week is done, we recycle to a higher level.  We can tie it to one of the four elements, that the farmers themselves have crops, harvest the, sell it, and then they begin the process for the next year, the farmers burn down the fields!  They burn the residual crops from one year and the remainder flattens and levels so they can sow seeds and it creates new nutrients from the burning down process, a healthier soil for the next crop.

 The bounty ends and they know they close the field, burn it, get it ready, and plow it.  Burning the field and creating the nutrients is for sowing.

The koach of aish

 The koach of aish, fire the first of the four elements, light and warmth and heat , the main quality is destructive.  To produce the heat and light, it breaks down the wood to energy and light.  That is sotzer, destroy for the sake of building.  It is relevant in the fourth group of Melachos, but since the Melachos are interconnected, fire is here.

There is a tremendous spiritual secret that rubs against our nature.  Our nature is to be in comfort and complacency and predictability and when we have thing, we feel settled and stable and attached to things, emotionally attached too.  It is hard to let go of things. 

We become so attached to what we identify as our own

We become so attached to what we identify as our own as an expression of our own ego because by letting go of IT it seems we are letting go of ourselves and breaking something of ourselves down, so we hold on that give us a false sense of existence. 

The farmers understand the creational cycle …on one level, nothing is there, then bounty, and thenback to a temporary state.  Why is Hashem asking us to go through toiling and then calmness and then toiling, 

This whole world is temporary and we have to relate to this world in a different way. This world is everything on one level, and whe it si over, we don’t exist.  Olam haba is the end game but we create it through this world.  Olam haba is the world that is born out of this world and therefore this world is a means to create the future world.  This process of toiling through intention action and outcome brings from potential to expression and we use it correctly for the outcome, take pleasure for it, and we use it as it was intended for and then we liquidate it, that it itself is nothing.  And now there is new potentiality born from the original first potential.  It is undefined, becomes fully expressed, used to serve Hashem and then we let go so we don’t hold it too long. Then it is used to form the next world so that we know that this is not the only world.

Mindset, action and result bring us to carry it to the next world, we deposit it o Shabbos and go bac to pure potential and that process rubs against our own humanness because we like to hold on, cling to with dear life.  But we have to open up to receive anew.

 This process from plowing to carrying is all rooted in plowing.  The end of one yhear’s crops is for the potential for the next.  The cycles of the agricultural seasons are parallel to ruchnius.  The body is not permanent in a physical way.  If we just see olam haba, we are not recognizing this world that He teaches us to use correctly.  But we have to convert the finiteness of this world that looks permanent but is temporary so we can carry it to the next world. 

We bring it back to a temporary reality.

 Hashem tells us He gives us spiritual capacity and each week is a cycle from this to the next world . We convert the spiritual potential through the Melachos to our own elokus, then there is no more and in the state of beingness it is all Hashemm and that is a taste of the next world. 

Rebuilding a new cycle of creation

After Shabbos, we don’t let it go, we break it down into component parts for the sake of rebuilding a new cycle of creation based on the full actualization of what we receive on Shabbos, of what Hashem poured into us spirituality.  That higher awakening of elokus in our mind ,that moving forward is the secret of plowing.  We have to receive everything with astuteness, don’t jold on more than we need to , have a willingness to let go, and then, don’t live as body attached that cannot let go.

 Destroying for the sake of rebuilding is bringing from potential and breaking it to constitual elements and then using those to recreate for the new week. Cling to what is important and then let go the full way with openness and receptivity to receive anew that which Hashe want us to get.

This is tied to fire and building and plowing and all the Melachos. 

 Bilvavi said there are three levels – on one level  if we don’t like something, it is limiting us, making our lives weighed down, we want to bring a space for something that gives us more vitality.  Sometimes it is not because it is so bad but that better is better. Madregas of tov, trading up, means letting go of an old level of good.   We have potential to go up in our “grade.” 

And then we can do more and appreciate knowledge and wisdom.  Sometimes the process is about taking that which is good and refining it to a bigger place and saying good is better and that also goes against our humanness..dont rest on that which is good.  Be humble and keep refining ourselves and trading up, so that we don’t cling to familiar. This world is temporary, not everything.

 Recreate again.

3rd level

Third level is that when you go to the higher level of good, don’t destroy the previous, upgrade it. Take the qualities and bring them forward to the next level.

 Plowing is not just a physical action.  Come to terms with the paradox of your humanness. We are not just human and we are not just spiritual.  We convert humanness to spiritual and we use this world every way we can to create our elokus and then with fear and love, we realize we put it away for our future .

Once we do that we can empty ourselves and draw more.  Anywhere we are clinging and not opening to new ways of thinking about Hashem we are clinging to false security.  We want to be in an unlimited nature, plowing to carrying, and when we go from carrying to plowing, the very thing we became close to is what we bring from potential, our middos, the spiritual qualities, rework the, and give them back to Him and ask for new capacity.  Th is creates new space to draw in anew.

This is the melacho process. We want to be straight as we grow spiritually and we want to be efficient in how we are using our time and our week to restructure ourselves spiritually.  On the results level, are we making ourselves a mikdosh on a weekly basis and do we  see some degree of permanence, are they lasting or temporary, can they take hold, they can be built in.

That is the pleasure of shteiging and plowing. Every day has it, day to day, week to week, holiday to holiday, life stage and on. Once we deposit that to create a spiritual reality, that temporaryness opens up a willingness, new spiritual life for eternity, and when we open that up we are involved in creating ourselves.

Whether it is shacharis, how do we use it to create potential for the new day?

An exquisite Shabbos, how do we use havdala – from a state of eternity to the limited confineds of working.  It is like a near death experience of being attached to the shechina and the sublime world and then squeezed back into the body, not feeling so great.  That is what leaving shacharis is like.  And Shabbos.  To bring Shabbos forward, it means it is not over, it means convert it to the pure potentiality of the new week of olam hazeh and create a new space that the new potential is to receive something new.  That is what havdalajh and melava Malka are about, a new level of eolous and striving. That is the ability to receive anew because of what we drew down at candle lighting.

If someone is inconsolable, it is impossible to understand how someone cannot be here. We cannot believe it is over, we have this with everything we can do.  What we are doing in the here and now, convert to eternal currency and bring to torah avoda and kindness, hold onto it to serve and let go and create new space to receive something new.  Olam haba is true perfect world and olam haze is the means to it.  We venture into new places we never thought were possible and we let go and start anew.  We acknowledge olam haze is temporary for creating olam haba. That is the deper meaning of plowing.

 It runs through all the mleachos.  This world is everything and nothing, use it to the fullest and let go and then know it is temporary and it creates the eternal.  That is Shabbos and the amazingness of sanctifying time and the divine consciousness we are striving for.  The key is starting in plowing and applying it.

 We will go further to seeds, the potentiality from creating to something.

May we realize the difficulty of beginnings of being idealistic and opportunistic and see everything as divine and permanence for the next world.

 May we see life this way and this is simcha, bsimcha existentially whe we know Hashem is the source of everything and we try to live spiritually in His world, to use our lives to get closer and to create our future reality.  We thank Him for everything.  Take us out of galus, we are trying to live this way, to bring geulah. 

CLASS 16 10 IYAR / MAY 4

Zeriah: The positive sense of becoming.

Pure potential of everything it will be

We are reframing melacho from the prohibition of doing it on Shabbos to looking how to do the melacho spiritually during the week so that we may use the koach of the melacho to give birth to our divine identity on a weekly basis.  Shabbos is a seven day a week avoda.

Why are we stretching like this?  We want tranquility for Shabbos, a global reality of ultimate tranquility with the Beis HaMikdosh in this world.  We have to see the structure, the in-gathering of exiles.  Can we relate to that?  The real Moshiach coming?  It is lofty.  Somehow by relating to Shabbos as a seven day avoda we create ourselves as mini-mishkans so that the ultimate Bais can be built based on what we do in our homes. 

These are lofty and incredible times.

We spoke about showbreads

We are speaking about preparing the ground to put in the seed.

The second melacho is zeriah. Literally it means planting seeds in the ground. This is how we get wheat to make the dough to get the showbreads. 

The underlying act of creation in that melacho is something we initiate to put it in the ground or enhance its growth.

Watering, putting seeds in the ground, pruning, planting trees, removing stones in the ground that would allow the growth.  Anything that will enhance the growth is an offspring of the melacho, and we don’t do it on Shabbos.  But we want to be sowing seeds during the week.

 What does it mean to use seeds positively during the week and plant seeds.

What does a seed represent?

It represents the pure potential of everything it will be.  It is the genetic encoding.  It is the totality of everything it will be in an encoded form.

Spiritually, it is the potential we have for our entire life.

How do we relate to this?

Spiritually we are being asked to relate to the reality of our potential.

There are ten utterances Hashem used to create the world.  But in Bereshis there are only nine.  But there are 10.  Nine are Vayomer Elokim.  The Ramchal explains that the tenth is the first one.  In the beginning Hashem creates the heavens and the earth.

The ten utterances correspond to the ten sefiros. 

Keter is pure potential, intangible reality that first exists that make it possible for the others to exist.  Hashem creates the reality of pure potential and then unfolds the ruchnius reality of the spiritual and physical world.

The first pasuk is the first utterance.  Hashem creates the reality of potentiality and then He creates the process of potentiality unfolding into its partial and full revelation.  Hashem creates potentiality.  Potentiality for what?

The Zohar says we are dealing with fire wind water and earth.  Seemingly that would be in the chumash. Pure potential.  But where is a remez to that?  Bereshis Baruch Elokim Es is fire wind water and earth.  What are the four elements of arma creating the heavens and earth.  This potential of Hashem’s Name creates heaven and earth. 

The first is the potentiality of heaven and earth and that potential is based on yud k vav k, first in potential in water fire wind and earth.  That is the Zohar.

The word bereshis has many relettering forms. 

In the very beginning of creation using four elements, Hashem creates Shabbos.  Shabbos is not just one day a week.  It is the very basis that we have a divine partnership, we being His Creation and to give testament to give ultimate recognition of His Presence in this world.

Fire wind water and earth parallel our divine identity as well as His Name.  But first it has to be created in pure potential.  The seed represents the reality of pure potentiality.  Fire wind water and earth in our personalities and the reality of creation, and Shabbos is built there.  Our partnership in creating the world is bringing it into its full actualization and giving it back to Hashem after 6000.  We have tried to reveal Your presence for all of these years and we want to bring it back – give it to You. We want to restore the world to its ultimate divine expression, actualized expression where the world is exuding Hashem’s glory in the ultimate way.

 It starts with pure potential itself.  That is what zeria is. You must give honor and credence to something in its pure potential state.

If hashem creates the reality of potentiality, and it unfolds in the next nine until it gets to malchus, a complete revelation of Hashem’s expression, that is what Shabbos is.

Every last bit from first to last is all Hashem. Relate first to the abstract realm of potentiality. The pure potential of something is crucial to understand.  Bereshis is Yiras Shabbos.

Something abstract is how we become fully actualized.  Initiate by planting seeds.

Also enhance or promote the growth of that which is already there.  That is the actuality of pure potentiality.  We have to make sure the seed sticks, that it grows and has the right environment in the soil…if we plant a seed in a desert, it won’t grow. That is not the melacho.  If the ground is dry and no moisture, there is no potential for it to grow.  And, does the seed have the potential itself to grow.  Can we uproot things that prevent it from growing, like pruning?  Removing what keeps it from growing?  Pruning or removing the stones is a necessary thing to do to allow the potential to grow and take root. Remove the barriers in the way.  Allow the potential to begin, give it water to germinate, and allow the potential to begin to be activated.  This is the process of growth.

The redemption is sprouting.  We see the process of growing is breakdown, coming under the ground in potential and then sprouting.  The potential has to break down while being properly nurtured and enhanced.  We see the halachas of Shabbos that spiritually we are meant to sow new seeds of potential in our lives and the lives of others.  We are to be everything we are meant to be spiritually in this world.

 If hashem shows us our potential spiritually we would be terrified, if we could see everything we are supposed to become by the end of our lives.  Hold space for where we are now and rededicate each week, the potential is rooted in our thoughts.  There is the pure potentiality of something and the unfolding every week.  We recreate ourselves every week to find our highest forms.

The critical part here is to sow new potential, which has challenges.  What if we are not abstract thinkers?  What if we are more practical?  We have to relate to the potentiality to get somewhere in actual form.

Rabbi Ginsburg in Cleveland spoke about different approaches in teaching.  He brought down four languages of what a teacher is.  He tied it to yud k vav k and he explained how a teacher has to see himself as a teacher. Rabbi Ginsburg answered a question about practically implementing it.  He answered that this class is about seeing yourself as a teacher, abstractly. But this practical application is another class.  First understand the creative potential to see ourselves as a giver.  Before that, there is no practical application.  Understand the abstract first. Honor and understand the realm of pure potential so that when you go to apply it you will see it is a reflection of the thoughts to the characteristics, deyos to middos.

Abstractly relate to being a soul and that is our core identity, an abstract mirror of Hashem.  Hold that abstract in a concrete place, in a body to act and live as a soul.

In 1954 there was a young doctor who broke the four minute mile barrier. It was considered impossible to run a mile in less than four minutes according to anatomical proofs. He did not buy it as reality.  He used creative visualization the power of imagination to extract pure potential.  He imagined every single step of his running, he visualized running under four minutes, and then he ran it in under four minutes.  Then many more did it.

He literally challenged a world prospective, an individual person who went to its pure state, the abstract realm through his imagination.  He changed the way people saw themselves and what could be.

We are reflections of Hashem’s divine reality in this world. We can look into our innermost imagination to the intangible realm, of the simplicity of our divine existence, hashem’s truth and creation and see that Hashem creates water fire wind and earth His Name embedded in my inner Elokus and my ability to perceive myself as a divine entity, to see myself as a partner in creation giving testament to Hashem’s divine reality. 

During the week I create the potential, by adding water to it, putting it into proper vitality, nurture it, and watch it break down until it grows into its full expression.  Each one of us has that ultimate divine potential.

Hashem loves us and He loves all creation that has no bounds.

We must endure to see how incredible every Jew is.  See the potential in yourself and what we are meant to be, see it, nurture it, enhance it. Instead of being jealous, let it all go.  The positive sense of becoming.  See yourself as the potential to become  - use it to reveal it concretely and my existence testifies that all there is in the world is Your Glory.  That is the koach of zeria.  Not just putting seeds in the garden.  And love every Jew.  Let that divine love be the enhancing.  Then we can sprout to be everything we can be.

See our potential in the greatest way possible. Love each other to bring out their potential.  Then we can see a redemptive world.

Be committed to seeing Hashem’s divine unity underlying all creaetion.  Live that way and see a world that is truly that way.

CLASS 17 / 17 IYAR MAY 11

The Koach of Zeriah

How does zeriah apply – see the flow between the conceptual and the practical

Last week we did the conceptual part of zeria and review that and then see how it relates to love and move to practical application.

The melacha is to put seed in the ground.  What zeria is means to initiating or enhancing the growth of something in the ground,creating new  in the world.  What is potential?  It may not be tangible but it is koach, that can come into an actualized and revealed form.

What we are really doing when we look at potential is see the potentcy.  To relate to the potentiality means is to see the inner potency of one’s divine essence, what it is spiritually and relate to the potency of everything it is and not and then bring it in to serve Hashem and reveal His Glory.

We want to be spiritually potent.  Every soul is spiritually potent.  We may have jealousy but let’s be careful about Hashem’s potential not mine or yours.  We are bringing out Hashem’s potentiality and manifesting it through our presence in the world.  That is seven days of the week.

Practically, one area is around I can versus I can not.

In high school in track and field I made it to a certain jump and the bar was at 5:7 and that was my height.  How can I jump my height?  This is the final and the coach said you can do it.  How could I go over it completely.  The coach told me that it is not just you can’t but see yourself doing it.  You can do it, count the steps backwards from the bar. Watch yourself and go all out with your stride and go all the way through in your mind’s eye.  Then you can and will.  So I accepted the bar is equal to my height and whether or not I make it I will see that I can and will and visualize it and move it forward.  I didn’t make it, I came in second place.  It taught me that it broke a mental barrier about can versus cannot.  I can visualize it and see it through.  Visualize it.

What is the application.  When it comes to all forms of growing, it is about change.  Develop the potential about something. It is about change not to please others or for approval or acceptance.  It is about moving more to your divine inner being, to connect the innermost part of your divine soul. You have to develop the potentiality of it.  In whatever area you are, don’t focus on the capacity, focus on the potential of being a neshama, and visualize however you may do it.  Your core identity is a soul and in that is wonderous incredulous ability to do.  Change the inner self image from human to becoming divine and I am divine and my divinity is my innermost essence that is not really mine but reflecting Hashem’s presence in me and through me and that opens up everything.  I can is my own finite existence.  When I connect to my inner potential as a divine being, that is the real me, the notion of I can’t is nothing.  It is only the dark illusion of the yetzer hara that convinces us that we are human.  It only has the outer appearance of that.  A divine being has potency to open worlds.  Hashem can give everything.  Once He wills it He gives us divine assistance for it to happen.  We have to start with I can.  See it through to its potential states.

We have to develop visual, to see ourselves as a soul where everything can be.  In our minds eye, the realm of I can’t is falsehood based on the outer experience of a physical world and a finite being.  This is Hashem’s world and He has dominion over everything.  It is there that is the potential.  It is the potency of the soul that says I can.

 My child was opening a can of tuna and said I can’t. 

I said sure you can and showed the child.  Then the child did it.  A can opener teaches us that a can cannot open without it but we can open it up. It can open something totally closed.  Be attuned to realize that everything can be opened at the same time.  The ultimate reality of geula itself. It is Hashem’s world.  I can’t is a deep inner concealment of our own existence that we have to obliterate.  Access the inner potency of our soul, so visualize that .  We have to do the same thing with anything that says I can’t. If Hashem truly wills it He can lift us there.  We put in right effort and choices.  In the realm of seeing our divine identity, everything is within the realm of what He wants.  Whatever that area is, how high can we rise above our human nature, transcend the limits of the physical world.  We are going against the gravitational pull of nature.  We are trying to shift our perception of our own nature, skill and capacity to our very inner essence.  It expresses the very potential of creation itself.  Whatever area it is, whatever the capacity is, don’t get caught in the ….

 Where is our free will point? 

It is our ability to rise above the constraints of time and space and see our potency.  Work at changing at an essential level shifting our inner workings to our core identity.  As we get to more and more divine, we see inner potency.  Develop the mental and visual to cultivate the potential.  Hashem is in our innermost being.  I can’t does not exist. Hashem wills and may He will through me and act through me in whatever way.  Start something, continue it and move.  That is zeriah. Visualize and create whatever you need to …your core identity is essentially divine. 

It is all Hashem’s reality.  Wire that back to our Yiddishkeit.  Cultivate the inner potential and the reality of I can’t goes away because we partner with Him.  We reshape our perception of our divine identity and inner essence.  Then we can apply it to any area, make an action plan, break it to smaller steps and then when you actually do it, if I can visualize it and intuit it, it is all ready done.  If a new reality can come into mind, I am extremely hopeful.  We have to get excited about what could be.

We were talking about Rabbi Ginsburg and a practical application.  It is fundamental to develop how to think about things.  The first is to learn. Develop perspective of reality, acquire wisdom and truth.  There is learning for the sake of doing.  The first time we are learning, we are learning for the potential. We eventually want to actualize.  Torah teaches us to do both.  We shortchange ourselves on the conceptual.  When we develop the conceptual and bring it to the practical and see how the practical is the expression of the conceptual.

The omer is an example. 

If we want to manifest the deyos lets put them into the core character traits.  Deyos are potential and middos are expression.  When it comes practically it is important to have a relationship with wisdom.  Define our confusion.  Sometimes we just get so confused and it looks chaotic.  Neshamala, what is wrong?  Soulful confusion.  Everything is ok and will get better. What is the inner confusion, define it, put it into a question.  Define the gap and put it into a conceptual turn, put it into a question like ma nishtana.  A question shows intellectual desire to understand. It gives a way to gain more clarity in Hashem’s truth.  Eventually we use the question to narrow down individuals and wisdom to find the truth.  Now stage 2 we can organize and put together a structure the inner wisdom we have and then a composite of that wisdom.  The more points of wisdom and inner clarity, in that area there is a whole way of relating to something in my minds’ eye, to see and relate to it, to have clarity within it.  Once I see it with a good eye, I see Hashem’s divine reality not human realism.  That bigger picture allows me to have a greater clarity and there I find the inner truth and reveal it in this world. We turn the confusion to clarity and translate it to action with the right structure. The potentiality of that, the reason it is so important, is we relate to the world as we perceive it.  The spies misperceived Hashem’s plan and what they saw. Hashem had given them a path to acquire and inhabit it. The misperception is ultimately . They put their mouth peh further than ayin. Since they put their mouths before their eyes, the misperceived something incorrect and came back with a false report. Even though there is a little kernel of truth, as does every falsehood, which sustains the falsehood, it causes misperception.  The eye has to perceive Hashem correctly and bring the potential into the world. Seeing it correctly, how we see it, relate to it, embrace it.  Look at the gap, put it into the question and see the answers in a frame of reference and let a truth emerge.

 With clarity , it is ok to be bothered by something, the soul is trying to reveal something. Honor the inner chaos, the toil until we get the answer and then organize it, let the deyos the concepts drive the capacity to reveal Hashem in this world.  This is the wholistic way to perceive wisdom through having four eyes.  Four eyes is to see yud k vav k, Hashem’s Name. 

Arizal tells us there are four parts of the eye. Those four parts correspond to yud k vav k and the light comes in and hits the back of the retina reverses and we look out seeing the world correctly.  This world is upside down. 

We need to see with corrective lenses Hashem’s Name, see Elokus in a divine way . From that potential of seeing the world correctily, the potential of what the world is, then we can live in the correct way.  All we want to do is reveal hashem’s glory, just manifest His reality in this way.

 This is how zeriah creates potency, having truth, acquiring truth, get the point clear.

Then take the dots of resolution and see if it is adding another piece that is adding a part of the framework to your picture.  And that is the driving force to bring Hashem into the world. Hashem can do everything in His Way b’sha tova.

It is a seed. Put it in the ground.  Put it in the ground and nurture the potentiality, nurture the potency of our divine identity.  We are a soul rooted in hashem here to manifest and uniquely bring out His Glory.

Use wisdom and confusion to see His wisdom, then organize, interconnect it.  Inner potential, see the four eyes to relate to Hashem and then take the mundane and then everything really is divine and feel your divinity in Hashem. That is relating to the koach of zeriah.

May we merit to see the awesomeness of potentiality.  Everything in it is potential, as if it is already done.  All there is is I can and through me everything can be revealed, living through the divine and embrace it. Gather more divine wisdom see His world more clearly and then put the eyes before our mouths and our actions will reveal .

The koach of zeria teaches us to do this.  We can restore the Shechina in this world.

 Zeriah - Planting

May 18

Building ourselves as holy vessels to draw down more shechina into the world to build out to the world.

We are practically struggling with zeriah, putting seeds in the ground

Any action that initiates or enhances the growth of a seed into the ground.  We are looking at seed as the realm of potentiality, not just concretely in terms of what they produce in the end, but the origination and process, keter to malchus.  A complete creative process.

We want to go to the genetics, the realm of pure potentiality, what will come out is in the realm  of potentiality.

The nine conditions in each Melachos are the potency.  The potency is our ability to having and seeing ourselves as a soul as our divine identity.  We want to see it through from beginning to end.

Hashem can do anything and if we partner with Him to want to reveal His Divine presence through our presence, then there is realism

Wisdom is how we see things in the world. 

How we acquire organize and access it as we interact with the world is next.

Now what if we want to teach or help others with this when it is so hard to do it for ourselves?

There is no one way.  Look at it from as many angles as possible.  Use the self as the basis for someone else, whether that is role modeling, observational learning, or doing something and creating an awakening, using latzmo for chavero.  But it goes broader and deeper.

The Rashash, a mekabel, brings from the Arizal, makes a fascinating connection that relates to us.  The Gematria of arava is 277. He links it to the word zerah.  He is speaking about hoshana rabba and the hitting of the aravos, that action of hitting gets lifted up to help us lift up ourselves to Hashem and close the tip.  The word zera, zayin reish ayin are the same as izar.  When two words have the same letters genetically it has the same spiritual essence.  Thus azer, a helpmate, is zerah, seed. 

We will see why today.

What is the connection?

Let’s look at spouses, husband and wife. 

In Bereshis when it talks about soulmate, Chava, a helpmate.  The Gemara says if a person is meritorious, they can acquire a helpmate and if not, the spouse is an oppositional force.  It is not a given.  A soul mate can work with you or against you. 

The Gemara is suggesting something more comprehensive, how to understand how to be a helpmate to others by drawing out their potential.  The gemara offers that it is not one or the other but two aspects of the same thing.

It is applied in Ahavas Yisrael as well.  If there is the helpmate part, that has to do with the core similarity that two people share with each other.  What is the kenegdo?  It is not either or. There is a way to turn opposition,differences between people, that have the ability to be complementary even though they are not the same.

The first level is connecting to them in a shared way.  What is between us that can bring closeness.  But when we are different, and there is unlike, we want to create a sense of likeability.  Differences mean there are different part that can be seen or understood.  Identify with the differences to see how can these differences enrich my life, even though it is not my core nature.  Perhaps I can appreciate and acquire it in my life to enrich and enhance my life.  Azer and kenegdo, core similarities and complementary differences bring a whole relationship.  That paradigm is very vast, certainly amongst married couples, and we can apply it to anyone, including children or any fellow Jew you know.

What is it based on and how does it apply to zera?

What does it mean to be bound up?

If we see that the letters are the same and they are bound up, what does it mean to be bound up?  A willingness, commitment, and devotion to seeing the richness in the other in what is comparable to you, in every way, and realize you are still connected, a spiritual obligation to be a spiritual helpmate to develop awaken and see and have perspective the divine potential in someone else’s identity.

On the ben adom lchaverio we carry the same paradigm, we are committed to making each other whole even though we are so different .  the Maharal is telling us to see every Jew as unvelievable rich potential to reflect Hashem in this world. That is not a maybe.  It is a given. Absolute.  So we have collateral responsibility for every Jew.  We don’t get in the way of anyone.  No stumbling blocks.  All the fundamental mitzvahs of lashon hara and more has do I see that the other Jew exists and therefore has a soul and is a soul to manifest Hashem and therefore I can bring out that divine potential out, be committed to seeing what is similar and different to me, and then love them, but not by like and not like. Just see them as them  what you are different about is okay. The azer part is that zera, the seed, is the potential reality in the world, a helpmate, then ultimately I am meant to give the chailicha me back to that.  Shalom alechem reminds me to that mission statement of complementary and differential approach.  We need all of klal Yisrael to be as whole and complete as possible.  We are all helpmates, soulmates, all one at the level of Knesset Yisrael.  At the interinclusion within us, we are one.  By ourselves we are limited.  Ahava binds us to another yid in a way to complete us.  In the love for each other we have an imperative to draw close and help people in a real sense of drawing out the divine potential and asking Hashem to reflect that in this world.  It is for them, as a comocha, that they too have a soul and that soul contains some of divine essence entrusted to each one to use it in divine service.  If they don’t understand it or don’t see it at all, or orient towards it, being a soul is a simple identity.  I have a soul, I am a soul and my soul is intrinsically rooted in Hashem trying to manifest through me.  That hashkafa, and being an azer, that is the key.

How do we be a role model without a show and without calling attention to ourselves. 

Be that way, live that way, and it speaks for itself.

The most potent way to impart it is to be a flaming example, true to the core as you can be. Where we are not consistent, don’t let yourself off the hook, work on it and be an azer for others as they see you working on it, whether it is in mitzvahs or good deeds.  Real authenticity is not so easy to find.  The four animals correspond to the four galuses, the pig being the last, where the first three chew their cud strong inwardly and are challenged outwardly, but the pig looks like the part but inside there is lacking in that inward connection.  The pig teaches us, based on the Arizal, is the hardest because the enemies go against us spsiritually.  Outwardly we may be strong but we have to dig deep and go inside to find the inner essence who we truly are, in hashkafa, middos, and all the beauty within and attach it to ourselves, the outside should manifest. That is authenticity and how we restore and return in teshuva.  We want to be authentic and integrated as possible but don’t be so tough about it.  It means that it is not about being perfect, it is about wanting it with a deep passion, striving for it as much as you want.  Thank Hashem and implement and build on it.  Don’t beat yourself up or shame yourself, but learn immensely where did you fall short, study it carefully and learn from the losses.

Learn the most from our falls, what were we lacking, what were we deceived by, what were we tricked by.  Then you can learn who you can become based on what causes us to fall. Then we can roll model and show through observational learning what it means.  That is emes.  And each has their own way.

That is the best way to teach someone.  The Gaon tells us from the pig that the generation is plagued with how things look, fakeness, inconsistencies.  While we are not going to judge it, we should learn why does it bother us so much.  We want to be as real and integrated in our core process as possible.  We strengthen ourselves and come back even more strongly to move forward.

We have to be an azer for each other if we find it for ourselves.

By far, that is how you can be an azer for someone else, where you are moving forward.  Get up and hold yourself accountable.  You can be a real spiritual advocate.

What does that look like? If I am real with this and internalize it as an azer, then I want that for someone else too.

Part of Ahavas Hashem is bringing another yid to discover Hashem.  When you  love someone that much you want them to partake of it too.  We want others to attach.  If I have a deep love for myself that manifests Hashem and brings out the love of Hashem, and each has a unique soul, I want them to develop their zera.  Be an azer for them.  Know your potential and wisdom.

We know someone who was frum and left Yiddishkeit and the person said I lost myself in Torah. I was doing the best and striving but I became a conformist and I could not find me, my portion in Torah.  Kabalas hatorah is how we receive it and I could not find it. I was a foreigner to my own reality.  He said too much for me.

When someone asks questions to delve deeper, this is the important thing to do to connect to our inner self.  It is essential to not just be connected to people and make everyone a project. You have to love someone to help them return to your own chomocha as an image of Hashem and you want to be an azer to help them make that connection too.  Find your own hailic of Torah that uniquely reflects your spiritual being and it is important. Be an azer for every person in this world, to help them develop what is bothering them, frame it up as a process fo exploration and connect them to the right people, to help them find their own unique portion in Torah.

Learning Torah does not mean it will internalize.  According to my unique spiritual essence, the four elements, we have to be an azer for each other if we find it for ourselves.

In the 48 ways to wisdom, the last one is – say something on behalf of the person who said it, like a bibliography.  What is the profound point?  When you say something on behalf of the person who said it, they have an obligation to listen.  Speak out your own orientation to see Hashem through it, make sure it is emes even if it is your way, authentically true to the core, speak it out and they reflect it back by saying it on your behalf.  People find themselves, finding their comocha.  When you listen to someone, to be an azer of someone, listen to them.  Ask them, teach me something you learned or value.  While you are listening, not just as a point of finding my truth, but of all the things the person brought out why is this value or orientation important to me, a manifestation of your inner being, I want to appreciate you and love you so you can love the person. Then I am an azer to help that person discover their potential, to see their divine image through my eyes.

When we listen to them and know and appreciate and love them we would bring the geula. 

I want to be an azer for klal Yisrael. 

I want to learn from you, the wise person who learns from everyone, showing my intentions and purpose, and know you and help you fulfill your divine potential.  Whether it is like or not like me, I hope you see you are special.  To know and love them is to bind ourselves to them.  That is geula.

In summary Pirke Avos is saying all the middos including learning Torah is all incredible but the pinnacle is to be committed to your own inner chomocha and for the sake to be an azer to help others awaken their own divine identity and when they fall short they can then help them get clear in what they want, draw out their penimius and they will shine.  Have an origination in you extending to everyone else and bring emunah into your own emes.  No one can fully do it on their own.

We should be zoche as the Arizal is telling us to develop inner potential to develop ourselves, extend it to others to help them find their purpose and help them, listen to them, bring out the best in them and then be an azer, to help bring geula. This is the potential, the zeria, enhance the potential of others.

This can help us be an azer for everyone not appositionally through core differences. And reflect Hashem and coronate Hashem.

Zeria

May 25

Anything that has a seed has potential. 

There is awesomeness of bringing melacho during the week and helping us create a sanctuary which our own higher identity can help towards geula.

Models:  Creative visualization, core perspective, azur and zera (the ability to help others.)

We are striving to be bale teshuva. As we come towards Shavuous we want to recreate ourselves with Torah.  What exactly does Torah have to say about the pathway of change and how does it relate to zeriah itself.

The context of zeria, change, and teshuva are coming from the gemara.

Kedusha 49 b talks about the different languages through which a man can sanctify a woman.  It gives us an extreme example.

Even an evil person, if he says I want to mekadesh a woman on the condtion that he is a rasha and he is giving an outer appearance of a tzaddik, a complete misrepresentation.  This woman is mekadesh and becomes his wife because perhaps in his mind there might be a flicker of teshuva in his mind.

Someone who is an evil person who misrepresents themselves, saying they are a tzaddik gamor, perhaps this person would have a flicker of teshuva.  It is legitimately powerful. Do we really paskin like this?  The Shulchan Aruch says that by halacha even though there is a radical misrepresentation, if that person has a flicker of teshuva, it is not that the person is automatically mikudesha, it could be possible.

Without going into the implications, one critical point is that the Torah is telling us that no matter how far a person has fallen, no matter how degraded, even a heretic, Hashem allows an opening for the possibility of return.  It comes in the form of it coming up in the mind, hirhure  from the echos of Har Sinai, when we have an awakening, what is the right way to see the world.  If you have a flicker of the real perception of truth and orient it towards a moment, if we orient towards it even if we are not talking about making major changes in action, we are talking about teshuva, a flicker of an awakening in one’s mind, to see towards the side of truth in that moment, that is enough to catalogue the teshuva process itself, the process of change itself and to have a person have a change of heart and to change one’s actions and middos and inner being.

If we go all the way back to the beginning, lets get to the Torah and what it says.  We are talking about a flicker, an awakening, a moment of seeing Hashem’s light of truth.  That could be a new way to go forward.  That is the place to catalize change and return. 

Zeria is telling us the revealed world is a mess and we have to bring truth in and the root level

Zeria is telling us the revealed world is a mess and we have to bring truth in and the root level, the basis for reorienting our middos through the 49 days, that place has an opening for teshuva.  Return means just like we turn away we can return to the very source.

A boomerang can go far out and it meanders and slowly makes its way back. This descripbes our relationship with Hashem.  We can come back with an awakening in our heart as if we are recreated.  Shavuous is the rebirth of the Jewish people. 

Where is the origination point?  A sincere awakening, of zeriah, in the mind’s eye we see things anew.  We reorient one’s thinking to Hashem.  I want to want to return.  It creates a new perspective when we turn it back to Hashem.

We the Jewish people with the sufferings that have happened can awaken in ourselves the koach of a deep desire to return, an awakening to see things anew in a straight and aligned way, for a change of heart and action.  To change one’s orientation.  That is how awesome zeria is in our ability to see ourselves. There is no measure for how big the seed has to be to do the melacha.  There is no amount of zeria.  It is a mini awakening, a new thinking that is directed back, no amount that is too small.

 So long as when that seed hits the ground it can grow, that has moisture and it ican take root, no matter how small it may be, no matter how small that awakening is, if we have an inner stirring to do the right thing, then that inner seedling of awakening us to do teshuva, that is sowing seeds.   We are using it positively to take an awakening and concretize it into action, and slowly add more, to an established pattern, that awakens our inner Elokus. 

It is restructuring the world through people.
Why are we not all doing it?

If the ground itself is not supple, there is no possible way that seed can take root.  So too by us.  When we do a transgression or anything wrong, we do many things that are wrong.  The Soton makes sure the ground is not moist, that it is barren.  Then we feel we are an essentially bad person.

Shame in English means that because I did wrong I am a bad person and I don’t have intrinsic value.  There is no point, Hashem won’t take me back, I am irredeemable.  Then the seed, the hirhur, doesn’t go anywhere, it rots.  The rot itself is the mishap of the ability to do teshuva. 

Reish kuv …if the seed can take root then the rotting is a place to grow closer.  But if we think we are rotten and irreparable, there is no place to return, that is a trace perspective.

When we do something wrong we say “my bad.”  So we did wrong, messed up, even big time.  We have to be accountable.  Our essence is not my bad.  Keep that voice out as far as possible.  There is no intrinsic bad.  Our divine being is pure. The outer garments are sullied, but it can be laundered.  The extensive process of teshuva is there.  Zeria is telling us the ground level of teshuva is that no matter what we do that is limited there are places for teshuva.

Hirhur teshuva, hold space, take a change of mind and let that seed, as small as it was, allow the inner will to be supple enough so that no matter how shame based we have been, or how crazy the environment is…side story about professor marking with a red pen, use a blue marker to show what is right…Hashem has built in run and return, expand and contract.

The power of shame is you didn’t just do wrong you really are bad.  You have to take all of Torah to chip away at that.

Orient our intellect a little differently towards change.  See the possibility of being different even if you were one way your whole life.  Shulchan Aruch says even a rasha gamor can represent as a tzaddik and can be considered valid because of a glimmer of teshuva.

Push out shame

We are not irreparable or unlovable. That is treif gamor.  There is no basis for shame.  Yes I have done much wrong and I am accountable. A flickering through a seed and enhancing it in the mind has an ability to override where everything is determined in nature and nurture and we can reformat the physical world. That is the koach of yud k vav k.  tap into the melacha of zeria and even if partially sincere, that is the ability to awaken something in creation.  That is how powerful creating new potential for change is. There is yashrus, no matter how far we have fallen.  We are accountable and cannot underestimate our true identity.

It never makes us a bad person now or in the future.  Hashem never sees us as a bad person. If we can have a flicker of awakening, no matter what the  pattern of the natural world, and no matter that doing work of origin is hard, going to the epicenter of free will and to lift it to Hashem we go back to precreation.

Practically, this melacha is not just for Shabbos. It is telling us the reality of potentiality is to be taken seriously, for everything that will be.  Even a little bit directed goes more than we can imagine.  There is some inner fertility, to put an end to it. 

No matter how much wrong I have done, own it, do something, but don’t underestimate the profundity. In the path we want to go Hashem helps us to fulfill it. There are no limits in this world.  Working in malchus on our own inner dignity, everything is spiritual plaque we can remove off our soul.  We need the inner illumination and for His glory to shine.

We have the ability to rise above all the variables to think differently and align with His truth and move forward. That is Hashem’s love for us.  That is our identity rooted in Him.

We should be zocheh to mekabel to Torah.

Kotzer / Reaping

June 8, 2020

We are in the melacho of reaping, kotzer. And we will try to apply to our own lives for divine identity.

Reaping is detaching it from the ground to use it. 

The Melachos of creating are done during the week and each melacho is a a continuation from the previous one.  Breaking new ground with will, the choice point, that is choresh.  The sowing the seed. Everything that has potential exists.  Reaping is detaching it from the ground to use it.  This is from the pure potential to actually actualize it.  The main point is potential reality in an encoded way and we have to manifest it, in a manifest form, in a tangible way.  The more we do that, the more we understand these are a maga process of creative energy.  We are creating ourselves.  Practialy we are creating by removing one’s innermost core identity as the nefesh elokim reworked and all the malachim together helping us transform our simple identity into an eternal one.  That is why there is an olam haze.

The inner being grew from the ground

How do we define it?  We detach it from its source and use it towards…we want to leave what grew from the ground that needed to start in the ground, to move to a bigger place.  The inner being, our ego existence, grew from the ground, Adom, adama, our human separate existence comes from the earth.  If we don’t have a form of separate existence there is nothing to transform.  The adama we are detaching from, acknowledging all the things in our existence, in that place there is a reality of behira. We have to detach from the nature/nurture, and take the human existence and rework them to the side of the nefesh elokis, the side of experiencing our transcendant existence not bound by our physical world.  That is what we are trying to do.  The using it is our ability to understand – we are rooted in Hashem with a divine service of Torah and mitzvahs to bring kavod shemayim – and we rework towards a higher level of divine service that we bring uniquely.

The Arizal and others bring down for structuring middos – go into our inner elements, the inner parts where we restructure our own identity.  We do this systematically and make the tikkun for the world

The 4 elements are the basis for all of the character traits,

Water fire wind and earth, these four elements are the basis for all of the character traits, keneged yud k vav k , the inner capacity for all our character.

The earth is rooted in water rooted in wind and rooted in fire.  Fire is the basis.  Rabbi Vital says each element has the core midda to subjugate the nefesh behema, submitting.  Each tells us we are separate and we must detach from that.  Then we form into the divine expression.  Fire is the beginning because oon the human level, which we experience as gaiva which is perceiving one’s separate existence.  When we perceive our own separate existence at that root level it is gaiva.  And that is in the element of aish, fire.  We are designed this way by Hashem and it is the basis of everything we are here to rework. What does hashem want for us to do with this?  Hashem gives us the opportunity to overcome the illusion of our own separate existence, attach to him and then rework our middos and inner elements.  It is the inner perception that we are super critical, rooted in Hashem, as a manifestation of Hashem in this world. That is the anava to fix at the yud level. The raw material is gaiva.  We are here to restructure.  He gave us ego so that we offer it up and as we gradually do that, we rework the anava process.  We can ultimately feel our inner smallness because we have no separate reality.  In that we experience our ultimate greatness, all the kochos can be reacquired.  When we rework that process of gaiva into anava, that is the transformative process of uprooting to use it.

Aish – to destroy for the sake of building

Chazal call this – the inner quality of aish – to destroy for the sake of building. The very process of aish is to systematically destroy the ego at the aish level and rework it.  When we detach from the ground we need to use it positively to bring kavod shemayim through core element of aish.  Have it in the imagination the healthy process of breaking down a strong ego and gradually reworking it, the anava is built out of it, and your choice point to use mundane life to rework core identity to something else.

How do we practically do it?  Let’s use the nine conditions.

The 9 Conditions

We want to be ultimately successful at the elemental level. We have to be systematic and wise. The nine conditions that make up a melacha are in three groups.  The first three is mindset, what is going on covertly.  Then action.  And then outcome.  What were the actual results hashem blesses us.  The nien work together is how we draw the creational energy to its manifest form. 

The awareness,
intent and
purpose are
the mindset. 

The awareness is that I am alive today and the purpose of our existence is to make ourselves intso something divine and make ourselves into a mishkan to bring kavod shemayim and bring a tikkun and a revelation of Hashem.  We have a mission. Get up I have to be mindful and consciousness. That is the first of the nine conditions.  We are holding onto to inner awareness of the purpose to bring it into the moment. How am I beginning to understand myself and reworking gaiva to anava.  Am I aware of self and as I am the gaiva is a force to be reckoned with .  I am a self rooted in hashem and nothing in and of itself.  That simple awareness activates the first of the nine to uproot our human existence to something divine.  When we feel we are something, work on nullifying it.  Not with shame and blame.  We must be careful to not diminish ourself to nothing at all, only that we are not on our own. We are not something in and of itself, I am something rooted in Hashem with an ultimate purpose in this moment.

The word sever is like serve. 

We connect to divine existence, with simple awareness.  This is my higher purpose, I will perform this act of kindness.  It is an expression of an avoda, part of my serving Hashem.

Awareness of self, this is my intent an this is my angle.  Have that wisdom in the mindset before we do the action and then beyond.  Then we are living with the sheis mitzvahs.  This is all for us. To bring nachas to Hashem.  It should not feel overly burdensome. We do this with a zechus and honor, for growth.  We convert it into something divine. We are in the world of action but reaching up to a higher world. We then live sublimely here, that is the mishkan.

Those are the first three.

Then action – conventional, the normal way to do it, direct rather than indirect, and efficient, as opposed to watering it down.

Whatever we are doing look at it as a mitzvah in consciousness sor action and then bring intent into it.  Do it correctly.  If we say a bracha say it correctly.  The first three conditions are we have awareness, intent and purpose in eating.  Just like a mother eats for the fetus too, the awareness is I will eat to animate vitality to the body and the soul. I will draw vitality to the soul to have the strength to serve Hashem.  That is awareness sintent and purpose.  I am not eating for my body, but for the two of us.

This world is 120 - 3 sets of 40 and each is a trimester. 

My soul and my body at the same time.  I have the food and intent and purpose and I will do it in the right way and then I have the aweareness intent and purpose.  Baruch Hashem Elokeinu, the king of the universe, that all of existence comes from His world  this piece of food gives intention to creation itself.  We have an action, sitting down with mindfulness, not rushing through. We direct to hashem and say the words slowly and purposefully and let the soul become aflame.  Detaching from the body to Hashem is Hashem is feeding me, He is actively feeding me. I am receiving the food. Hashem is nourishimg me, giving me vitality to serve Him. The direct is sit, eat, be aware, with the bracha, and let consciousness go into the eating.  Efficiency is I am not distracted.  Did I eat and enjoy it?  It is the place the food is broken down.   Be mindful.  Eat with hashem feeding us.  There is an avoda, an interdependency.  We are eating and connecting to Hashem, eating to connect and rework.  If we are too into the food, e don’t shift to divine identity.  This is why we say a bracha. With consciousness  Halacha is the right way to eat food, to enjoy it and through it we can feel our divine identity. Hashem is feeding ourselves and we shift to a divine reality through the bracha.

That is the action level

The Outcome

Then outcome. The result, the final endpoint is from Hashem but we have to do our part . we are meant to reveal through our action and mindset. 

We bring new consciousness and a new connection to Hashem. We restructure gaiva, we feel the smallness that Hashem just sent me sustenance in this moment and in this moment I have no separate existence and the bliss of eating the food is wonderful.  What was constructively done?  We brought a new spiritual reality.

It creates a divine reality.  We ate the apple, destroying it, but we revealed in a divinely oriented way.  We built a part of ourselves through that fruit.

What is permanent about that.  Soon I will be hungry.  The permanence is to eternalize the physical world. Are we a little different because of that apple, the energy we got from it, to destroy the ego and reconstructing it with imagination to see ourselves as divine.  Something within us is a little different and then we want to put it into the next moment.  What is permanent is the true essence of self.  The food was absorbed but eating for the soul is my inner perception of who I am has changed, to feel my rootedness in Hashem. I received that.  That consciousness is the reaping itself  I want it to be part of my identity. Turn it into service. 

Awareness before the action and then do it directly and infuse consciousness into it.  Express it through consciousness and identity shifting. This is real.  I experienced myself differently.  And then the permanency is I don’t want to leave this.  After the after bracha, Hashem creates the body but if I can turn towards nefesh elokis I fulfilled the ultimate creation.  How can I ever be the same at some level. 

As I build on that, we see that food is not just for vitality but to shift our core identity so all of creation can turn back to Him and that we are totally dependent on Him.  Through nothingness we are everything because we are part of Him. 

The melacha of reaping is a transformative process.

The Gra said soul is nefesh behema to nefesh elokis. 

In atbash, which are zachor and nekeva.  Nun pei and shin.  Nun is tes, phe is vav, and shin is vais.  Tov.  We transform our nefesh to tov.  Each person is an actual expression of His tov.

When we work on reworking our nefesh behema, we feel the inherent goodness in creation in us as rooted in Him.  He is only good and does good.  We experience our existence as His tov.

May we use these nine conditions to go into the actual melacha and the four roots of foundations, starting with fire, gaiva, and rework it and shift the focus. 

We have the ability shift the world to unveil Hashem at an elemental level that we are Gdly being in essence. 

In the chochma, the fire, we destroy the illusory one. 

In that zechus we transform ourselves and the beria to the restoration of the world order and redemption process one moment at a time.  Thank Hashem for the opportunity every moment.

KOTZER
June 19

We want to have a positive relationship to melacha, looking at melacha as a positive act of creation whereby we are creating our spiritual identity from potential to actual, our Elokus, how we express it to ourselves and the world at large.  We move from nefesh behamis to nefesh elokis.  There are four elements in a person, earth wind water and fire, the root elements of all core middos in the negative and positive experience.  When the nefesh behamis is strong it is negative and when we redirect them through the Melachos we construct something more divine by awakening our elokis.

We are trying to get in touch with us to a core level that restructures our core identity. That brings shem havaya the four elements aligned, into the world and help the world come to divine revelation.

The end goal from the Gra is that if we reverse nefesh through atbash, it becomes tov. 

When we rework the nefesh behamis into nefesh elokis, we remove the concealment of one’s own human experience and that is when we bring tov u’mativ into the world and we know our own true essence and His Goodness.

Fire: it is the realm of gaiva, the level of aish on nefesh behama.

The power of aish is to destroy something for the sake of making something new.  We are destroying the experience of self as an independent force to be reckoned for itself. That experience of anochius, selfhood is where the nefesh behema is and the root of gaiva is at aish.  We want to rework our perception of ourselves from aish, as divine beings completely dependent on Him in a giving and receiving way, knowing that everything is hashem and we are complete recipients of His Good. That is the reworking of aish,

How do we use the melacha of kotzer to detach something from where it grows

Wind: the element of ruach. How do we use the melacha of kotzer to detach something from where it grows, how do we detach it from nefesh behema and use it for divine expression.  We want to use the inner element of ruach to restructure our inner identity.  We will touch on three or four ways.

Ruach means simply wind.  What is wind?  How do we understand it and what is the connection to aish where it comes from  and what is unique and how do we express it positively.

Ruach essentially is tenua, movement. The expression of movement in the world is wind.  We can run away or towards, having a life direction, aspiring is movement.  The opposite is directionless.  It corresponds to the power of speech as inner breath on the inside.  And in tefilla.  There is a halacha that if we daven on our own or with a minyan we have to actually say it, tefilla is the koach of dibur, and we have to hear the utterances of your voice but not to disturb your neighbor.  We access the inner wind of a person, elementally the koach of ruach itself. 

When we talk about speech we are directing the inner wind of a person as vibration and sound

There are fascinating expressions of ruach. When we talk about speech we are directing the inner wind of a person as vibration and sound words that are audible and perceived and understood,  the Torah has an immense amount of talking about dibur.  The koach of being medaber is connected to ruach,  how do we use it.

The Chofetz Chaim in sefer Shmiras HaLashon is guarding one’s speech from speaking in an evil form.  The question is if the nature of ruach at an elemental level is about dibur why do we learn so much about the laws when the fundamental principle is don’t speak ra, whether it is any of the various forms and shades of lashon hara 

Use Speach for lashon tov

Why so much time on it?  The element of speech is so important, there is a tendency to use speech for something negative.  Let’s use something of speech, the ruach, and the wind not just to not speak lashon hara don’t align with nefesh behama and self orientation, bur uproot it and align with inner Gdliiess on the elemental level of ruach and use it for lashon tov and all the various things that go into it, then we have an answer for it when t is only taught in its negative form, that is detach from the ground but how do we use it?

If the Chofetz Chaim walked into our generation we would see he is an orator and has a master of speech,  awakening the inner ruach is to come out with lashon tov.  Speech is drawing fire into wind and it can come into your inner sanctum in another way.  We must quickly direct it to lashon tov.

Asiyas HaLashon, the fulfillment of lashon

The goal and tikkun of dibur, ruach on the level of nefesh elokis is to create capacity for lashon tov,  so we detach the nefesh behemus from the ground to use for lashon tov 

Asiyas HaLashon, the fulfillment of lashon, and it would have corresponding points to each prohibition,

We have to strive to be speaking spirits and when Hashem speaks to us and to use our speech for lashon tov, like hakaras tov and praise to others and to ourselves. We are aligning the koach to the self . it wants to ve involved in lashon tov while subjugating its natural tendencies to lashon hara,

Hisbodedus is an intimate speech  with Hashem regarding our innermost world with Hashem and to some level with others.

Tefilla too, we are able to pray, to express the deepest part of our soul through a request, to relate to Hashem on a needs basis throughout the day, He is the source of all.  That koach of tefilla comes from dibur which is ruach expressing the nefesh elokis, the koach of wind itself literally. That is what it is designed for, when you talk to people, we are meant to praise but in a linited way so as not to create dust of lashon hara.

Rabbi Chaim Vital on the 4 elements: 

“when it comes to the four elements we are meant to fix, when it comes to ruach the tikkun is in the silence of a person in the realm of speech should be like a mute person.  Do not open your mouth at all.  With the exception of the osek of Torah, expressing mitzvahs and the necessities of fulfilling the guf and for the sake of fulfilling the needs of others.”

He is telling us the first level of tikkun is on the negative side, shtika.  The negative way is silence the nefesh behamis of your identity through speech.  Be quiet. Don’t say anything.  That doesn’t feel so Gdly, I feel put off, who are you to tell me to be a mute?  Perhaps we are wearning masks to be all muted.  We are talking something special. Silence is about silencing the inner noise in our head, the inner turmoil that has to do with the nefesh behamis in this world. We are information managing, so much to keep track of and that creates ra in our mind and heart and barriers to our own inner Elokus.  We are very important, so busy, movement everywhere.  It is meshugena.  When we inflame the nefesh behamis the necessary part of speech will be ra, the inflamed ego see how great I am see what I need to say and what you hace to say is lesser.  Inflame and anmate my ego the fire itself.  My speech in the ruach is so strong because the movement in my being from the nefesh behamis and when it is animated by gaiva it comes out as lashon hara .  we must control the nefesh behanis to direct it to Elokus.

Shtika, silence the mind, quiet the heart, slow down your life

Shtika, silence the mind, quiet the heart, slow down your life , take a deep breath and strip away who you are not. You are not operating independently and you don’t have to shoot and fire .  create silence so there is no noise or distraction, the need to keep speaking, senseless words, talking for the sake of talking.

Mindset awareness intent and purpose, be engaged on the level of ruach through the power of speech and I am going to invoke shtika, quiet to stop all the forms of empty speech, I don’t need to talk about other people. Once I get to shtika we will sense the quietness of the nefesh behamis and the elokus awakens.  Then we will feel the inner calm of the Gdly identity, Once you get there use the ruach to diret it to osek in Torah and words of truth, to perform actions in words and speech to Hashem and others praise others, use words to uplift and support. Let every word count for something for the elemental part of strengtheinging wisdom so I feel it as do others from my Elokus and heart.  Then it goes into someone elses’s realty.   Our hurtful words when subjugated through quiet silence and inner calm is to use the koach of the root of wind itself to express the Elokus in the right way at the right time whether in tefilla or in hisbodidus or learning Torah or to each other,  the lashon tov is to bring the geula tov into this world the flip of the behema. To get to use speech we have to be vigilant at awareness intent and purpose or we are blowing hot air, this is something to watch. Often people talk at each other seeking a forum to be heard but no one is really listening to their inner ruach, to what they are communicationg.  We are using their words as a departure point to say your own words. You were not really listening.

Listen with your inner ear to a person’s soul through their inner speech,

To quiet listen with your inner ear to a person’s soul through their inner speech, Listen to what they are saying and love them for who you are and you don’t need them to hear you talk.  hear their expression as a nefesh behema through dibur.  Is anyone istening or are we talking at each other.  It is painful to watch people talk like that, one person’s inflamed ego to another that is not the inner windm the ruach,

Let it come out in hisbodidus, to subjugate the nefesh behamis to awaken the nefesh elokis.

If we don’t have a forum to hear the inner kol of your own voice and let it come out in meditation , in hisbodidus, to subjugate the nefesh behamis to awaken the nefesh elokis.  Take seriously and come to love yourself. On the level of ruach and then speaking in tefilla or hisbodidus or talking to others, we are quiet, a muted person highly selective about sharing the inner world to the degree someone doesn’t wat to hear it.  Be selelctive of what you seay and be a great listener to express their own inner voice, their struggle towards elokis and feedback that you get them and appreciate them and love them,  then you are fixing the element in yourself.

Kotzer / Water / Vav
06-29-20

We are in the practical part of reaping, harvesting, dealing with the element of water, the letter vav the realm of pleasure, physical versus oneg which is spiritual delight.

On the surface it may sound simple but it is deep. Real taanug is to understand that taiva is going after gratification of the self.  This limits things and makes it small. Taanug goes beyond the self and joins, connects and unifies. Taanug is oneg on Shabbos

We want to bring Hashems presence in the world in a full and unified way in soul time and space.  To achieve as much divine unity in our soul to body, with each other, and with Hashem.  we want to have continuity in temidi, with each other and Hashem, and in all places.

Taanug

Taanug in its purest form is driven by the deepest devotional commitment to live with Hashem’s unity in ourselves and each other’s in all time and place.  In this way we reveal Him.  This is superidealistic.

On the ground, we are our individual selves, lost in our worlds with so much to do and so much we are working towards. We are not so aware or mindful, we feel the chaos of the world.  Not in that higher state.  We are preoccupied with ourselves. 

The chaos is pirud, feeling alone in the world

That extends to others too.  Sometimes we can do for another and not really acknowledging what they are saying, giving them a sense of importance or love.  We are very far removed from that.

When we daven or say brachas, we don’t experience constant connection to Hashem. We are trying to stay connected to ourselves in a unified way. But we must know that the water element, the constancy of pleasure that unifies, is there but if we don’t go after it, the forces of evil take us far away and we don’t join and we feel distant.

Intimacy – See into Me.

When we bring the concept of intimacy – this is a practical way of understanding.  See into Me.

What does it mean for someone to see into me, not just look at me, to acknowledge me, know me, value me and see me for who I am and ultimately as a reflection of Hashem.This is a perceived closeness, we will feel strongly connected to the other.  This is intimacy, hiskarvus, and we can have that with Hashem.

In the depths of our soul, in our desire and yearning for intimacy, with the self and others and with hashem, it is the core currency of Intimacy, the desire to see into me. that perceived closeness is so pleasurable it is a mechanism for achieving closeness. 

Why does feeling close with someone become an essential way of achieving closeness   It is a universal yearning of the soul, for each person. We are using these three terms

The three stages are aloneness, I am completely separate, disconnected, Pirud or levad 

We wat to go to existential oneness.

What is separateness?

Imagine two touching circle, people doing for each other but not with each other experiencing their separateness. We can be next to someone in their proximity and not have togetherness.  The experience of pirud or levad that just because we are next to each other does not mean we are blending together.

So the circles that touch is a beginning place, of willingness to see into someone else.  I have a yearning o see into your soul and you have a desire to be seen.  Then existential aloneness breaks down and the circles begin to overlap, where the deeper levels of intimacy occur.

Togetherness is a sense of perceived closeness.  Why does Hashem put that on our soul as pleasure?  It mevatels degrees of separateness for togetherness, that is a tikkun.  It plays out in our knowing who we are, our values and capacities and expressions, including our fears.  That desire to see into me and others is to mevatel the anochius, to nullify the separateness in creation.  The drive Hashem puts into us for intimacy, seeing into me, means that the most pleasurable and important things are the levels of intimacy and togetherness we have. There is machom, chavero and atzmus parts.

That drive at the level of togetherness is approximated taanug. 

We are not separate.  We see overlap.  I am okay to be connected to you and to be closer to you.  It has a limit,  we don’t let the other have access.  Otherwise the alarms go off.  If you get too close you might see ugly dark places in me, the most horrible places that if you see that you would not want to be close to me or intimate.  So I am not letting you come too close.  So thirty percent of the circle may overlap but the rest is still pirud.  These are degrees of separateness.

So Hashem says okay you have degrees of connection and to go after those realms of separateness with me, others and yourself. The pleasure is not about the self, because that is feeling the self.

There is fundamental pleasure in relationship togetherness because you perceive a sense of closeness.  Just how much togetherness do you want to have. Are you willing to mevatel those places of distance with yourself others and Hashem to achieve 80 percent overlap.  If you get to 51 percent nullified and there is intimacy, that perceived closeness has a deeper yearning.  It wants approximate levels of existential oneness with the self, others and Hashem.  less quantity and higher quality with people  they become like my chamocha.  When my world becomes embedded in mine, the degrees of separation become uprooted, it is degrees of approximated oneness.

The drive is not about being together. The distinctions make us bound up in the other.  The souls become more joined and unified and one. That is what husband and wife are supposed to become. We join with the spouse to become one soul.

Not like Adom and Chava were fused but that my identity is so bound up that the overlap is so significant that my essence is bound up with you and you with me.  the soul is so infused with the body and the soul and there is so much intimacy it is just one perceived reality.  We want that with hashem too. That takes all the degrees of separateness, mevatel it and that is intimacy.

Why does hashem supplant this drive to know and be known, to feel deeply connected to, to love and be loved, to value and be valued. 

Hashem does this so we can bring a tikkun to the world of separateness and as we go through this continuum to closeness and togetherness we internalize deeper forms of seeing into me, loving valuing and reflecting Hashem’s presence in this world and striving towards more pure form of oneg. Oneg is oneness, breaking down the degrees of separateness in our own aloneness.  Aloneness togetherness and oneness are the global levels of the degrees of separateness, and we strive towards connection and the ultimate form of connection oneness.  Loving every Jew.  Not because we are getting from someone.  We are not playing anyone or spinning anything. Hashem says I want a unified people on a national level so do on a communal level, a marital level, and with the self.

Take out the levels of separation.

The more you refine on the inside, you remove degrees of separation out and make a makom within you for Hashem to dwell.

The end goal is existential unity, that is oneg.  It is bitul, nullify the self, that has merged with others and with Hashem. that is the binyan beis hamikdosh.

We feel we are okay doing things on our own, how to play other people and get what I want and it may seem like you matter to me, until I don’t get what I want.  This limits our own Elokus and our connection to Hashem even if you call it chesed. That limitation is the cause of the churban.  We have to find in our soul how much intimacy do we yearn for and strive for that we will purify ourselves to remove the separation and bring connection.  The aloneness gets pushed out and there is togetherness and this nullifies ourselves from the places of the greatest pleasures.  We are bound up with klal Yisrael and the shechina and Hashem can return back in a unified way. It is a mechanism for repairing chaos to fulfillment.  The shechina can have a place to dwell.  We want togetherness to such a level that loving your fellow Jew means being unified. That unification is the depth of oneg.

The 9 conditions. 

We are detaching from self orientation and body driven pleasure and develop the yearning for degrees of oneg, to strive towards togetherness, removing elements of separateness between ourselves and others and Hashem

• Mindset

• Action

• Outcome

• Mindset

First you have to be aware that all of life is relationship. We need awareness. There is no such thing as doing something outside of relationship.  The details are there but it is in relationship with self others or Hashem.  have this awareness .  we are here in this world to have a deep desire to know myself, my drives an inhibition to go beyond the self because we desire togetherness so we can reconstruct klal yisrael in a unified purpose.

Intent.

We set that when we daven, to love our fellow Jew.  We have to have the intention of creating a cores sense of connection an expressed intention. I may be the giver and you the receiver but there is a dynamic exchange through the mitzvah of tzedakah.  We fulfill the mitzvah of shmeria halashon by using our speech to talk about something meaningful to have a spiritual drive. Pur

Purpose:  set an awareness with the intent to nullify some elements of separateness to build connection and togetherness and existential oneness. This is why we greet another Jew.  Are we with each other and wanting to know them, be vulnerable, to know them, to feel the greater sense of closeness. It is not just for me.  we are rebuilding and reconstituting to bring more shechina in this world.

What is the deepest part of the drive?  Time flies by.  We get each other, in each other’s world, like that person is a part of me. that is the drive for oneness. You become an approximate form of me. that is the taanug of unifying klal Yisrael in soul, and the more we do it, in time and the more places we do it?  That is in space.  So Hashem’s presence can come into the world in a fuller way.  It is driven by taanug, of two people connecting.  To create more connection to create divine unity.  Hashem put it in our soul. The more we nullify the anochus, the more we can bring existential oneness to this world and bring His pristene into the world, a redemptive good world. Because we truly care and want to reflect His goodness into this world. We can be driven by pleasure that allows us to see the constancy of connection.

Hashem Echad ushemo Echad. This is all intimacy

It is pleasurable... 

Hashem said love your fellow Jew. 

We need more intimacy in every way. It comes from water, the vav, and relationships are not optional.

It is where we place our mitzvahs.  Bring more divine unity in soul through time and space.  In a fully integrated way.  There is a dual paradox. The pleasure is the end goal and the means.  When we have an experience that approximates taanug the distance melts away, the joy of having that pleasure in this world.

The ultimate purpose on an elemental level is to fuel us to fulfill our avoda, the ultimate goodness even under the most difficult circumstances, it reminds us of His goodness. It fuels us to go after unity.  Intimacy is hashem’s ultimate expression of drawing close removing separation and helping the world go to tikkun, from chaos to higher order.  We are fulfilling something lofty. But we need awareness intent and purpose. 

Connection means are we connecting in a direct or sarcastic way that has to be decoded.  If I don’t look for it I think you are a jokester.  Are you being unconventional or puling away?  When it comes to difficult situations, do we address the issue.  Do we express our needs or just smooth it over.  Is it efficient? If we talk in round about ways and our walls are up, the koach of melacha won’t help.  We are afraid to be alone because we feel the immense void and the depth of the pain.

It is fear and terror to be on our own if we are not knowing the self, without degrees of intimacy,

Hashem is screaming at us in the world because we create distance when we are not genuine and caring, truly wanting to be intimate with the other person in giving .  being close at a great distance is not going to bring redemption 

We want to be all in with ourselves, others and Hashem.

Degrees of separation challenge us so we can achieve existential oneness so Hashem can come into the world. A constant place of oneg, of divine unity and oneness.  We must remove elements of separateness. This is shvitz work.  It takes effort to take risks and be open.

From levad to ain od milvado. 

There is divine unity in this world so the world can return to Him. That is the end game.  That is why we have torah and mitzvahs. Go for good and great and ultimate closeness where there is so much concentricity that it is one reality, where divine unity is.  Then we are everything, that is the paradox in taanug.

Outcome is the constructive more uplifting and with vitality. Growth is a privilege to be a Jew and grow with ultimate purpose.  We are constructing the bais Hamikdosh, the Jewish people that wants to fulfill Hashem’s vision. A world of ultimate goodness, permanently.  We want a world of menucha, an existential world. Everlasting.  Bais shelishi will be permanent in an everlasting sense.

If we can’t handle the chaos and that is why we want Moshiach, to avoid the pain, it is not enough. He wants us to pursue the pleasure.

We want substance that is tangible to us. Divine unity  we come together to bring the shechina in the world.  We live to become one as a couple to bring Hashem’s presence into the world.

The drive of taanug, during the week.

That end is every part of our day, to be so humble as to know that the more you give up and connect to Hashem as the Source, we sense the greatness in our smallness and the pleasures of the body are so limiting and small, temporary that do not construct anything – we want the pleasure that brings togetherness and ultimate oneness. That is the drive of taanug, during the week.

We want to meld with Hashem. that is the inherent drive of intimacy, a willingness to see into me. 

May we understand intimacy as hiskarvus, the ultimate expression of knocking out separateness and seeking to unify Hashem’s presence. That is water, the vav, the taanug, on the ground we want concentricity, one reality into another. That is love your fellow Jew.

This reaping of uprooting to use it as it relates to water is being Jewish through the mealchos and Shabbos. We have the proper intention and purpose and recreate ourselves and we fulfill our tafkid in this world and we help the creation itself to reach its fulfillment.  All based on pleasure.  To what level do we want it, and will we nullify degrees of separateness for degrees of connection and oneness and divine unity in order to know the ultimate pleasure, a world of ultimate goodness that we are meant to have.

Kotzer / Earth
July 6, 2020

 We are on the element of earth as it relates to kotzer, harvesting.

We said kotzer is the third melacha after plowing and planting, detaching something from the ground to use it.  It removes it and to use it for an application.

If that is true from refraining, what are we doing.  We want to unplug from the nefesh behema, the egocentric part that feels separate and independent.  We want to unplug it and then use it to develop our ability to connect to Him and reveal His presence.

How do we apply it?

Based on Rabbi Chaim Vital and Arizal and the Zohar Ha kodesh, the nefesh yesodes is where the four foundations are in the soul. We can unplug them and connect them to the higher soul.

The highest is aish, fire,  and the positive it is anava and negative is gaiva.  Are we separate in our own reality or connected to Him

Wind is lashon tov, the ability to use words for hakaras hatov and praise and for his creation. On the behema side comes lashon ra.  We are speaking poorly about Hashem’s creation and that animates against Hashem’s creation.

Water is the vav, the conneting point.  It is taanug on the divine side, interconnectiveness how everything is tied to everything and rooted to Him, that is spiritual delight. On the animal side it is taiva haguf and gratification and ego inflaming.

Then comes afar, earth. 
What is the unique tension and redirect from animal to spiritual. 

The power of aish is what animates and deconstructs for the sake of reconstructing. Wind moves it. Water gives it to vitaliy.  What is common is that they are dynamic but without structure.  Comes earth, the final hei, the earth which expresses malchus has nothing of its own. It needs fire ,wind and water to give it movement and vitality.  Earth is the ability to bring that which is on high on low.  From its concealed to its revealed , from potential to actualized form.

The challenge is that things materialize in form and shape and it is created in a wway that has length width and height and It can become “permanent”.  So why is it so difficult to be an earlthy being and how do we connect to fire wind and water so there can be a divine unit.

We want to unify shem Havaya and Elokus through our middos and core identity and bring out the elements in a unified way in creation itself. Whether it comes to fruition or not.  What is the challenge?

Chaim Vital says the middos ra that are tied to a person are atzlus which is sadness.  And laziness.  A sense of complacency, nonmovement, inertia, going nowhere. A third is itzbo, like atzvos, a sense of nervousness, edginess, the edginess pursuing things in this world, acquiring the frivolities of this world.  Will I be okay, will I have enough. A person is not actually satisfied with his wealth.

What is Rabbi Vital saying? 

Simcha tadiri, a continuous perpetual state of joy.  No meds! 

It is an expression of the nefesh elokis and a rectified form of earth, and a manifestation of the fire wind and water.  How do we reconcile it?

Simply put, although deep, afar the final letter of shem havaya is malchus, the lowest of the ten sefiros and has the ability to bring everything to its completions, to its full actualization and fruition, where everythingnbecomes revealed and for what is on high to be revealed below. 

Malchus since it has nothing for its own, it can be a repository to reveal what is on high. It has no light of its own.  Since it does not have its own light it can manifest.

Healthy humility that came from aish to ruach and miayin to afar

The challenge is that if you don’t nullify, that sense of bitul, a positive sense of full dependency on hashem and His Creation, He is the source of all blessing, healthy humility that came from aish to ruach and miayin to afar.  If you feel your own positive nothingness and depenent on Hashem then you can manifest a state of continuous joy.  Our existence is rooted in Him and we have no ultimate separateness. We are a chailik of Him in a real sense and our very existence is already manifest on a level of earth and we feel it in a grounded way. It feels stable and secure, rooted in something physical.  We can accomplish and reveal to manifest Hashem. what we are meant to do, what we are stryiving for, is all avoda, it has a permanence, a stable force, that is afar in the nefesh elokis.  Grounded eleisha, no medication. Torah is the ultimate elixir of life.  We integrate it deeply and feel the awakening on the level of the hei and connect it above for an expression, an existential joy that comes from knowing it is all rooted in Him and we are to manifest in the most physical way here on earth.

If we get it done all the way it is fantastic.

The challenge on the nefesh behamis is that if we activate as if I am a force to be reckoned with, that I am capable.  Now the aish is on the animal side and goes to lashon ra and deflates others with lashon ra, with onas devarim etc.  we are deflating others to keep yourself hyper-inflated and now we go off to taivas of the guf, ego gratification because I am animating on the level of water.  And when it comes to afar, I want to feel that I am the force to be reckoned with, hyper achievement oriented and all my strength and poswer is what I am capable of, the net results.  Come see all that I do and achieve and all that I have.

What is going to happen?

When Hashem stirs this world of “there is nothing but me”, He shakes us up. 

We are not the master of the world and the world at large. Hashem lets us believe that and when He stirs and constricts the world and shuts down the world, we feel the diminishmnt of our elements and the self. 

We feel it it as annihilation and being taken out of the world. 

So the first midda is sadness, there is no high, the inflated sense of my own beingness, that I am independent. 

The sadness is an expression of the constriction of the self 

it can be used to get to nefesh elokis, but it feels like there is less of me.  as the constriction comes with more tests and difficulties.  The diminishment is so great we get depressed – if I am nothing there is nothing and that goes to annihilation itself. Nothing counts for anything.  As an extension of that is laziness. What is the point of try8ing or doing anything.  It only matters if I am inflating myself, that I feel my own limited existence.  What starts to happen?  I am not as motivated. I don’t work as hard.  And complacency sets in.  I don’t have as much drive and I am not motivated or positive.  That is the opposite of a continuous perpetual joy because it is all about the self.

We can reveal everythingness through nothingness

We can reveal everythingness through nothingness but if you bring malchus down without it, you feel the diminishment of the self.  And we feel like giving up, we get edgy about the news, we are horrified about things.  This is the tension of hester panim.  As it goes deeper into the nefesh behamis, we are not so into living.  What is the point.  When something has matter, it is earth.  If people shut down, it comes from afar, malchus, the hester panim that is so thick, with anochius, gaiva, coming to the elemental level the earth weighs us down.  It has vitality and movement only from above.  It can be revealed but since it has nothing of its own it weighs us down. 

If our human existence takes us to gaiva and poor speech, and we only do what is in it for me, for my money, my social network, how I am going to affect the world. Hashem tells us you think it is all about you and he has to shut that down to have ein od milvado. 

As we feel the squeeze, and we don’t serve in a Gdly way, we feel oxygen is being sucked out of us. This is a deep tension in afar. If we have positive self nullification and we build it up and connect it back to Hashem then we bring the elements down and we bring Hashem’s reality into this world, a world that is stable and structured and revealed.  It is no coincicence. 

He wants to dwell in us, in deira, an apartment.

The positive expression is simcha tederi, it means constant from deira, a lower world in which Hashem wants to dwell, which is afar, in malchus, and He wants to dwell in us, in deira, an apartment. The joy comes from feeling Hashem dwell in us. If we are willing to detach from the ground and use the nine conditions to unplug  yourself from the physical level of the ground and realign the elements, we have a true sense of joy, existential fulfillment, not tied to a moment.  Tied to a specific life development, but to the context of the world permeating your own afar, and the motivation is that you are a true extession of hashem from high to low and you will rectify your ego based ness at the level of afar, and feel the joy. It will be like wine flowing into the cup.  It is literally the fulfillment, the passion, the sense of hope is boundless within the framework of a physical world, of stability and permanence.  The final hei is the divine that is manifesting in the physical and that the physical is spiritual. That brings Elokus to the afar level where we sense our nothingness.  There is ein eod milvado, and that is our true existence, Hashem’s everytingness.

We refine deeper levels by uprooting self perception to give up the negative side of nothingness .  the positive side of nothingness is I have no independent existence, no ownership in my qualities, no possession of anything I own or of my life itself. Every breath is hashem breathing through me. I possess it. As I perceive real everythingness, I am a true something. I am part of that spark of His Divine plan, of that unique contribution and my existence is part of His.  That is what comes into the afar, dwelling in the lowest element of by beingness and there the simcha is overflowing, of existential fulfillment, of my own special contribution to revealing the shechina that only I can do.

Feeling that in my middos and my own very divine being, that is the uprootingness in the afar itself. But to the degree we have not integrated it, we trade up to divine connection and we become more integrated with our elements.  We then take the final hei with the other letters.  The ultimate zyde of the Twerski’s – the Arizal in shaar gilguli says on teshuva, that it is tashuv hei, to return the hei. What are we returning?  Malchus, the level of afar, that is separated from the higher eleents. When there is pirud, that is what chait. A disconnection from the Source that causes concealment.  It is not just righting the wrong. It is reconnecting the hei .

 Nidda, another example from the Arizal, is about spiritual impurity. Is and hei, when cain and hevel had their scene cain ws put into the world.  Nidda was the internalization of death in this world. Nod hei, the reality of conception was not the same, separateness wsas manifest. Nidda is and hei. The shechina is now in galus.  We go through taharas hamishpacha to convert it into kedusha.

When we have bread and say hamotei, there are two heis. 

The first hei is yud k vav k and min haharetz is a second hei, for malchus.  Have intentionality of reconnecting the physical sustenance from the ground.  Then we are able to reveal hashem more fully. We are reconnecting back to its source.

In the temple when they brought terusma, it is tarum hei. When we bring a korbon, we are saying we transgressed and we say that caused the nefesh behema and a separation between the animal and self we want to remove the hester panim and reconnect.  We want to lift the hei that was split from the vav.

Lishma means to do something for pure altruistic reasons.  Not for the self, for Hashem.  it is leshaim hei, for the sake of the hei that was split off. The desire is to connect the hei back to its source and that which hides Hashem’s presence is now able to reveal. 

Mitzvah is mem tzadi hei. In atbash it is yud hei – a mitzvah unifies hashem’s prfesence in the world when the physical feels the integration then we uproot for the sake of using it and we can be a manifestation of hashem’s presence in the world.

The word heart heart – earth. If we have higher awakenings in the mind and heart into earth, earth is an amalgamation of the heart. It is only manifesting that which is above it.  It is heart brought down all the way.

Living in the physical world is a tricky thing.  We feel this awakening and this lofty striving.

Once we awaken the pleasures that create unify, we put it into something to spiritualize it, in physical form, that is what we are using kotzer to uproot this higher consciousness from the identity level of aish to movement and pleasure of seeking and to the physicalized form.  We have to be mindful.  You can’t fake simcha.  It is a manifestation of one’s own existential reality and perceiving ourselves as relating to Hashem. the more we remove the hester panim. When you bring it to the level of earth then there is nothing to acquire. Hashe gives me everything.  I don’t need to succeed.  Hashem defines me.  I don’t need social netowrkds because it is who I connect to and I connect to Hashem

We feel our own notingniess in a positive way and our true somethingness as a manifestation of that. That is simcha deiri.  We want achdus, the physicality of this world through interconnection and interinclusion.  Hashem’s presence is in everything and it is all a physical mean to serve Him.  That is a true place of ultimate simcha.

It is for every Jew in all places and time.  We must integrate our Torah as a simcha a continuous simcha.  May we detach from the ground to use all our kochos to bring out a place where Hashem can be fully and completely revealed in this world  we want the ultimate reality in this world and we have a chailik to bring that. 

May we bring this to afar and may we feel ultimate enrichment and ultimate impoverishment, that we have nothing of our own. 

July 20 Kotzer / Uprooting / Earth

Kotzer, uprooting to use. 

We have been looking at fire wind and water and now earth on the practical level.  We are seeing how to use a melacha positively to transform our physical structure into something divine, to change the physical substance of a person, the fire water wind and earth.

Hear the connections.

Fire wind water and earth parallel Sheim Havaya.

Fire is the root of the other three.  On the middos level, it is in the negative side arrogance and on the positive, the humility of a person.

As the fire works on breaking down, on wind, the nefesh behama, the negative side is speech, lashon ra. It emanates from gaiva.  On the positive side, the anava will create lashon tov, all the forms of lifting up the world, hakaras hatov.

Then water, when the wind goes there, we have taivas of the body.  It creates a desire for taanug for spiritual delight on the good side.  Not to animate the self but to see the physical wovenness of bringing everything back to Hashem and that brings taanug on Shabbos.

Then afar, earth, and the negative is sadness, atzmus.  Laziness and complaciness come from there and edginess goes after pursuing the needs of the world.  On the positive side, it says simcha, a constant place of joy in an existential way.

Afar is keneged the final hei, a hand that receives all the influence

The main conceptual point is that afar is keneged the final hei of shem havaya, a hand that receives all the influence, all the emanation from above and revealing it here.  Malchus has no light of its own, only what it receives. It cannot grow on its own.  All that animates earth which can then give it structure and physical manifestation,

We feel our own nothingness in a positive way but be careful to not in a negative way. But if we do, we feel Hashem as everything of which we are a part. That is how we fix up the element of earth.

Let’s learn through sadness, the final midda to crack.  How do we go into it practically.

There is sadness on 4 levels. 

• There is sadness for a moment, a little despondency. 

• Or you can have sadness for a situation and contextual, grief, despondency. 

• Then there is a type of sadness tied to a time period of one’s life, a stage of development, not seasonal.  The sadness is tied to a period of life, life cycle. 

• On the highest level the sadness is rooted in the systemic framework, chemical, deeply entrenched in the personality, systemic in the self.

Rabbi Chaim Vital tells us these are blemishes in earth.  How do we orient and fix and elevate it.

There are many reasons we naturally feel sad. Things change. 

Grief, seasonal, life cycle – what does Hashem want from us?

We are being asked to do something heroic, to upgrade the very quality of our lives from the moment to a context level, to a developmental and constitutional level to bring out the earth element.  Internally can you feel and experience and perceive and existentially relate to the self and others and the world in a joyful way. 

Fundamentally as a Yid, it is the summation of fire wind and water coming into earth, the final hei, the realm of malchus where it animates the growth to reveal it and bring it out and simcha is a part of that.

It is not  that people were born happy.  Or miserable.  It is not genetics or how we are raised. Hashem is saying simcha is an existential state of joy on the level of afar, earth, having internalized the other elements flowing into it. 

When fire goes into wind into water and water pours into earth, the joy is an expression of internalized Elokus, of our own divine identity, where we see ourselves as having a soul rooted in Hashem and that creates a natural sense of joy.

It can be a flicker of having gotten out of the filter of the body and feel an awakening of the soul.

Or at a situation, a real simcha and we were bsimcha in the simcha and it was contagious.

We felt the inner joy, the tingliness.

Then we upgrade the simcha. It is a consciousness of feeling and being divine, rooted in Hashem and His Presence is manifest in you and coming through you and the simcha is on the afar level, a byproduct of Hashem dwelling in us and we are rooted in Him.

When we go to the highest level of building simcha into the innermost makeup, the divine identity, bringing it down from the fire, to wind, to water , to the practicality of everyday life, we feel being a soul, rooted in Hashem, then constitutionally we can experience the simcha.

This is what the Arizal is telling us and is the tikkun of Malchus, of Afar / Earth

From a moment, to the situational, to contextual, to constitutional to our very being.  Simcha.

Can a person live like that?  It is not just when things are going well. We want to get to the existential part of our very being, that is identity.

We defined sadness on 4 levels, so the same thing can go with the realm of simcha.

A song of thanksgiving.  Praiseworthy is Hashem, serve Hashem in joy.  Come before You in joy and in song, you should know that Hashem is our G-d and we are made for Him, we are His Nation, His Sheep.  We are His herd.

Dovid HaMelech, Tehillim 100. 

Dovid HaMelech is telling us that if we want to get to existential joy, where we get what is in the mind to the heart, we have to be in a state of thankfulness for everything – not that things are going well or going our way.

It is an ultimate thanksgiving.

The ten sefirot are embedded in the other 10, interinclusion.

We are fully committed to thanking Hashem in whole and part, regardless of the outcome.  We thank from the highest to lowest in whole and in part, thank regardless.  We are nullifying the anochius, the nefesh behamis part. 

The whole world exalts You Hashem. Halacha means may the world of Torah permeate the whole world, the world driven by Torah and mitzvahs, by the process sof pure thanksgiving to You for everything everywhere all the time.  We are nothing and we have nothing and there is nothing but you. If we can internalize the 10 /10s and give thanks in every moment, the whole world is a declaration of His Divine presence. Then Hashem says Ivdu es Hashem bsimcha now you can serve Me with joy.

We have to be thankful and appreciative.  It is more than that.  From fire – humility – our existence is Hashem.  Speak truth and praises and bring out the wonderful qualities of every Jew. Bring it into taanug and direct it to Hashem, energize you and bring it into the earthly grounded doing part that needs structure.  All of that is earth based.  When we can draw that all in, we go from feeling a flicker of simcha and our whole being is exhuding shem havaya, in an integrated way, and the heart goes into earth.  We can serve Hashem joyfully because we are rooted in Him and our physicality is  a manifestation of Him.

Internalized Rachamim or Din, that it is all One

Serve Hashem in simcha. Hashem Hu Elokim. Middos Harachamim and din. Dovid Hamelech is saying appreciate existence to serve Hashem and see that halacha is the pathway to dynamic service, and then we have true knowledge internalized, rachamim or din, that it is all One, all Hashem.  bringing it to afar is simcha.

Bring the wisdom into these places.  Who is the wealthy person? The happy person is happy with his portion, with what he has. A higher level, the simcha, is seeing that everything he has is necessary to serve Hashem correctly.  It is developmental. It does not just mean that it happens from Hashem, that everything we have is a vehicle to serve Hashem, it means the portion of our inner Elokus, our divine identity tailored to each one, in all of creation in this moment right now, if we hold that space that our divine identity coming from afar and going back to aish lets us hold it to malchus, the earthly level and feel our nothingness and then we feel Hashem’s everythingness to serve Him.

We can redefine our innermost constitution.  When we get it to simcha, our own individual identity, and give it to Hashem in a healthy sense of nothingness, we have existential simcha.  Whether things are going well or not, we praise and thank Him, know He is with us, we are always connected and we have a constant state of joy.

Mindset: in the moment or context or developmentally or constitutionally, we need awareness intent and purpose.  It is not enough to do the mitzvah.  Bring it to action, that which is grounded, manifest and revealed.  Have the mindset to turn it into avoda, divine service, a practical mitzvah or a six constant mitzvah, be joyful with existence itself rooted in Hashem, with Him manifesting Himself through me in this moment.  I want to fulfill the mitzvah within the framework of avoda and build it into momentum of my life, get more to the level where I can start to shift my inner constitution.

That is my intent and I want to shift my heart to be earth based and shift myself to simcha.

We then see why Hashem gifted us, to turn it into service and bring Him out.

Action: conventional direct and efficient. What is the correct way to do something aligned with my nefesh elokis.  What is the direct way? Be efficient.  To feel joy is going to simple existence, don’t complicate things or make it bigger than it has to be.  When you give to the essential place, we are fulfilling our avoda.  Be divinely awake and let the joy be felt.

Outcome: am I creating something positive, for myself others and more kavod Hashem, for His Emanation.  Is it going to be permanent?

Dovid HaMelech says have shelamos by bringing it to the level of earth, to the realm of this world but not as mundane. Lift up the actions to a context so high that we feel momentary joy in being rooted in Hashem.  we don’t have anything separate from You, You are pipelining everything through me.

The mindset action and outcome with ourselves and others and Hashem bring integrated understanding and simcha where we can reflect Hashem’s light.

We finished Bamidbaar.  The Arizal says that we have five books of Moshe corresponding to shem havaya.  Bereshis is the tip of the Yud, shemos is the yud, Vayikra is the hei, bamidbar is the vav and devarim is the lower hei.  The yud is aish, Vayikra is wind, bamidbar is water and devarim is earth. Mishna Torah is a review, encapsulated from what came before with nothing of its own.  It is a recapitulation, the culmination, the quintessential expression of the other four. It has physical form from what is poured into it from before.

The root letters of Simcha are Chumash

The root letters of simcha are chumash, the Torah is the manifestation of the simcha.  The five books represent the stillness of Hashem above nature and coming into the Torah it is chameish. We bring out the elements in ourselves and the world and we bring it out.  We take the Torah through your ratzon, from your inner will, thoughts speech and emotion.  Then we see the wholeness and completion, the integration of the whole.

Devarim and Aharon: Gematria 256.

Arizal says in Shema two letters are accentuated, the ayin in Shema and the daled in Echad.  One reason is that the daled represents the four elements of creation.  The enlargement is the full completion of the foundations within themselves.  This declares hashem’s complete sovereignty in creation.  Four to the fourth power is 256.

When you have the interinclusion of all the elements within the others, when that comes to the lowest that is 256, the daled enlarged to unify creation, Devarim.

From Bereshis to Bamidbar and to Devarim, afar, to reflect on Devarim where everything is revealed in the physical world, the realm of earth is the fullest revelation of Hashem.

Joy is gifted to us to use correctly to serve Him in the moment. 

The gematria of devarim tells this to us.  Aharon is also 256. Echad. Bring it to earth and get the fire wind water and earth and spiritualize the physical things, that it is all from Hashem, we feel joy.  It is gifted to us to use correctly to serve Him in the moment.  We can then do this developmentally, and then bring to our inner constitution of earth our own being, is nothing of its own.  There is only Hashem . then Torah can go to the level of earth and we can create ultimate peace and wholeness in ourselves because we are nothing and we have nothing because all there is is Hashem and we can reflect Him into the world.

May we bring the real kobon todos.

Hashem wants to gift us the most incredible things going forward. How much do we really want to change in a permanent and eternal way.  May we use the gift of life in the fullest way possible.  It is all given letova to reveal Him. 

May we push out all the moments of sadness and say there is a world that is Hashem directed and we are part of it and we have the purpose to reveal His Glory and to be joyful and rework our identity.

Let’s be real with this.

 August 23, 2020 / Gathering

 Ww are continuing forward on the next melacha gathering, to bring us together as well. We will begin to see the continuity within the melacha and see the dynamic principles today and then we will go through the practical.

This is the fourth melacha. We are using the melachas for a framework for cultivating our spiritual being. We are using the three in mindset action and outcome to rework our inner constitution of fire wind water and earth. We are trying to reconstruct our own divine identity within, between us and back to Hashem.

The first melacha is getting started. The next was sowing seeds, planting, that once you open and crack new ground, we create new potential of what can be. Then third was harvesting, that when it comes to fruition we need to unplug it from the earthly form and recreate it to its divine form.

And now the fourth, gathering. In the times of the temple we gathered stalks of grain, sheaves. The underlying principle, the creative energy, is creating a usable unit of objects that grew from the ground separate from each other that grew separately.  It becomes a collective unit out of separate stalks.

If we gather apples and put them in a basket, that is an expression of gathering.  If we gathered flowers from a garden and put it in a bouquet, that is a collective usable unit of things that were once separate. The same with pearls we string for a necklace.  The term has a new identity of gathering. Those are some examples of the Torah prohibition we refrain from on Shabbos.

It is permitted and spiritually required during the week to grow and change our spiritual consciousness

This is the first time we have to look at an individual thing in relation to something else.

When you break open new ground, there is nothing, there, plowing.  Then we plant the seed.  And now we harvest but it is in its individualized form, in its separate place. It has to be gathered together to be called a unit with a functional purpose that can be used.

A basket of fruit, a usable collective unit is a whole different perception.

What is the application?

Let’s look at two core principles. The first one is hishkashrus, interconnectedness and hishkalelus interinclusion. These are tied to this melacha of gathering.

The first three melachas give birth to something from nothing. The next step is to interconnect them.  A new perceptual reality is born. It is a collective identity with a whole new name. 

Come interconnection and interinclusion – we see what that is.

What is the supposition and lets deal with the four core elements.

Integrate the four elements in idealic form so we express our G-dliness in maximum way with harmony and balance. What are we dealing with?  We see the imbalances and extremes in our life as our starting phere is oint.  What we are doing is looking at things in their separate form.  For things to be separate or separated, that is pirud, not connected and that causes us to operate in extremes. When we feel extremes, too little too much, that creates imbalance and we feel out of place in ourselves and with others and with hashem.

Our first starting point is coming to terms with our own internal balances in order to get back to balance with internal and external harmony, so we can blend things together in enough of a harmonious way for interinclusion, so everything is linked together, merged in a unified way. 

In number 10 kneading dough there is an upgrade to this as we will see.

But now we have to confront our own existential aloneness, our disconnectedness. We see it as an opportunity to break down the separateness so we can feel closer to each other and Hashem. as that is happening that stronger connection, then the deeper we break down the separateness, we find the blending and unification and we have the perceptual reality of a unit.  It looses its separateness enough so that we have a collective identity.

One moshul is that we take a bundle and throw pieces on the table. That is pirud.

Then connect the pieces together and eventually through the interinclusion there are more pieces together and then we have the final piece and we see the whole picture. Every piece is interconnected with the others and a whole new picture and we lose the perception of the separate pieces without seeing how they are connected.  That is a unit of something, a bouquet, a pearl necklace.  The actual name reflects the whle. That is the koach of gathering. The whole is an expression of unification without separateness. Before we get to the interinclusion we need the interconnectedness, the places of separateness.

And that brings us to the elements. Each of the four elements. Fire has light, heat, breaks things down to recreate. Water gives vitality and pleasure.  Earth gives physical pleasure. We have been talking about each element.  But when you talk about interconnectedness and interinclusion it goes to dynamic, the ways they can interact.

Lets look at the way the elements can interact theoretically

Fire wind water and earth correspond to shem Havaya. These are groupings that we call an expression of gathering. Take separate things and put them together, gathered, and conceptually we will see and then dynamically, how the elements interact on many levels.

The more we see the elements working together in tandem then we can move out the extremism.  We can see degrees of relative balance and harmony and peace that begin.

Hashem designs the elements they are not meant to exist on their own. If we stopped at harvesting we fall short.  We see through interconnection and interinclusion, they can form pairs, triads and units of four and see that is the creative dynamic of gathering. If you gather two items together in proximity to each other and put them together as a unit, that is gathering.  You positively create gathering.  And those are units to pair up the elements for a deeper sense of harmony and unity with others and Hashem.

It shows how amazing hashem’s world is, that through the Melachos we can be connected to Him in a way that when we bring these elements together that things flow together.

A few ways that the gathering can be formed.

Look at yud the fire, hei, wind, vav water and hei earth. Let’s see how they pair up.

The yud and hai pair up and the vav and hei. The yud and hai represent the concealed part and the vav and hei represent the revealed part. The yud and hai are the fire and wind coupling together and the other are the water and the earth, the fire and wind more concealed and water and earth more revealed. This is a usable unity that has a perceivable perspective as a whole. How can the elements interact.

The interinclusion is to break out of the extremism and use one to offset the other and if something is expanding too much we contract it down. Like wind blowing on a fire to get larger or blow it out.  The same with water breaking things down and earth putting things together . they counterbalance and offset the imbalances in oneself, remove the extremes and allow us to move to a stronger place, a unified place.

Chassidus tells us that these diadic connections allow the elements to work together in our identity.

Extremism doesn’t work well. We feel insecure, imbalanced.  We feel off. When we feel on we have purpose.  Hashem creates the elements that they must interact to remove the degrees of imbalance and work towards harmony. That is gathering. That is one way they can work together to offset things.

If we want to achieve our higher purpose in this world In the fullest way possible, to be emesdik we have to use all our internal capacities to serve Hashem.  they have to work together.  We will feel more of a dynamic presence within, with others and with Hashem and we have more self expression and we have a more integrated way to see the world. Imbalances are the basis for creating more interconnectedness. The more we get the anochius out the more balance we have with ourselves and with hashem.

Another dyadic process, the yud and vav are emanating letters.  A yud can become a vav so it can be paired with vav.  The two heis can also be paired.  Using the dyadic connection we can see how this will work together.  On an elemental level the fire and water are paired and the wind and earth are paired.  They can work together, remove the imbalances to create balance and internal and global unification.

A first way is third and fourth, the yud and final hei represents the full actualization. Rashbi says Bereshis, the pure potential is fire and the earth is actualization.  Beis reish, from beginning to end. That dyadic process is fire and earth. The two inner letters are intermediary processes. The wind and water are the hai and the vav, working together in a dyadic process, a pairing.  There are processes where things are interconnected and interincluded.  That is the koach of gathering, creating a usable unit. We are pairing them up for more inner harmony and peace when we are at home with these, serving Hashem with kavod shemayim. That is on the dyadic level.

On the triadic level there are fewer combinations.  Yud hai and vav are emanating processes into the final hei. One process is fire wind and water, fire through wind into water, a collective usable unit working together to be a whole unit to create more harmony . Or wind, water and earth, hai vav hai, a process that creates another unit that is a dynamic interaction, a way of expressing personality when we link up the elements from extreme to balance and working together and in a more unified integrated way. That is where self expression is.  We want geula, the ingathering, all the individuals that are in the four corners of the world to create a unified unit, one unified Jewish people with common purpose with Beis hamikdosh. That is quad the four elements operating together as whole unit.

Yud k vav k or k vav k yud, top down or bottom up

We see fire creating movement wind, and water vitality and earth a stable existence. That is quadratic.  This working as a unit is the interinclusion.

When the Arizal talks about the four elements he references them all individually but in the final gate he references them as arma, the head letters of the elements.  Why an acronym?  To remember them?  If so why start with details and then the acronym.  He is saying we can look at each element separately but when they are interconnected they blend together to unify His Presence in this world.  Unify yud k within vav k for the sake of the Jewish people .there is a perceived unit that does not go by its own name. 

He is telling you to see to live with the process of unifying His name within the self, others and Hashem so that we feel His presence within ourselves. When the acronym arma is used, it is to get to the level that our job is to create yechud hashem and not just philosophically but on the ground through our actions rooted in middos and rooted in the elements that are bound up with yud k vav k in us that we are trying to unify.

When we gather to create a unit we are saying we want our elements to work together in a balanced way and I want to have true divine integration.

In that place where my identity is integrated it is that place I will feel unity and the way we bring geula, real existence, that is what it means to create usable units.  That is what the Arizal is telling us, to see everything in a whole and unified way.

In the system of gematria, and everything in Torah is amazing, one level is brought out through numbers.  The Baal haTurim and others tell us how to look at the seventy faces of truth. One idea is adding an extra number. It sounds like fudging the data.  But no.  adding one is called a Kollel. It means when you look at all the letters, the extra is for the word itself. Not the individual letters alone. When you say the whole word as a whole unit, one spiritual existence, the word itself has its own power.  That is Kollel. It is looking at something as a usable unit, that is gathering. It has one physical function in this world and a spiritual truth to it. That is a Kollel. Because that exists spiritually, hiskalelus we have it for numbers as well.  And that is a reference to the acronym arma.

The greater thing that is going on is this. Whether two, three or four connected, the koach of arma is we look through our physical eye but when we fuse it we have monocular vision. We can see things as separate or as integrated where we can create a unit that is usable, a bouquet, a strand of pearls. That is called klal that is the plus one of the Kollel, and that is the deepest part in our soul that we are seeking to interconnect.

We want to go to the degree of separateness beyond closeness and intimacy but to become a unit, a different name, the unified yud k vav k , arma, klal Yisrael.  A unity of 10 men can start a Kollel.

This melacha of gathering relies on the first three.  We go to monocular vision. Interconnection and unification of hashem’s world through our boldness and humility to engage arma within our character traits, our innermost divine identity rooted in Hashem, to see how they interplay. Extremism is unsettling and unstable. We want inner peace, wholeness and a place where can truly feel His Unity. It is there the koach of gathering shines bright. 

May we be zocheh to the true ingathering of klal Yisrael from the four corners of the earth with unified purpose, that his glory and purpose shine with the bais hamikdosh.

 August 31, 2020 / Gathering

We defined it as not just a physical activity but as creating a usable unit for all the various individual parts that grew from their separate place.  A bouquet of flowers, a strand of pearls, a totality of a collective unit with a higher function than it would have on its own.

Lets look at water fire wind and earth.  A diad triad or quad can be used elementally can create a higher unit. That is important and we do this for three levels of interaction.

The fundamental interaction of having the elements work together when they are opposites. Fire and water extinguish each other.  But the nature of elements is opposition.  But they are divine in nature, and they represent a spiritul koach in the soul beyond our spiritual traits and attributes. The elements are surging through our soul into our nefesh and there is a splitting mechanism. If we use it for ego they take on physicality. If we use them for spiritual, they take on divine quailites. 

Through gathering we can use them so they are not oppositional and they can work together and connect and relate together and on the highest level, interinclude with each other in partnership to become a team so there is just working together as a unit, like a bouquet of flowers.

These three levels of consciousness are the three c’s  contradictory, hisnagdus, how the elements oppose each other  if we choose to bring them together they become complementary, not fighting against each other, hishkashrus.  The completing part is hiscalelus.  How to use dyad triad and quad level to evolve from the contradictory level to complementary level and completing level so a whole new level is born, creating a usable level.

That produces inner happiness, contentment, inner satiation and joy knowing who we really are actualizing ourselves and fulfilling our mission based on everything we are and everything we are not

The two elements we will work on for the three c’s practically is now the dyadic level of fire and earth, the yud and the final hei.

We will look at the contradictory level and work it through. Fire and earth.

Fire is something that is a powerful process that gives light and heat.  To destroy for the sake of building something new. The power offire is the power of recreation based on a willingness to let go of the old.  We don’t need it any more and either we keep parts or abolish it. Fire is for this, passion motivation ad strivings.

Earth is very much the opposite.  It is structure, stability, permanence, where something comes into existence in a fully developed form. It is established with permanence order and consistency.  That is what earth brings. At the first glance, these are opposing, fire and earth  

This contradictory part is clear and we have an internal force pulling to strive and move forward, to see things in a new way with a fresh look and another part wants to feel settled, predictable, ordered and structured.  How do we reconcile them upwards to work together.

There are two practical ways to look at it.

Growing through the holidays, Rosh Hashana, a time when we take everything from 5780 and say last year was hopefully year and we want to move forward to a higher level. We might want to let go of certain parts.  Or we can say it was not a great year and I want to burn them out so the new year is without these remnants, destroying for the sake of building, for the new year, a new creation.  A new higher divine self.  Rosh Hashana says start anew.  It is a new month and year, a willingness to recreate ourselves spiritually, knock out the old or break it down and bring forward some elements to a new year. The koach is like the world being recreated. 

From the 25th of elul to 1 tishrei is the 6 days of creation, the creation of man anew. We are recreating ourselves anew. That is the power of aish within ourselves, to have the vision of ourselves, to have a higher passion for striving.

In elul everything is being fully expressed, the fruits the harvest is being expressed spiritually. Last year has form and structure, a development, it is stable and manifest with a solid presence.  Think about Tishrei and elul, that is aish and afar, fire and earth.  They seem contradictory. But we want to see them as complementary.  The potential is great. That is what we set into reality in pure abstract reality in the beginning of the year.  Elul is the concrete manifestation sown at the beginning of the year, tishrei in potential.  It is a process.  From potential to partial actualization over the year, and the full trimester on the last day of elul.

It comes to full actuality.  On the earth level it is much, the full expression. Elul begs us to go back to our last rosh hashana of what we aspired, yearned for and how that developed over the year. What became f us? Did we grow into the higher beings we aspired to?

As it changed the whole person, how do we become an upgraded person.

Now we earthify it, get it clear, detailed and see it as the development of the whole year.

How do we go higher?

In the seed is the potential that everything will be.  In the actualized form.  The fruit is the fullest expression of everything a seed will be.  The seed is the potential. The fruit is the manifest. But they are identical and therefore they are completing, one and the same. The architectural level and the manifest level of a full house.

Fire and earth, Rosh Hashana and elul, are not just contradictory, but the inner ratzon we have during the time we sow the seeds from a place of divine fear and succos divine love.  At that place we realize it is not just a year of change but of developing our inner being and bringing I tout in the world. That is the completing part. 

It can look contradictory but it is complementary and work towards completing.

On the simple level revisit your Rosh Hashana.  Did you track it, monitor it, or do you look in a broad based way, what did your year learn for to reveal Hashem.  broadly or intuitively, however you come to terms with the full year, it takes many years for divine wisdom to germinate.

Our davening plays out based on what Hashem decrees and fills out over the year. When we look back we realize whether or Rosh Hashana was good or not.  We really did it.

How was last Rposh Hashana taf shin pei, can we remember how our davening was..not at all.  But what came from it, what was decreed and fulfilled and what did I bring into physical structure in the year. That was our rosh hashana . if we graft elul and tishre together, they are one and the same thing. That is one example.

Another example is that anytime you have a way of perceiving the world, a philosophical way to see the potential of how things orient, it comes through our hashkafa.  We have to upgrade it.  Don’t settle with the way we saw the world. It is no different from clothing.  We outgrow our sizes. The natural process of growing is that we change upgrade and tailor our clothes and our hashkafa.  We have to break down and recreate our inner vsion, our inner perspective, of how we see the world.

New corrective vision.

When a new wisdom comes in, a new way of seeing something, we want to upgrade, to lift our sights higher. New corrective vision. That is what we want to be dong. As often as our attention will hold for.

It can be any time. We reflect on something with an emotional impression and that becomes a uniqie way of looking and we like it and my old ways interfere, so I have to be willing to break down the old to recreate the new.  That can mean that stuff is really false or misperceived. That I want to break down and destroy and excrete from the system.  If something is not needed, we let it go. We get a more mature way of relating.

The third level is we want to carry certain parts that are healthy and necessariy and take the new perspecitves and couple it with the old. That new perspective is the frame of reference for how we see things. That is fire on the hashkafa level.

On the earth level it is not just haskafa.  It drives our core decision making process and all our effort from what is irrelevant to more and majorly important. That is tied to our hashkafa. 

We can only hold so much.  It is necessary to shed our skin. We have to update ourhashkafa and convert it into a practical physical orientation to daily life. As we put in our choices, we live practically with a higher divine orientation. The hashkafa joins with the halacha, that is the fire joining with the earth and when they join they complement each other.  When they complement in our inner orientation it infuses us with meaning and striving that makes us happy and joyful, purposeful, fulfilled and aspiring.

There is always more to aspire to there is more to aspire to in mitzvahs, with more emotionality and purpose and passion.  That halachic way of living is that every single part of our life, the earth realm, from existence, sefer is davar, earth. When we experience that on the ground, the practical part of our livat drive makes us feel strongly alive, the innermost passion to actualize our divine identity and live with it in a straight way.

To a great person everything small is big. 
And to a small person even great things appear small.

When we bring upgraded wisdom, that Shabbos is a 7 day a week avoda and to see melacha as a way to use them to create our divine identity, to use them like a strand of pearls, one integrated process like the 39 weeks of pregnancy, to make ourselves a mini mishkan .with the nine conditions, to practicalize what we do during the week and to see our lives through the lens of a melacha and live Shabbos as a seven day a week avoda and transpose ourselves to become a makom for Hashem to be revealed through us

We are here to transform ourselves to bring out our inner Elokus and reconstruct the inner divine identity and realign the inner elements with Hashem and Him back to this body to bring His Glory into the world through my daily life.  We should be excited.

The more we live with melacha, we see H’ decress and fulfills.  And we can be part of that ultimate divine plan

When we upgrade and redefine hashkafa or an upgrade in the framework, it is a game changer, to partner with Hashem increation, to bring Hashem to expression.  Upgrade our way of living in a truthful and integrated way.

Fire and earth complement each other and work together.

As they are bound together we see for every point in hashkacha they complete each other, one and the same thing, the first yud and final hei are completing.  We go out of the natural world where they oppose each other.  And we, the connecting vav, connecting heaven and earth, by connecting to Hashem and changing and transforming ourselves, we rework the elements in ourselves to allow the reworking forms of fire and earth.  By reconfiguring them in ourselves, then on a spiritual level they work together and they can take the extremes in the physical world and they can show the inner divine unity where everything becomes one.  It is the integration of shem havaya, in ourselves and the world around us. We bring fire and earth together in our daily lives. This is transformative living.

These are two examples of how the dyadic elements, in this case fire and earth, can join together.

When we live elementally we feel more balanced and that life is more harmonious, more wholeness, and more connection to Hashem.

When we discover Hashem in this place we see Hashem is One in every detail. He is so big and He is in everything at all times.

We come to see that the elemental interactions in ourselves and the world is very intricate and beautiful.  

Sept 7 Gathering

We are closing out elul and starting a new year and we are blessed with a special chabura to grow and work on our core traits and innermost identity. May Hashem bless us in being able to reveal His presence.

We started the melacha of gathering.  Gathering is a creative activity where we create a usable unit like a bouquet of all the usable parts that came from the ground. 

Look at the elements as pairs, threesome or foursome operating at the same time.

If we are working to integrate and become more whole and complete in our capacities and middos and identities it is imperative to know how the couple and how they can be used to take out the extremism in how we relate inwardly and outwardly. Extremes create imbalance and then we feel uneasy and unsettled.  When we feel that way we don’t have inner calm and inner peace. That comes from places of balance and blending elements when they are working together.

That comes from how the elements work together in tandem, blending and counterbalance through the extremes.  We don’t have to be extreme, we can take things to the opposite and break out of the extremism, bridge them closer and create balance and harmony and ease.  this brings inner calm.

It is the feeling of coming home to your inner neshamas reality that is true to form, true to your inner constitution and when harmonized, wiring to be expressed to the outer world. That is how we reveal Hashem in this world.

The koach of gathering is imperative to learn how the elements can pair and team to remove the imbalance but bring integration and unification,

Last week we spoke about fire and earth, elul to the next year, starting something and closing it out. That is one dyad, the yud and the final hei.

Now we are looking to the hei and the vav the wind and the water how the inner two elements dialytically combine together.

How does wind work and how does it apply to water.

There are different approaches in how to work with these. The more we fold into it together the better our understanding.

Wind is the main force, movement. Movement is very essential to the elements because of somen is stale, going nowhere, the element of movement is absent.

Ruach is important for accomplishing, going places and doing things.

Halacha means the process of going, an expression of wind.

The wind is the fundamental force that drives everything and all the other elements give it expression,  some form of tangible expression.  Wind is intangible and that is also the nature of movement.  It is the driving force to create momentum but it only gets expressed through fire going up and water and earth going down.

Doing is about movement. We see complacency, stagnation, inertia – we have to generate movement.  The six directions, the six constant mitzvahs, whatever we are going in, that is where Hashem can be found.

It is important to harness the power of ruach, whether momentary or not.  It is connected to breath.  It is our inner life force.  The force of life itself is breath, a ruach chaim, an animated soul. breath, the power of movement, the process of going, is to run.  Ratz.  To Elokus.  We are running, movement, momentum. That is very important to look at our lives in a micro and macro way.

What am I doing? What am I getting stuck in?

The reality of movement is clear.

The other element gives it shape form and expression and hopefully stability.

If a person’s wind is not going anywhere, just moving, aimlessly, we need to wonder with purpose and direction.  We want to direct it in a way that is purposeful.

Lets be practical. What do I do this hour, I need focus, direction and purpose.  For the moment year or lifetime.  This is the path to correction.

If we are crazy busy going somewhere but where?

Understand how to harness our breath, our inner movement and how we move and connect it to other things.

One example is someone frenetic, who can’t settle down, trying to go somewhere but doesn’t know where they are going. It does not have direction purpose or ultimate goal. That is unrectified wind.

We can go in the wrong direction or go where we don’t even know where.

Others have to just keep moving, like a young child with adhd.  They can’t sit still, wind blowing inside.  They can’t pay attention or focus on any one thing.  Ultimately it is not a label.  It is about an inner wind that has not been properly channeled to the right end with the other elements.

When a person has a lot of excessive wind, they feel unsettled, busy and doing.  They don’t feel settled. There is buzzing going on inside. That is Hashem’s wind inside of us and we say Hashem how do I direct my inner quality of wind?  The goal is inner calm not restlessness.   We want it to be used to nurture.

That can be an expression of excess wind in all ways.

Still wind is someone stagnating.  They can’t get started with things, they can’t generate movement. It is still all an expression of wind and how we can animate ourselves.  It is just air without form or structure.

So we have wind. Now bring in water and counterbalance the extreme, to calm down excess or get it moving.

We create a divine partnership to bring out the better in each other and co create in a way that can express inner divinity.

Water is the force that gives vitality and sustenance to things. Things have to be sustainable to be permanent.  We need permanence and substantial quantity.

We need water to live, to vitalize the body.  Ruchnius water is necessary to vitalize the soul. it represents the pleasure part that gives vitality and sustenance.

If we do something out of having to do it, that is wind. But if we add water, we find our own inner vitality that gives it energy and expression so that it means something, so that it gives us a sense of inner purpose and sustenance. 

When you add the water, ramp it up. What is in it for me? it seems self serving but higher levels of pleasure are about animating the person.

The wind will blow with strength purpose and direction rather than aimless, petering out or jumping from one direction to another.

People leap from place to place or person to person. There is wind blowing that is unfocused and unchanneled. What would be most pleasurable. What would animate me that I want to nurture and nourish that activity in a way that will be meaningful in the moment. I can be more directed and perhaps that will be the new goal the new set of activities.

Whatever the newness is.

We are not a perpetual student of life.  There are people who are perennial travelers, there is a place for it. But if we try to make something, fire has to ignite the wind that goes to the water that nourishes the earth to manifest something in a stable way.

It is imperative that wind to water ,this dyad, must work to make it help water and earth and unify to common purpose.  Wind and water join up.  This brings from unsettlement and no direction and justifications that we make on being busy, to the opposite, the car is revving, idling very fast, and no matter where we are we are not settled in the self. We are unrestful, in our mind and heart. It is unsettling.  Wind is unrectified. We don’t know where we are going and we get caught up, blowing all over in all the various ways.

Just because we are busy does not mean we are heading to our life purpose and mission. Water has to nurture the proper pleasures, the one suitable for now, and block out the other directions.  Then we focus on the two or three and we cultivate it from wind to water. What are the real pleasures, the real things that energize me and give me vitality so I can move that forward for something to become more ACTUALIZED.

How the water is vitality in the wind is critical and then how they repair to fire and earth dyad, for that brings it from potential to actualized state.

Where is the energy level, the directional way we will blow in that moment.

Here is an example. I look forward to this chabura.  Everyone is dedicated to growing and willing to put themselves on the line to stretch ourselves, to create a sense of vulnerability and caring and support that is a tremendous pleasure to be part of that group.  There is collective merit in the strivings. It is not just the material.  Or the Melachos themselves. Yet sometimes I am tired. But the commitment to a collective group, that is wind, and then the pleasure kicks in, water. There is endless bounds of pleasure to be had in the world, endless forms of vitality, energy and sustenance.  Hashem is unlimited. When we come to a roadblock we can tap something much deeper.

When we awaken that sense of water within us and find striving pleasures and get new frames of reference and how to grow boundlessly with others, the direction we can go and how we make it real, we can create tikkunim in klal Yisrael through family and projects. It re-energizes us.

Rav Weinberg said in answer to the question don’t you ever get tired?  We are a stiff necked people.  Water is the pleasure that energizes.

Water sustains the body and the soul and gives endless fuel in our own striving without limit because Hashem is endless in His ability to bestow.

We want to channel it into the right avoda.  Look at that. Hashem gave birth to another part of me, He is the source of all goodness. If I find the water source within me, there will be no shortage of water ever.

If we connect that water back, we can give it sustainability, give it permanence.

We realize the wind is less extreme, more counterbalanced, more middle groundish, settled, more at ease.  More tranquil with what I am doing and who I am.

We are trying to find the part of our identity to fuse with awareness and purpose.

Water and wind are the dominant qualities.  They can work in tandem. Complementing in a way that balancing out and blending in harmony.  And then all for to one reality, and we feel the deepest connection to Hashem for He is in everything. If we use the right animating forces to vitalize the direction with purpose and focus it is a zechus to exist and be h is representative, to be his oved Hashem in the activities.

The elements blend together and the koach is surging, experiencing sublime loftiness. I am a necessary part of His creation to bring witness. This activity of water and wind blending together through my inner constitution – the world is so sublime with something as practical there is nothing small.

We slow everything down in this divine soul. the ingathering within the self is surging and the elements blend together. We feel the divinity in it

May we transform the oppositional elemental forces in nature to see they are complementary and interincluded, completing, blending and merging together, and we feel the constancy of hashem in the world it is sublime living on the ground.

Sept 14

Sept 21 Elemental Yamim Noraim

October 19 - Koach of Meamer

We are moving in a new direction and continuing with the melachas and the four foundations.

Quick review of the melacha:

We are on the fourth gathering. What is the underlying creational element or force? It is the ability to create a usable unit of objects into a new entity like a sting of pearls. There is a new reality of a collective greater than the individual parts.

Each element has its own force. We said the koach of fire is that it is recreating something anew. To destroy something to create something new. Wind creates motion to what something is doing. Water gives vitality and earth gives it physical expression, a tangible and permanently. Each is on its own. The challenge is that when it co-exists with others, they oppose each other, wind blows our fire. We are trying to come to terms with the oppositional part. There is a place for them to coexist.  We have to get back to hashem echad.

We have to go into the elements the natural world and work on nullifying the individual expression of the element so it is not oppositional to another because that is extremism.  Our job is not to just be extreme but to be balanced in our middos. midda is measure, 49, so the elements work together. We are using the koach of gathering to look at how the elements can couple together to knock out the oppositional parts to coexist and work together. We want to remove the imbalance extremism so they can work together, work together as balancing, so they can harmonize and blend so they can become unified.

We are using the koach of meamer, gathering, to see how they work together. Water is counterbalanced by earth, last week’s discussion and now how to use earth and use water to counterbalance it so it can have a tremendous partnership and literally twin together as one reality. We would feel the craziness of the extremism, the profound conflict and then feel calmness and settlement as they work together and that is more expression of self and as they work together there is peace wholeness and joy and feeling hashem work through us and it is not us any more.

Earth: fire wind and water all have animating forces to them. Each emanate something. Earth is the expression of being mekabel, to receive something, draw it in and bring it actualized form.  The place of potential and earth brings it actualization, full expression it can give it structure and form that is perceivable, fixed and lasting, that is afar.

On the middos level we need earth to give it expression. What do we do practically. What are the tasks at hand, what is the halacha hamaisa, the practical expression, the details. Everything has to be actualized in this world the trick is that earth has a deep paradox built in. since it has no light of its own it gives the fullest expression from the elements above, malchus gives expression of the other sefirot. Its beauty is to draw everything above, coalesce and interinclude it so that it brings everything to show Hashem’s beauty, its fully expressed form. It draws from outside of it. Earth has to get from fire wind and water.

On a middos level, although we have to get to practicality, the actions can be very empty, dry, flat boring, unanimated habitual, lacking life force. When we come to the element of earth the feminine quality, it draws from the element above.

What does it look like if we are excessively earth based, a tremendous doer, without direction needing wind, not having vitality, water, or the higher clarity of fire. We can be a doer but it can be extreme.  We can be lacking the feeling of good or downgrade to rigidity.  Inflexibility, no bending or yielding to life’s direction. Things just have to be.  That might not be so accommodating. We have to be very adaptive and therefore a pure earth way of relating can be suffocating and maladaptive and cause a person to be nervous and edgy. It has to go a certain way because that is the way it is.  We cant control it and we get nervous.  Even more, with my own earth quality, that can lead on a relationship level where a person is hyper-controlling and not able to receive anything and affect our eating and sleeping.  We can’t control the weather and other things.  All tied to excessive earth. The sadness or edginess can go into depression and hopelessness. Inadequacy.

The flip side is insufficient earth - earth is an elemental force.  It can go to the nefesh behamis, but it has to work in tandem with the other three elements. Fire wind and water are the mashbiim that give earth vitality purpose and higher focus.  One’s middos are not so extreme. We can then start to function more optimally and express Hashem. if we don’t look at all those places, we are not adaptive. Laziness is I cant generate momentum.  Like a swing without going back and forth. Therefore I don’t have enough earth to create a task, to bring something. I may be a good starter but I can’t close it up, wrap it up in a full complete way. 

Earth means we can bring it to its fullest expression and realize it is everything and nothing. Al the other elements are spilling into it. The earth has no animating force for itself. It requires breaking oppositional elements in order to connect.

How does water bring the force to build a collective unity. If it is excessive we have to bring water, vitality, sustenance, pleasure and animation.  If I am lacking meaning or pleasure, it is about relationship, that is aspects of water.  I am doing things in life but it is not pleasurable, it is robotic.  It is harder to get up. I am not driven by vitality and higher expression.

What is the pleasure element in my day to day living and mitzvahs that give the earth the necessary potency. Water is what makes the ground grow.  If you put a seed on dry ground nothing happens. Or if there is not enough earth we have to flood it to reinvigorate it so the earth can take in the water.

Not oversaturated or over hydrated so that it is too much to take in.  we have to use our wise eye to see what degree of excess or insufficiency there is in the earth so that the counterbalance can be made.  Salt water is not going to promote healthy growth. Too much water makes mud and no seed can take.  The right amount of water knocks out the extreme and allows them to work together and then there is a partnership. They are a collective unity together. If I have more passion and pleasure in life I have more motivation or less rigid or more life force to feel more flexible. The extremism needs a little more animating force.

Tishrei is through, we are in Marcheshvan, living without the holidays. It is easy to feel the emptiness, not driven and blah. We have to go after that to make sure it is not going into depression. We have to go back to our goals of what we are aspiring to, making hashem our king, connecting back to Him. It is to fall into the simcha. We have the first month of Tishrei, our passion and yearning and putting it into concrete examples. This is what I am going to be doing every day to move forward so it feels like a new year. It has to be that I am relating to myself and Hashem in a new and upgraded way.  We just had Bereshis, and we are re-creating ourselves spiritually. I want to take the earth element and couple it with water, what is the passion that energizes me and vitalizes so that when I put it into he structure it is driven by the excitement, the vitalization of the Chaggim. Tishrei is infusing itself into Cheshvan. We are taking wind and putting it into water to come into expression in a meaningful way, daily consistent. Go back to all the goals of elul and the chaggim. What did I dedicate to, whether it is internal, restructuring our identity through our middos, and dedicate itself today. When the water comes into the earth it is not boring or dry, it is purposefull. Then Mar becomes rom the elevation. We are toiling with purpose with all the craziness that is going on, we are not bothered by it. When the water pairs with the earth and does not supersaturate new seeds cant root and sprout and break through and re-create in actualized form. Then the earth comes alive.

SAD <> DAAS

Seasonal affective disorder SAD backwards is DAAS. When you know your place to rededicate yourself to serving Hashem and have the strong fire from the aish and you have inner vitality and meditate and are grateful to serve Hashem anew, then Hashem help me give it expression with form and structure and tangibility. Then the elements are working together and no basis to be sad. We are full of simcha. We are energized and enlivened. In terms of things that are rigid we are doing the right thing with the intent and purpose

Awareness intent and purpose

Connect to water what is giving pleasure and meaning. And put in the intention throughout the day and be mindful.  Go through the parts that give pleasure and meaning

Purpose what gives purpose.  We are here to serve Hashem to reveal something greater in this world and bring His Gory in the world through us at the activity level. We are awakening our core bring to express Hashem’s presence in this world.

We are going to counterbalance what needs it. Once the laziness and inertia is broken and the sadness is gone, then the water gives the earth vitality and can dance with the water. When they infuse they co-create with each other. Then rigidity becomes rejoicing because nothing is mundane.

We put a higher meaning and purpose, direct and get to the results, knocking out disproportional earth and bringing in water, understand it is coming deep in the soul, an extreme, and invoke water or other elements, and how to begin for them to create a new collectible unit.  The functionality of what we do, the more harmonious we are in counterbalancing the more real we are, the more we can fulfill our divine purpose in this world.  That ist he inner elemental balance. We can serve Hashem with no limit, in how we can express it. This is where ethe higher level of Hashem’s light comes into the world when we remove the concealment of the nefesh beheima and feel the nefesh Elokim. The sadness is transformed to joy and we move with alacrity and intensity and purpose. There is inner calm and tranquility and wholeness that says I am not just good it is Hashem on loan to me, feeling His presence in my inner world and in my very being. It is equisite to feel that and all we want to do is reflect His Divine presence. That is what earth can bring into its fully expressed form.

If we don’t counter-balance and water is above earth, it is the emanating force. We are maiign the vav connect to the hei. We remove the separateness of the earth of malchus that we want to reconnect back to the water to the vav, to its higher form. When we bring the elements back to gather it goes until we bring His name into completion.

As we go into fall where things are breaking down, they are reconstructing to go to a higher form.

We have to be careful that the yetzer hara wants us to be not motivated or not working hard.  It is not that we are meant to enjoy it is its message, just do the right thing. We have to enjoy it. Hashem’s reality is tov umativ.  Cheshvan is an exciting month. We are cultivating the pure potential.  That is the recreation of the beriah.  This is what we are talking about.  We don’t want to get over indulged with the water. We want to unify the vav and hei to feel Hashem’s presence.  Let’s knock out the nefesh behama parts of earth and water, for the Elokus part to do things in a precise consistent vitalized way. It is a tremendous zechus to develop ourselves spiritually to develop the divine identity and bring out more shechina in the world, using the gathering collectible unit.  To have proper connection. It is not being extreme, we want healthy balance.  Reveal shechina in a full way.  And know hashem the way we are meant to. May we set our sights a little higher..

Oct 26 / 8 Cheshvan
The Relevance of Focusing on Oneself and Self-Care as the Basis for Torah Observance

-Why is so essential to understand it?
-How do we relate to our relationship to ourselves and our actual soul?

How do we take a basis for self-care and what are the sources and why is it fundamental and to what extent do we relate to ben adom latzmo, our relationship to ourselves, the way Chazal describe it. What does it mean, and how does it tie back to the elements.

Let’s take a direct look. Let’s ask what is hindering us, how do we help ourselves and how can we grow in ben adom lnafsho.

Let’s look at parsha Haazinu, chapter 32 pasuk 5. It says:

“corruption is not His. The blemish is His children’s a perverse generation.”

the gimel chamures, the three cardinal sins

This verse addresses the gimel chamures, the three cardinal sins that the Gemara says we are supposed to give up our life for.

We are using that as a fundamental source for deriving a human relationship to oneself.

These verses reference the gimel chamuros, sexual immorality, idolatry and murder. These three sins are so fundamental that the Torah says we can give up life, they are fundamental.

The Vilna Gaon says:

these 3 cardinal sins are the gimel amuda of tuma, the three pillars of impurity. Sexual immorality is the impurity of a person’s relationship with the soul, avoda zara is ban to Hashem and murder is man to man.  It means categorically the fundamental murder is tied to murdering someone else. There are three fundamental channels of impurity that are so strong we are asked to give up our life for it.

These three pillars – where do we see it is true. He quotes Pirke Avos, the three pillars the world is built on, the three pillars of holiness. Torah avoda and gemilas chesed, learning, prayer and acts of kindness. The Maharal says that those are fundamental that those three pillars of kedusha parallel the three levels of relationship. Torah is to ourselves, avoda is to Hashem and chesed is to others.

The Vilna gaon says if we see the parallel to the two are really the relationship to ourselves Hashem and each other.  The three pillars parallel each other. If the three pillars of tuma require us to take ourselves out of the world then the three pillars of holiness that the world stands on, we have to live fully for, as if we would give our life.

If the three pillars of holiness are for self, hashem and others and these are all relationships, there are three core pillars for creation itself.  Our relationship to our self, Hashem and others. The world is built on divine relationships to oneself others and Hashem and if we have to die to remove the impurity in that we have to go all out to the greatest level to live fully, wholeheartedly for the divine purity of these relationships, to oneself, others and Hashem, through these mediums of Torah, avoda and chesed. It is not just a poetic term. We can say that they are not just a nice thing to do but rather a spiritual imperative.

The Vilna Gaon says we have to give our lives to live fully for it.  Torah, a relationship to oneself.

The Maharal says the same thing. What are they alluding to and why are they fundamental on kedusha and tuma?

When it comes to extracting out the divine purity, we have to give our lives all out for living like this.  All the resources, time, resources, to acquire a relationship to oneself however Torah is the essential to that tied to no forbidden relationships.

The Vilna Gaon quotes the daf that if a person wants to be a true righteous person they have to acquire Avos, Pirke Avos, brachas, blessings and the laws of damages.

• Learning PIrke Avos is a tikkun of one’s middos that is relationship with the self
• Saying brachos is developing feeling and making more intimate the relationship with Hashem
• Learning the laws of damages is between man and man.

The Vilna Gaon says why these three?  They are essential. Learning pIrke avos is a tikkun of one’s middos that is relationship with the self. Saying brachas is developing feeling and making more intimate the relationship with Hashem and learning the laws of damages is between man and man.

Being a righteous person means being elevated, take Torah and bring out a relational quality to it.  Learning Torah, saying brachas and learning the laws of damages, the Torah is based on these three relationships to self, Hashem and others.

These are core pillars for creation itself.

The world is built on these pillars of holiness and purity.  Purity of soul within the self, fixing our middos through pirke avos is how we develop it. Then through relationship we bring it out.  Based on what the Vilna Gaon is telling us the whole yeshiva world is based on this. Torah is telling us clearly this reality of ben adom lnafsho is something so essential absolutely obligatory, an imperative, and there is no way to say it is not relevant. The Torah is obligating this as a spiritual imperative. We have to work a lifetime to work on ourselves and our relationship with Hashem and others.

The three pillars are the basis for standing up relationships

The three pillars that the world gets it vitality from every second.

This is something to remember.  In the beginning the ten Melachos correspond to the 39 weeks of gestation. Each week parallels a melacha. We are creating ourself for relationship with self, developing middos, inner kedusha, through the studying of Torah itself. When you bring out the kedusha you bring out the kedusha itself. The four elements are pipelined into our inner constitution, our fundamental basis is rooted in the elements, the basis of our nefesh.  A nefesh with a choice. It comes into a human form.  There is also a Godly part of us and Hashem asks us to toil in Torah and grind in not just academically, but rather it is a chiddush, a place of renewal. There is a divine reality to His creation and that is the true reality. When we awaken part of ourselves we awaken the inner divinity of our soul, the elemental levels whether in fire, wind water or earth.  We are arousing and igniting those elements in our soul that allow us to relate to the nefesh and we realign from the nefesh and relate higher to Elokus.  That is what baba kama is telling us, that we are realigning ourselves through our divine identity and that is where we reveal it, ben adom lnafsho a pillar to our existence itself. It is not an option or luxury. Every single Jew relative to what the root soul is invited to know who you are.  You are a soul. there is an elemental makeup and remove the elements of ego strivings or pains and come to the Elokus and find capacities and come to bring out the divine identity. learn Torah to learn your own unique hailic and into our relationships all by relationship with self. We are living then in His reality. If we don’t then watch out because the three pillars of impurity, avoda zara, immorality and murder tell us that they are the same parallel as Torah avoda and chesed. They are two sides of the same coin and what is common is the three levels of relationship. Life is only relationship. Be driven to know yourself. Even your own wackiness and craziness. Hashem made that for a reason.

He gives us an inner constitution to release the trappings of our soul through Torah and toiling and tikkun hamiddos, we rework our core identity and release the four elements and recreate ourselves through the Melachos we partner in creating the world by unmasking Him. We don’t want Him veiled anymore.  Ben adom lnafsho means we go after our yetzer hara.

We have a few sources Haazinu and Vilna Gaon and it all fits, but when the Gemara says chossid it means chassidus. No…

for each person to release their inner righteousness we have to have a willingness to engage ourselves both on the side of impurity and purity and reconcile these points of conflict and reckon with them. Our ambivalences that go to the basis of our lives. Hashem needs us to partner with Him in unveiling the hester panim of this world.

Ben adom lnafsho means knowing oneself in the fullness of oneself

Ben adom lnafsho means knowing oneself in the fullness of oneself, asking oneself questions and be serious about ourselves, betrothed and create a life. To know, love and bring out the innermost truth in oneself, the divine identity and release the divine identity which is giving back to Hashem. when we tie this back to Him we bring out and strengthen the three pillars of creation itself.

In the world today many people are talking about politics and governments – who are you devoted to? 

Refocus who you are voting for to whom you are devoted to… Hashem. 

Are you devoted to helping others be their best at all times? … not because you NEED them to be something for YOU but to bring out their true luster, their innermost constitution?

Are you devoted to yourself, providing for your needs, taking care of yourself, showing proper dignity and respect?

Even when we do struggle, and this is not goyish, new age psychology, it is unadulterated Torah, Hashem’s reality in the world and He wants us to do our part to help create through the 39 melachos and know our divine identity and to know the elements to fix and release the holiness and be a pillar. This is the basis for ben adom lmakom. 

What are your excuses and rationalizations? What is holding you back from taking it to heart and mind, where are the places you self-deprecate, we say we are not enough, I was given mediocre capacities. 

Is that really true?

Is that the limited ego-based way? 

The nefesh behama has to be challenged and come to nefesh Elokis on an emotional and spiritual level, bringing the elements to Hashem to create and reveal His divine unity within us and as Yidden join together, to bring sheilamos, for the restoration of the bais hamikdosh and for the world to function for its higher expression, ben adom lnafsho tells us we have a critical role. We must lean into our issues, work them through, put in all the resources. He tests us and He wants our divine testimony, who are we devoted to

Work through our blocks and they transform to building blocks, to sweetness.  This is what we are doing in the creational melacha, creating ourselves, bringing out the Elokus bringing closeness and divinity and letting us shine in the world as He wants us to. This is our devotion. In hashem’s world this is what He wants us to do.

May we be zocheh. To merit, to purify ourselves.  Ben adom lnafshi is the most exquisite thing. Let’s relate to it as the basis. And use the mleachos creationally every week. See the underling elements fire wind water and earth as the basis of our divine identity and bring it out and partner with hashem and we see we are essential to creation.

Understanding knowing and loving oneself is really important.

These verses tell us important – take yourself seriously. Care, love deeply and be amazed by our divine dignity and realize there is nothing insurmountable. Do it with simcha and joy and appreciation.

Ben adom lnafsho. Nov 2, 2020 / 15 Cheshvan

As we head to pre-elections and pre-messianic era..how deeply are we devoted to Hashem.

We are dealing with the 39 creative activities and the four elements as our core identity fire wind water and earth, paralleling Yud K vav K that permeates our being.  Tzelem Elokim paralleles 248, the limbs, and it is our structure.

Every part of our existence is the relationship, Ben adom lnafsho.

Every part of our existence is the relationship, the context and the functionality is the text.  Hashem is driving everyting.  Mharal tells us working on relationships with others is how we manifest working with Hashem.  when the shechina dwells with us then the shechina has a place to come.  That is the context of our life.

It is our obligation and a spiritual imperative to develop and grow a deeper relationship with the self.  Using Torah avoda and chesed, the three pillars, parallel the self, Hashem and others.  The biggest chiddush is the relationship with our self. It is not sitting and being aware, it is about being curious to know like and love and have a deeper connection to oneself.  But underscore it is the origins of where we catalyze and process to go from the inside out.  There are two other pillars and each can only stand with the other.  Hashem is not taking away relationship with Hashem, we have six constant mitzvahs, and with ahavas Yisrael. But those don’t stand without relationship with the self, not just tikkun hamiddos.  We are going to kedusha, the stripped-down level of the four elements. The underlying basis of our inner divinity, our core identity. That is why we go to such a level.

Is there a tendency to stay on oneself? Do we have a moral obligation to help others, yes but there is a deeper point from Hillel. In the first perek 14th Mishnah, if I am not for myself who is for me?  and if I am just for myself what am I and if I don’t start now then when. In this statement is the core issue. This dual, this paradox, in growth, if we crack it open we get it. If we don’t we are bewildered. The chiddush is if you are not going to start with oneself, who will be for me.  Humans are selfish, to focus on the self and not others and if we want to secure our needs, we cant wait for others to be impressed to have that. If we need our own approval we cant wait for that to come from others. You have to do that. The first chiddush is don’t expect or want that someone will give you what you can’t have on your own. It is in you rooted in Hashem. it is a pillar of creation. A person has to be married to themselves first, and all the incredible traits that come with that. It has to be. But the flip side, if I am just for myself what am I?  if you think it is just for the self, that is in error. The point of developing identity at the element level is for the sake of going beyond the self. This is critical.  The point of developing the self is to go beyond the self so why do you need to have a self. This is where all growth lies.

We poskin like Hillel on everything. Hillel was known for going from earth to Heaven and Shamaai was heaven to earth. Hillel says start with self for the sake of others. You have to have a dual focus, that I have a responsibility to know and love myself and yet it is always un the condition for extending oneself to others to bestow that to others. The whole point of getting to ben adom lechaveiro is nafso and visa versa. If you start and stop with the self you are not doing it right. But if you are doing it to focus on everyone else and now it is time to develop the self and life is about others, and then life is over, so if we don’t start now, when will we. But we have to hold the paradox of ani for the self going beyond self and when we do that we understand the commonality between those. The commonality is divinity, inner Elokus. If I want to acquire my Elokus I cant go to others first. Someone holds the value to my value.  Hillel says find it in yourself first. As you do it convert the anochius to Elokus, the self-orientation to a greater place of Elokus.  In that place of Elokus, in that place of inner Gdliness is the ultimate desire to connect to others, to spouse, children, family and friends, holding space for the klal and the world.

The depth of the inner Elokus of oneself is to connect in soul time and space if the Elokus is connected properly.  You cant start with others to develop the self. Start with the self.  Develop the capacities and go deeply to see one’s divinity and then there is a yearning to reach up and connect klal Yisrael to you. Interconnection and interinclusion, the inner of our divine identity, there is an ongoing to connect every Jew to bind oneself and to be interincluded in them and they in you to become one reality.

That creates a place for the Shechina, a place. That is bais hamikdosh, klal Yisrael coming together with joint purpose.  In that place that is where the Jewish people can fulfill themselves.  It is for lmakom, their love between each other, collectively, community, they understand that at the depth of that collectivity of individual parts from the ground, that collectiveness is Hashem. there is no separate autonomous existence.  Lechaveiro is flipped into makom.  Then Hashem can say they have turned back to me . it has to come back to makom.  The start is latzmo, the intermediate is chaveiro, and the ultimate is makom.

We have a moral responsibility to connect to every Jew in a loving way , see one’s divine identity and extend that out and awaken that in them and extract something from their soul to bring to you. Interinclude and create divine unity.  That is latzmo into lechavero.  They are one divine reality, one ultimate truth, that has three core pillars but this relationship brings us to divine unity in creation. The Elokus you awaken in yourself allows us to connect to Jews, like and love and serve together and create a place of divine unity as the ultimate collective female so that Hashem enters us  so that the world can reveal Hashem. that is Hillel’s vision. Therefore there is no getting stuck on the self. Only if we are not furthering the growth process to connect to to others.  This triatic connection is one , Elokus.

Maybe we get so clever in our own thinking, we can see so much within, is that it?  Does that bring us to the inner Elokus that extends to others and brings greater unity?  It is not that simple. We are most removed. It is not straightforward or logical.

On the level of daas – are we to transcend our daas or just work with it.

Yes we need to work within our daas, to understand ourselves, our identity and our elements of how we are uniquely made up in us and how we serve Him. We are meant to understand and do as much as we can.  But it is self and beyond self. We have an obligation to know ourselves and toil. Amol.  Ayim mem lamed. One method of encoding is that if you advance it one letter forward peh nun mem, when a person toils spiritually, all out, the goal is to break the anochius, break the self orientation to break the daas. Then that wisdom internalizes and the divine identity gets released from captivity.

The word amel is amalek. What is the connection. 

Amalek is the basis of doubt that causes confusion causing us to think we are something to ourselves. The letter kuf is a monkey that imitates.  Amalek imitates kedusha. We have to toil to break the anochius and then the kuf is lashon kedusha. We subjugate the inner and then release the kedusha.  How far does this really go, that we go as far as we can to have daas and go beyond. Daas is the center of chochma bina and daas and straight up to keter, the ultimate place of unknowing. There is a lot of depth in that. How do we know ourselves and transcend and go above.

An essay by the Nesivos Shalom says Avraham was tested. He brings that Avraham, the ultimate baal chesed, loyal and committed to Sara and all his virtues, but when Pirke avos says to be a student of Avraham it says have three things, an ayin tova, a ruach menucha and a nefesh faila, a good eye a lowly spirit and a humbled soul. the Neisvos Shalom asks how is that a true description of him and what he did. 

It is the basis for all ten tests.

The main concept and this is the answer. Know that when it comes to nullification, the concept of bitul, there is not just the nullification of something on the level of body.  there is bitul on the level of soul, the ability to see is the neshama, the ruach and nefesh. When the Mishna lists these, it subsumes Avraham’s monotheistic role and all his other middos and actions. In these three levels, Avraham teaches bitul hayeishus belokus. There is nullification of the yeishus in the soul.

The soul  is not just pure in and of itself – this is describing being a talmud of Avraham is saying nullify the soul too. The Nesivos Shalom says yes nullify the body so it should be subservient. But there is in the soul a perception of a separate existence, how we look at the self as being separate. I am a soul; it is I. it is the self-perceiving itself. And the mishna is telling us that it is not enough to develop the capacities and get to the shoresh of the inner elements.  We are also being mevatel and nullifying the self, if it is done in a healthy way.  The challenge is if you nullify in an unhealthy way you diminish the self in a way that the ani can’t go to ayin. The letters ani turn to ayin. If we give up the kochos hanefesh and our inner elements and we work and refine them, we will want to give up the paradox of self. As you go through the external part of malchus you find the inner penimius and then send up to keter. If you give up a healthy self correctly then it can go to keter. That is the nature of converting anochius to Elokus. That is the ultimate paradox to transcend the daas to the level of daas.

You meld with Hashem’s reality, His existence in which we are a ray of light in His existence.

If we think we will transcend and bypass, that wont work. If you stay in daas you will see the grandiosity of self but there is still an independent sense of self. There is bitul in the yeishus itself. Once the level of soul is connected , that is the chiddush of what Avraham did, he transcended his soulful existence that the bitul of the yeishus was transparency. They didn’t experience themselves as separate.  They didn’t see themselves as self.  There is no self there. The deeper you get into the anochius.  You don’t look at yourself so bound up with Hashem it is a ray of light emanation from the sun. no independent reality whatsoever. That is the key of transforming the latzmo to lmakom. When you find the Elokus and you nullify the body and the soul and convert the part of the atzmius, you feel true existence from healthy non-existence.  When you have unhealthy existence from belittling and shame and blame, shame says you are a bad person and don’t matte even to the world, then I devalue on my terms and you are not worthy of my love unless you follow my conditions. Then I feel like I don’t exist and that is annihilation and abandonment, I don’t matter at all, I am unlovable and if I don’t exist I may aw well not exist. Hashem put that in the world so we can have a healthy bitul.

Know your innermost constitution and what scares you and have a willingness to transcend it.

It is an expression of Him and then you have healthy bitul, not that at I am a false nothing but a true nothing, that goes from the external malchus where we feel nonexistence and draw in real existence, that the yeishus flips over.  Shai is one of the seven languages for giving. The simplicity is when we knock out separate sense of self in a healthy way it gets converted to shai, 310 and yakar is 310. But when we animate the self we have keri 310, that is the yeishus. When we animate the separate self we rely on others to care for us and we feel like nothing, that is a false sense of bitul that is going to counterfeit self. When you have a true sense of knowing to the inner self, bitul hayeishus on the level of nefesh and the level of ruach and of ultimate wisdom each level is a higher level of being an expression of hashem, a true manifestation from above to below. That is what the mishnahi is speaking about. That is the ultimate gadlus of Avraham.

The more we can withstand nisayanos in body and soul then we can transcend daas to the ream of keter, where the three unknowable heads are.  All there is in that place is Hashem, ayin. Your true nothing ness is Hashem’s everythingness.

Have a healthy sense of self, understand your qualities and capacities and break the koach of amalek and connect, it is there what we feel our own true nothingness and His everythingness, the ayin, ani to ayin.

11-9

11-16 The simplicity of Hashem’s divine unity.

The big picture we are working on – every time you get the klal clear, the details come more clear and the details help the klal get clear .

 How do we develop our own Gdly relationship to oneself?

The level of relationship with the self is the animal and the Gdly side, the animal side is our self referencing, how we look at and relate to the world. Why get rid of it?  The negative side of sense of self is our own perceived separateness in our existence and that is detachment. We don’t want that. We want to transform the self. We remove the perception of independent existence. We are saying we are truly nothing on our own yet everything related to Hashem. that is called bitul hayeishus, yeishus is something independent of Hashem. our limitations and faults, when we make them our own exclusively, that is the anochius, that causes the concealment of the divine and the world at large. As we slow that down, then we bring the illumination of Hashem into the world. Shin yud is one of the seven languages of giving, going beyond oneself, the same letters as yeish.  Yishai is yud shin yud.  Clearly we see the transformation of the ego is what we are aspiring to. Then we bring out the nefesh elokis. That is the summary.

Another important detail is – and there is a healthy sense of bitul and yeishus. The unhealthy sense is when others convince you you are nothing or you are nothing unless. You should never hear that in your life time. But when we feel totally diminished where we don’t feel we should exist, that is unhealthy. If you don’t know or possess or reach a goal, you are not nothing  your worth is not based on external condition.  Those conditions do not make what makes you matter. The world, whomever is saying that, is saying you are nothing unless…we buy in that we are nothing unless I have that. That is counterfeit bitul. Open a different place.  If done correctly, our scope will help us get to a Gdly place to others and self and Hashem.

The big question is, how do we know if we have a healthy strong enough sense of self that we can know it is appropriate to give it to Hashem knowing that the self that will come back in will be an upgrade where one’s inner Elokus is awakened.

It is tricky because it is walking a fine tightrope, loke over Niagra falls.  Very deep to the right and left and you are walking very carefully and you move forward working on bitul hayeishus is the same. If you have no sense of self or deep attachment difficulties, you have no sense of self, there is nothing to give up because whatever you think you are giving up is not there.  On the other hand over identifying with our qualities, all people telling you that you are the best, you are great, an expert, amazing, hyperboles of flattery – we don’t want to let go of that. 

How does a person get to know that you can err, how do you transform the nefesh behama into elokis wo that the elements will reappropriate to divine identity so that your middos attach to the Gdly side?

It is not easy to do well but it has to be possible in every way. 

Conceptually,  the phrase is just enough but not too much. Do I have enough belief in myself, enough identification with those qualities and characteristics, that I call them me, that is me. just enough. And once it starts to attach that I feel enough comfortable and enough skilled, catch it and release it and give to Hashem.  Strengthen my identity that I identify with those characteristics, but once I think this is a real me and not an extension of Hashem that is when to release.

We know the reality of chometz and matzah.  When it is leavened, it is chometz and it is forbidden on Pesach, we are nullifying all aspects of ego. But matzah is a simplified form a bread. What is the point. The point is crucial so too by the ego. Once it is mixed, with water and flour, it has up to 18 minutes to go through a baking process so that it does not rise, the bare essentials are there. We want simple clean no exaggeration.   I had the zechus to go to a matzah factory and there is a clock and detailed line from the mixing to the packaging. Every 30 seconds someone calls out the time loudly and everyone has to understand.  They knew to each person’s job that they have between 20 to 40 seconds to do their job and pass it on and to the oven with a clearance of a minute. If you think about it, what is the big deal?  18 minutes. Practically on the ground the reality of matzah is the bare essential element of the ego, just enough of the inner substance to be identified, quantified and baked so something good can be done with that, so it doesn’t take up more than time and space.

Too little is here is a bag of flour start eating. We choke on it. Nothing developed.  It has to be enough to go through mixing the flour and water going through the preparation and oven. 18 is chai, life, and that means life in this world and the next is the extent we take all that we have from a bare essential minimum to see that we identify with them and use them and are aware of the traps.  When we do enough we give it to Hashem. 

That is for matzah.  That is the bare essentials. How do we know that in a characteristic?  Develop your intuition.  How do you operate.  Let’s say you have a job and give you an evaluation. So you ask, what did you do well.  You can appreciate these are your qualities, but there is a holding on it, give it back to Him.  Thank you for giving me these attributes, with the right people, in the right way, at the right time.  It is a divine endowment but it is not truly my own.  I hope that I merit to use it the right way. That concept of not getting too attached. Then it is god. But when it is too engrained or outside affirmations, it is impossible for gaiva to not get attached.

Healthy anivus is not diminishment of the self it is rooted back to Him, hefker, He is the true owner, He is the baal.  I possess them short term.  Every day when we say shema we give it back to Him in a microsense. And when we are conscious during the day, we are mindful that this belongs to Him.  I have nothing, there is nothing but Hashem.  help me to use it the right way with the right people. It should reveal their divine qualities, bring out the best in each person.  But when you diminish, and say I don’t have great qualities. Or we compare and they did so much better. Comparatively we feel small.  Even when I thought I did, I feel so small.  That is well under 18 minutes.

We see that this is super important. The mechanism is the flip of how to get from behema to elokis and rework elements to Gdly self. All of the various forms of counterfeit whether externally or overinflated, you can’t have bitul hayeishus.

We need the round baked matzah under the 18 minute mark, sweet, nice taste. No inflation. That is what we are trying to find in our qualities.  It does not have to be overplayed in any way. 

How does this play out?  Tefillah. We have an obligation and a privilege to talk to Hashem formally and informally in hisbodedus. 

When you stand before Hashem you are trying to get into that healthy state of bitul hayeishus.  We can’t pray?  We feel unworthy to talk to Him?  We are not that devoted, maybe we don’t always feel belief?  Maybe I am too small. NO. we need healthy bitul, yave a healthy sense of somethingness. Hashem loves me regardless of where I am holding regardless of where I am holding. I am a spark of His reality and He wants to hear from me in any form.  I will try. Whether I say brachas or an informal prayer, the ways I talk to Him, tatte help I am struggling.  How do I squeeze it into five minutes. Give it to Him. We do teshuva and show appreciation. The requests we have are not because I am entitled.  We beseech Him because we ask Him, our Father in heaven, the expression of rachmanus giving whether or not we deserve it. He is good and does good. He is the source of ultimate goodness. .wee want new goodness for today.  We need a healthy sense of bitul that I truly matter to Him no matter what. I really am something, an extended ray of light from Him, an expression of His divine being in this world whether I do well today or not. I exist and I take my limited existence and put it into prayer. I am willing to go into the process of bitul hayeishus.  That is one of many examples.  It is very important to do on a regular basis.

Go into a relationship humbly. Hold space for the other person with a desire to give in the cleanest way that you can based on what that person needs. I am a shaliach that Hashem is endowing them through me at this moment. Then I am a transparent table a glass through which something is emanating. It is from Hashem and through me.  the ultimate expression of giving. They only wanted to direct it back to Hashem.  praise Hashem.  that is bitul hayeishus. Whether we are on the extreme of over or under inflated, we have to find the just enough, for every person. That point will be a little different.  Just enough. There is some level of substance there. 

Just enough that it hs existence and sustainability. It becomes its own entity.  They had to leave mitzrayim with alacrity so the birth could take place but not to be attached to the elements in the world. That is what we have to work towards in a healthy way. 

The other question is how to do this through the extremes.  If you have healthy esteem, just enough, feel like you are the conduit and feel the transcendency.  How do you get there. You get there through the extremes. Unhealthy ego is the basis to get to healthy ego.  Use the extremes. Tere is a significant middle point.  The gap as we define it, we can bring the extremes together.  In the case of a characteristic or quality, like overidentifying.  I have been told since birth I am a gifted child, destined for greatness, the ego is so inflated, that I am super exceptional and gifted , and I overidentified. Not that I don’t identify with the trait, but that trait is not my own. The consciousness is to say yes I have been gifted with a special quality or attribute in music or talent. I have been gifted. I am not the source. He endowed me and I see it is a special quality, it is a big responsibility to use wisely so others will benefit. I don’t need how great and wonderful I am.  It is a hyper developed trait. I have to identify less as the source and more as an endowment. I have been gifted by Hashem.  then over time it is much less mine in an ownerless way and more mine as one who safeguards it to use it properly and to bring more of Hashem’s divine presence. That is a way to get to the middle.  Let’s call it under achieving. Flawed.  In any and all areas, a person would say I over personalized it. I am very limited, I feel inadequate, I am always less than.  Teachers, parents, I feel less than, I never measured up and that followed me.  I have always just come to feel an inadequacy in a pervasive way, mediocre, blah, unmotivated.  Then I have to overcompensate. Or I acted out. Or I walked around in a self-diminishing way.  That is the other extreme. Bring that in the same way.  You are diminishing Hashem’s greatness in you?  Chutzpah on you. 

Comparing to others, where does that come from, break that down. Don’t intercompare to define or be defined, to evaluate.  Compare myself within based on raw materials that my tate gave to me in a perfectly imperfect way elementally, every quality I need to achieve and fulfill my mission in this world. He is perfect in his vision.  If He saw fit to make me the way I am that is the way I am. It is not about feeling mediocre. It is feeling great within myself. Even though I may not be exceptional, these are my qualities.  As I start to see and own them, remember you can’t give up what you have. Creativity, prowess.  You make no mistakes.  Use the opposite realm of feeling deflated and own what it is you have given, take inventory, see how it expresses itself.  Instead of comparing, realize Hashem gave us ourselves, a divine identity to make our own.  Deflate and inflate and in the middle is just enough, the 18 min mark.  How do you know experientially if you are there? It feels like in the moment I am nothing but truly something at the same time.  There is nothing that is independent but I am something connected to Him. That is the just enough point.  Too much is chometz.  Too little, it is not edible. The right amount, just enough, so I become a very identity as a porthole to shine light through me so I can experience the light through me.  through me from Him. When we get in that range, that is just enough.  Experiment with the extremes, get to that center.  In chassidis it is the inner part of something, the penimi.

In tennis when you hit the ball on the racket it is the sweet spot, the center of the racket . when we find that place in ourselves, that is the penimi, the sweet spot.  There is a penim of penim, that inner balance of being and not being, then we are doing but it is Hashem. to get to that place, we use the extremes to define the gap and get to the just enough and give to Hashem.  can I experience myself in an ego diminished way, as a divine being, as a reflection of Hashem, trying to bring His Light to this world, serving Hashem.

May we be zochek to find the middle ground to find through this paradox, the healthy nothingness that we don’t have true perceived separate existence, and raise the dough just enough to exist and not expand.  In that place the anochius gets worked and Hashem’s hiddenness is removed and we can be more purified servants.  Bitul yeishus. Is that mechanism and the elements can shine.  They are not even mine, my own identity is not mine but I feel it and I am rooted in Him. I am an oved Hashem.  I can reflect His presenc ein this world wow.  In that sense of nothingness, and the positive sense, is a place I can be filled and truly fulfilled.

11-23

 We are wrapping up the micro series of the four elements, talking about bitul hayeishus, how we nullify our own perceived sense of somethingness, of apparent independent autonomous existence.  We have that perception but we willfully give it back through mitzvahs to shift from animal baseness to nefesh Elokis.  This is an important basis for growth.

Hashem makes this complex. 

We have a formidable inner enemy of what is true versus seeming reality, ultimate versus apparent.  There is no place we are tested more than here. What the hashkafa is when we are bitul hayeishus is that we transform it into divine identity .

Why is emunah so essential in this area?  There is one core philosophical – and we have a debate going on inside – Hashem You made me the way I am.  And you are asking me to grow and change and return and refine the heilik self.  I am working hard, trying to make right choices, and I fall, and I perspire, but I am trying to do the right thing. But there is sometimes this perspective comes to me and says really?  Do you ultimately know that if you toil in this way and make the right choices, do you know definitely that you will quiet this divine being?  Maybe there is nothing there.  If you quiet the self identity there might be nothingness, emptiness, and a sense of nonexistence. 

• Would you not rather have something than nothing, something that looks good in other’s eyes, acquiring – it seems pretty good and it is better than nothing?  That is one voice.

• The other side is that other thing you are telling me to go over is not real or not true, and therefore it is all a big fake, a performance to strive for something that is not reality. 

So either something is better than nothing, or I’d rather have something rather than the greatest or even what if in the end it is not ultimately true and you went through this tumultuous effort to nullify for nothing and you end up with nothing.

The philosophical underpinning is why give up the self and there is no other self then there is non-existence.  It is nice about letting go of the animal self and higher levels of humility, but the inner voice of the yetzer hara, the voice of illusoriness is go for something because you can’t have everything, so just grab onto this.

 How do you combat the dual voice – to acquire a higher identity? 

How do you combat the dual voice – to acquire a higher identity – when it is a fear that if we do we really are annihilated or abandoned, and we really are nothing and have nothing. The darker part of the world tries to convince us that this is all true.  Shabbos itself is a microcosm of olam haba. Just before we transition to the next world there is a place of ultimate darkness void of everything and it will convince you see, there is no basis for anything, and it is there that the acquisition of emunah that we acquire throughout our lifetime so that when that ultimate darkness is thrown in our face, and our seichel is knocked out, this is the grand test of all test, all you have left is what is deeply rooted in the innermost being through your will, choices and toiling.  You must summon all that and say this is not true, this seeming place of nonexistence is not true. I know from a lifetime that He is there, and I know it was all with Hashem, for Hashem.  in that final moment, that is when our emunah from our lifetime comes.

 Every Shabbos we transition to Lecha dodi, the darkness tries to trick us, and every Shabbos requires more emunah by internalizing malchus and building ein od milvado, divine unity of which we are a part.  We need every Shabbos and all the emunah to withstand this ultimate test.

 How does it relate to emunah and bitul yeishus?  This is the most difficult part of what bitul hayeishus is. Yes I will have a healthy sense of self, give up self, transform identity.  But the dark forces are called dark will fight on the lowest levels and it’s card is perhaps? it is not true, so grab what you can because something is better than nothing.  That core darkness in our being, we must fight with emunah. This is so critically imperative.

It is how we begin to develop emunah, so many books.  How does emunah work on the ground, how do we develop it, and even a physical underpinning, and why emunah is unknowable, that it is so high and lofty that it is His domain in that place, no perceivable sense of separateness, no true intellectual clarity . in that realm of emuna, that nullification, we can ascend to a super level of divine consciousness. 

Emunah is absolutely critical to fight this query and tension and doubt and confusion especially in difficult times

or if you are seeing the travails of a person or the world at large. The dark forces know how to bring us there.  All that we are developing to rework them through the Melachos is to remember that there is Borei Olam, our merciful Father, built into every part of creation itself.  Emunah is essential to grow in quality to combat the core so we can give up the perception of perceived separate existence. 

Every person has to be able to relate to emunah, hold space for emunah and use spiritual strivings and develop a higher intellectual base and emotional capacity, it is required daily and for our life. To do bitul hayeish we have to understand that it is not clear that there is a trade in value.  Torah tells us. With all the emotional capacity and database we have, we need to build those emunah muscles to have a readiness, a deep yearning to empty self out of self, to be a clean vessel to draw Hashem into the nefesh level.  Hashem delivers whether I can perceive it or not.  Sometimes we see Hashem’s hidden hand.  Sometimes it is illogical.  That is the test of emunah.  Are you willing to give up your very self, not lose them, give them up to Hashem willfully to acknowledge He owns and we possess and live with them . there is a higher conversion method into the elokis.  Fire wind water and earth, underly all middos. it is about acquiring our divine identity by letting go of our perceived sense of separate existence, that is the bluff that we have to give up and not because it is for naught.  We want to trade  in our something for everything we can have, our divine identity, to see ourselves as a nefesh elokis and really reveal the inner element and reveal our own unique expression of Hashem’s Glory . that is reality, that is the everythingness. That is real and the self is the fake.

 We have a universal battle of who is façade and who is truth. 

Everyone is willing to be in with Hashem p to a point – don’t take Him too seriously ,you have to have fun, you can’t be so serious you know!  That is crum that convinces us that there is no ein od that we can reveal.  We can be all in with Hashem.  it is not too idealistic. 

We have cynical messages that want to shame the idealism, that we can’t have it.  That message to have something else just in case – it possesses us and we don’t give up that much in the end, Just In Case, we don’t want to be a big loser.  We build up an inner storehouse for life and build emunah and be zealous, it is not linear and rational.  There is a higher understanding and truth even though we are limited.  We are not Hashem and cannot understand Hashem as He sees it. He makes us constricted.  We can only see with Torah and His Will.  There is what is not constricted that we cannot see.  We cannot comprehend but we can be sure that in the innermost part there is only Hashem the creation is completely nullified there.  Emunah comes from there. It is not simple faith nor blind. It is emunah with knowledge, the inner understanding that I am nothing and I have nothing and there is nothing but Hashem and I don’t perceive the truth until I see myself rooted in Him and give up my limited perceptions in everything. 

If you give up the fake world you might get nothing!  NO!

nullify and remove the veil the hiddenness of Him in the world. Bitul demands emunah, to give up with purpose, meaning and intent with ultimate benefit.  No matter how much the dark side comes up, we have to say otherwise. The ohr haganos, the ultimate divine light that can shine into our world, that we nullify and limit the negative sides of ego and believe our divine identity.  It is there that we can have everything and taste and know His Divine unity.  We give up the self to acquire divine self.  There are arguments why to have or have not bitul hayeishus.  Sometimes it is in the heart. Or we see something that just doesn’t look right and goes against everything we know to be true. The realm of emunah is that there is a high place.

The Ari says that the place of emunah is where we nullify the yeishus,

the perception of divine unity, and we are meant to get there, to ein od. It is lofty living on the ground but it gives us meaning and purpose.  Learning about the mitzvahs is one, but internally we have to grow beyond survival to a thriving state of actualizing reality. This great paradox of self is that by surrendering it, we are trading up, from a finite to an infinite perspective, that we taste on Shabbos.  That is what ein od means. The dark forces try to convince us and war against us to tell us this is ultimately not true, you are fooling yourself and giving up everything for nothing. Torah tells us bitul yeishus is hard stuff. Then we feel and perceive our inner divine existence and come to know ourselves and have a Gdly relationship with ourselves and Hashem and each other.  This is really and ultimately true.  We need an inner knowing and this grows to emes and then aspire to more integrated levels.  This ebb and flow is essential for bitul hayeishus.  This is the hardest and tallest order, especially as things breakdown in this world.  At an identity level, it is a difficult test in emunah itself.   You have to go to the purest simplest place, the tip of the yud, pure stillness, to sense and have the inner knowing to know that you have a soul and a unique expression of Hashem in this world and it is reality, the only reality and when we get to these places, we can truly sense His Reality and know His divine unity, and bitul yeish is totally worth it. 

Give me a piece of your finiteness and He gives us infinity. We are building the next world. 

Great matching funds. Any number over infinity is zero. Any amount of the ego that we give up to build ourselves divinely – forget the payoff – everything is infinite.  giving up the lower self for the sake of the higher self- the stakes are ultimate. He says we are a part of it, and that is reality no matter how dark it gets.  Real bitul yeishus annihilates the identification of self in gratification way, every way we give up in our will thought speech and action becomes eternalized.

The Zohar says that Avraham and Sarah came with their days.  They had meaningful lives.  They internalized the impermanence.  They sensed and knew the divine reality and built it into a divine reality in every day they built their eternity through time and space. Their whole lifetime is that.

Through the nisayonos, that is how we build.

We have to fortify ourselves, dig deep and reach for the divine light. Give up a little piece of limited existence and He reveals something.  We can see His eternal reality before our eyes.  We can live with divine identity.  The refinement of the elements throughout he Melachos help us to build the bais hamikdosh.

Nov 30 Bitul HaYeshus

We are on the topic of bitul hayeishus.

How do we have a personal intimate relationship with self to give to others and back to Hashem and become one reality?

Use water fire wind and earth to identify the nefesh  that operates on the animal human orientation and on a G-dly being, that has the basis for the four elements, and use behira to get from one to another.

Behira says I choose to redirect the expression of the animal soul towards the G-dly part.  We have to want to do it. It does not happen on its own  Nullification of the perception of our own independent separate existence is part 1.  We don’t lose the element. As we mevatel the yeishus, then the animal part goes to Hashem for divine expression and re-shifts our divine identity.

To do it healthfully, we have to develop healthfully to give it up.  There are negative forms of self.  Appeasing, approval seeking, must turn to being that we are good with ourselves, that we see what we see, our qualities and capacities, and we reconnect it to Hashem. 

Emunah is not always a straight conversion .  we don’t get one to one.  Negative forces tell us don’t do it at all or do it in an unhealthy way, or just give up.  It says what is the point, fairy tail?  Emunah is needed to know there is a true conversion. Hashem is doing everything.

We are meant to live in a divine way.

There is a core tension point in the process. It is fundamental. If we can resolve it we can go forward with giving up the human part of our identity for Hashem.

In concept first – so you see the source.  The Arizal says in Shaar Pesukim, in Balak, he discusses the shoresh of Balak and Bilaam that they are in the negative side of Ra of Adom and his sons.  Rabbi Chover, a talmid of the Gaon, in his sefer has a gematria. The gematria of Balak is 132  and Bilaam  142 equals 274

Leah is 36 Rochel is 238 which is also 274 . What is the similarity? 

The shoresh of Rochel and Leah in tuma is Balak and Bilaam. This is a fundamental principle.  What is going on?  The root of the words themselves are this.

Leah and Rochel are two bechinas of the Shechina.  The Arizal tell us that they reflect the ultimate divine shechina, the concealed and the revealed. And while they look separate, they are really not. They are sisters.  Even twins, intertwined.  They married Yaakov who is also a twin. This is the counterforce to Balak and Bilaam.

There are two dimensions to the Shechina, Leah the concealed and Rochel the revealed. Our job is to bring them together in tandem and unify them to reveal the shechina. What do we need to do and how do we use Balak and Bilaam, the anti-force, for what we are meant to do?

Balak is parallel Leah and Bilaam parallels Rochel says the Arizal. Since Balak parallels Leah and Biallam Rochel, that holds the secret to unlocking the shechina.

Balak spells kabel, to receive.

Bilaam has the word amal in it, to toil.

This is a fascinating contradiction, how do you accept, receive and toil.  Hashem wills it this way, accept it and move on.  And if you are toiling and things are challenging you are saying something is not right, I have to sweat, open something huge. How can those come together?

If Balak parallels Leah, and Bilaam Rochel, we don’t want to have concealed and revealed within ourselves separate we want to connect them and then unify for geula

How are we accepting and toiling?  They seem opposite. To accept, how toil it seems like you are not receiving.  If you are mevatel, I tried – it is an unusual tension, a contradiction.  What is the basis on the divine service level for the concealed and revealed and the antiforce?  There has to be  foundationap principle that we need to get clearn

The Arizal is trying to explain for our growth. If it is about acceptance and being passive, there is no toiling or if all toil there is no acceptance. But from the top down, from leah to Rochel that is Balak to Bilaam. There is a flow. Balak sought from koach to Bilaam, the perceiving force is receive.  The subsequent is toil.  It seems counterintuitive, do what you can and then accept.  The top down is the flow. Acceptance and then toil.

There are two ways to look at the avoda. What is the emes of the word?  I don’t want my own thinking.  What is the emes, what is the reality. End of story  accept the emes this is what it is, then toil and bring the reality into this world.

This is from Beis Shammai, to look from above what is reality on high, accept, nullify, and toil to reveal it in this world.  Acceptance comes first and then the toil.

Beis Hillel says the opposite, from below to high. Toil first, accept, start with revealed get to concealed and accept.  Raba, inner will, our choice point, our effort. On the toiling level what are we struggling towards. Yes we have the animal soul to work hard – to sweat, go all out to nullify ourselves towards the truth, to the emes . when you do that you are omel, that sweating towards a more altruistic way is then to accept divine truth.  How are things oriented. You have toiled through the anochius by humbling the self sweat to go to the truth and come to accept, toil from true acceptance, with a calm pure peaceful heart that says I am toiling working towards Hashem.  we cannot run from Hashem.  he is everywhere.

The toiling is not to run away it is with a strong sincere inner will to be drawn to His divine reality, to a real heartfelt connection, a truthful connection.  How much are you going to willfully let go of your own orientation. How much do you want to break down the self, that everything is from Hashem, not rooted from us.  We are rooted in Him on a revealed level.  It brings us to the inner concealed part of our G-dliness to be receive, willingly, truthfully with great zeal.  With tranquility. What is the point of fighting. I want to live in Your world of Torah mitzvhas chesed and avoda.  I don’t want to take myself out of your world through jealousy honor and desires. We want to live in His divine truth. The toiling is to run towards with great sweat. It is not easy.  Easy is not the currency.  The toiling and the sweat is sweetness to Hashem.  we care enough to break out of our own limited solitary confinement to reveal the G-dliness that is trapped and then bring it into the concealed part revealed.  With an inner focus and clarity that is resolute, strong and unyielding.  It doesn’t matter what the trends are, I know and see  His reality and His presence in my life and the world  from that place, I say I mekabel with a peaceful heart. I toiled enough from Bilaam, on the external parts of my divine reality hidden in my concealed parts and I see I am a divine being and let that come into my innermost understanding and perception.  I am not independent in any way. It doesn’t mean I have nothing, it means I am blessed with all the special qualities and traits . Hashem creates me to be spectacular in this world and I am mekabel.  That helps to bring the two aspects of the Shechina together.

If you go by Beis Shammai we want to get to the emes and reveal it.

If you go from Bais Hillel we toil to get out of the human condition to get to the truth and coming back to an inner place of real acceptance, that is peace.

When you receive and toil you couple the Shechina together… it is there we are trying to make the Shechina as whole as possible to feel close to Hashem

If instead we animate Balak and Bilaam, who come from the side of ra, from cain and hevel, the Arizal says that the koach of ra came from the coming of ra being mixed into creation and coming into their children.  And then they are seen in Balak and Bilaam, that creates separation from the shechina, that tells us you are separate, you can do your own thing.  Even the prophecy of Bilaam and the King of Balak and in the end we get a blessing.  That is the two bechinas on the male side, emes and emunah.

When we deal with bitul hayeishus, we think give up myself, I don’t matter, it is all Hashem, not much I can do. Or the opposite toil, work hard it is up to us. We are the ones.  Also not true. How do we bring them together?

Learn what Balak and Bilaam wanted to do, to put a division between Leah and Rochel. Their antiforce from the original nachash, if we come with Shammai or Hillel, both ways are legitimate ways to brea out of the kelipot and to reveal the sparks of Elokus within ourselves.  Hashem wants us to be able to do both, bottom up, toil and accept.  It is not easy, get it out of the mind, it is not supposed to be easy we toil for it with meaning purpose intentionality and directing back to Him, and this is precious to Him.  The toiling is to get to a complete sweet heart. We are here to reflect You in the sweetest way possible I receive my elements my soul my middos all my qualities in my nefesh and all the limitations and restrictions in every part of my being. You Hashem are precise and exacting and it is for me to understand that. Is it for me to mekabel? 

The revealed to the hidden, they join together, the inner knowing is the moach, the concealed part, leah to put into the heart, that is Rochel, the revealed.  the head or the heart – I want to unify the head and the heart, one reality, one truth, one expression of Your being.

The phrase ……is 1355. The five names of the Torah books,

the first and last letter of the names of the books, Bereshis, Shemos, etc.  they add to 135. Chazal is telling us unify our moach into our leiv become integrated into reality and unify His divine truth, His unity and Torah is that expression.

You need to toil and to accept.  You are starting with nefesh behemis.  Then you come to accept it. Top down is there is no you, only Hashem, I want to know the emes. I am not starting with me, purely with You.  now bring it into me so I can reveal it.  that is Rochel, top down.  We want to walk away that by toiling, it comes to sweetness, where we can join the Shechina, unify our identity and extract the negative forces in Balak and Bilaam that equal Leah and Rochel, they tell us what we have to do to mevatel our yeishus. Don’t be a afraid to toil. Thank you Hashem that I know what I want.  I am not going complacency. I want to toil and work hard with sweat and then come back to a sweet acceptance to know it is You and nothing but You. These are critical elements for bitul hayeishus. All that we do here is precious to Him. There is nothing unnecessary.  Then our lives are singing and praising, and the end result is all in His realm.  Thank Him that you can toil with clarity, and thank Him that you can come to a true place of inner menuchas hanefesh.

3-1-21

We are going to finish up the element of earth, on the negative side, and on the positive side on the realm of joy, happiness.  and then we will start with water next week.

Let's go over some main points.

Our job is to work on connecting to ourselves, to have a relationship with ourself, fire, wind water and earth.

Fire gives us clarity and perspective

Wind gives us movement and direction

Water gives us vitality and energy to move forward with strength

and earth gives us the full revelation of something, in a true and permanent way with stability, a manifestation in the world. Each has the animal oriented side and the divine oriented side. if a person is attuned to the process he will feel a healthy identity conflict and the ability to choose one over the other.

we want to realign with the elements and connect to Hashem, aish is yud, wind is the hei, vav is the water, and earth is the final hei and we are trying to bring an inner connection to feel the inner Elokus in us. our very being.  by extension, what we do, the avoda we perform through mitzvahs, is how we come to reveal Hashem uniquely. 

we should not think this is a walk in the park. doing our work is in months years decades and a lifetime the levels of work. 

we have been talking about earth.  the negative animalistic side, the main spiritual midda- sadness, beyond just moodiness - when we are feeling sad tied to life developmentally, is a breakdown of earth not getting vitality from water, movement from wind nor clarity from aish.  when the earth is dried up, it is cracked.  it is infertile. it has nothing feeding it, or minimally.  that is sadness. no vitality in the soul so you have sadness, Atzilus.

then we get anxiety, worry.

Chaim Vital tells us that we toil in mitzvahs to serve Hashem, and the anxiety dominates the mind in our consciousness.  when we first wake up, or internal nervousness revving behind the scene, the soul is saying I feel unsettled. I am not getting vitality or clarity I need on a regular basis.   the trials and sufferings from Hashem are from Him and we have to receive that or it increases our anxiety, and then we are not hap[y with our portion or thankful for what we have. that is the animal soul.

is simcha the opposite of the nefesh behamis?  when we flip it to Elokus, what does that feel?  real simcha.  the simcha is the end of the process. the fire wind and water pour in ad the earth manifests simcha, clarity and inner movement and clarity, the more you feel ongoing simcha.  our job on the turn from evil level is to remove and diminish sadness and worry and the chasing after false security.  on the turn to good, it has to be simcha more than what is it we need to do?  the absence of sadness?  I should be okay?  is life the absence of darkness or is there something greater than darkness itself.

we will work with both.  you have to remove the sadness in all its forms and positively work on the happiness. that is what we will talk about today.  we will do a flip on how to look at it.

we may feel we are a happy appreciative person, not an ungrateful person, but I don't describe myself of beaming with joy, like Moshe's face radiating.  so how would we describe it, low grade joy, some degree of optimism?  how is someone going to look at me on the joy level.  try to see more objectively that the absence of sadness does not mean I am joyful. the absence of the animal soul does not necessarily connect us to Elokus. we have to work to draw that down.

so we may not know how to do that or be drawn to it.  we may see a little glimpse.

to kickstart that, the external awakening and then the internal.  a simple and fundamental idea to plug into - this is my avoda -  I am already simchadik.  I want to close out the year, I want to work on being attuned for five or ten minutes a day, a simchadik time, an active zone called intuition. no sadness, no anxiety or worry, no edginess.  check it at the door.  for these ten simcha minutes, ten minutes for the first level - focus on the joy of others for the sake of kickstarting my own joy.

shouldn't simcha be something we feel?  no, it is not I feel therefore I am. simcha is a state of being connected to Hashem. that is what simcha is. so if you are not working on the six constant mitzvahs, how can we feel joy. 

first level, focus on the joy of others.  for five minutes focus on other people's joy.  what are we talking about?  a natural simcha, mazel tov, wedding or birth or upsherin, bar mitzvah, a new job, a new relocation.  not just the obvious simcha.  that means potentially someone you don't know.  we can be happy for anyone even though we don't actually know them. was I happy?  If I know them indirectly, great.  what we are seeing is that the avoda of simcha is attached to other people that we know.  there are many going on all the time.  we must, and it is not a luxury, we have to open our heart to klal Yisrael and allow yourself to feel developmentally the success of others. 

I have a new idea or perspective or orientation. I have to tell you, it has shifted me to be more positive, more hopeful.  and when I connect to this thought, it made my life better. I am happy for you. you got a new piece of clarity a new perspective on life.  that inner awakening can actually be channeled so we can hold onto it, emotionalize it, and bring it into the practical realm where we actualize it. your success means something to me, your success helps me because of the inter-inclusion of klal Yisrael. 

an emotional breakthrough - I am trying not to get caught up with all the heaviness in this world, either my own or others. I am trying to be more positive, more optimistic, trying to judge favorably, see the underlying good in others. as opposed to kina taiva and kavod that take us out of the world. that is terrific.  you sound like you are more of who you really are.  I am happy.  I am really happy for you because if it returns more to you, I am so happy.  for healthy bracha, for parnassa, a special blessing on benefits.  in all those situations, and an upgrade psychologically there is no limit if you become attuned to other people's world.

in yeshiva years ago had an insight and mazel tov, their lens was corrected with Hashem's wisdom.  we are seeing the positivity and newness in other people's joy and that energizes us. one is the frontier that I can't connect to that on my own but if I work on it with others I can kick start it in myself.  

we have to be motzei, increase our joy work on our joy and in addition to my joy, I can be connecting to the joy of others as well.  I can relate to your joy because I have my own version or I know someone who has, so I can be more sensitized to it, to connect to your joy, or relate to it on my own.

develop and strengthen capacity to feel joy, bring that inwardly, find it in my life based on that other person.

how do begin to work on experiencing the big joy, the moderate joys, the small joys.  it is literally endless.  if your eyes are not opened how can you breathe.   see we can breathe! my lungs can take in air!  we see this in corona. 

an amazing article - an older Italian man who was 93, had to go to the hospital for two days with corona and they charged him 5000 and he started to cry.  he kept crying, unconsolably, don't worry we will work with you.  He said I can give you the money, right now, that is not what I am crying about.  I am so thankful that I can breathe I was so constricted. I did not know if I would leave the hospital.  I am so joyful and then so thankful to the doctors and nurses but I never thanked Gd for my own breath and he wept and wept.

what is going on here? it is so much easier to thank that which is tangible than that which is intangible and abstract. Hashem is not tangible even though He is in everything.  but if we actually take a breath and say thank you, really thank you.

open the blinds and see the sun.  allow yourself to really feel. not just general thanks and gratitude and what ultimately simcha and existential appreciation for existence, being connected to Him.

any time we feel the six constant mitzvahs on the divine level we feel joy because we exist in a divine way, I exist connected to He Who created the world.  and I am connected. it is unreal.  a micro being connected to the Infinite Creator?  real in my mind and heart?  it is incredible.  we feel that for a moment.  how about when you go into actual mitzvahs.  how do I relate to mitzvahs?  a mitzvah is an expression of halacha.  a mitzvah is a vehicle to serve Him to reveal Him in this world.  the word mitzvah the last two letter vav hei, correspond to vav hei in His Name.  the atbash of mem is yud and of tzadi is He. it is the higher consciousness. you reveal it and bring it out, now you have His Name. the vav hei is in the action, to put it in the world. when you put the intentionality, you bring shem Hashem. a mitzvah is a divine opportunity to reveal Him through my presence in this world through me, and to reveal His divine unity.  we can learn about it and know what to do and connect my consciousness mind and heart and put it into action. turn it into an avoda to serve Hashem, the King of all existence.  little me has this unreal consciousness. that is existential simcha.  any part of our avoda, we can fall into that.

there is a book my father my King, it struck me that its beauty is not Aveinu Malkeinu.  he shows us how to convert every part of life into avoda. the kavanna is that as you do a mitzvah, hashem I am getting ready to serve You in thought speech and action through the mitzvah of tefilla, tzedakah, shalom bais, whatever it is.  and have intentionality.  we don't force joy.  remove the eclipsing animal soul, the anxiety and worry. once that is out awaken the shine, the inner glow of connecting to Him in inner consciousness. turn your life into a constant place of avoda. know who you are serving and standing before. It is not easy.  life is shvitzing,  a  person can achieve mitzvahs and break out of sadness and awaken joy.  it does not come fast and easy - where are we if we think so?  driven by the outcome.  connection to oneself, others and Hashem.  how much divine service we can do.  we all connect.

therefore there are two levels.  the reality of joy is more than the absence of sadness or worry or fear.  we have so much pain and diminishment. that is all nefesh behamis.  the reality of simcha is with his portion. what do you have? your portion is your divine qualities, and on the deepest level it is with one's divine element, that we are joyful to exist knowing You granted me my inner constitution as the portion of the elements that reflect You. I am perfectly imperfect in every way.  I am a tzelem Elokim and experience my existence in the elements, not just the natural ones, but the spiritual ones, the shem Havaya in me. my very existence is a manifestation of You, that is existential joy. 

in terms of fire, wind and water and earth, on the earth level there is fire wind water and earth.  we can be joyful on an ongoing basis and serve Hashem with joy.  Dovid tehillim 100, the wholeness of wholeness to be thankful for all and connect it to Him. then you will feel simcha in your avoda. it is a stretch of gratitude, an elemental level, to your innermost existence.

are we upset because the sun is not shining?  the sun will shine. the cloud comes in the way or an eclipse. but the nature of the sun is that it shines throughout the day.  it shifts in the sky.  we are headed to 14 hours of light from 14 hours of night,  but it shines.  nature of the elements all connected together, the ongoing simcha. 

don't feel guilty if you don't, that is the yetzer hara. that is noise.  get off it. understand. it is not because I am commanded. simcha is the natural sun shining. that is what the divine soul feels. allow it to feel as it really is. don't eclipse it with anxiety and worry and security and stability and enough of this or that.  that is all from the animal soul hijacking us.  we want to get to the level where we can say those emotions are a choice and I am challenging it and removing the eclipse, distancing from the negative. but now I have to awaken my inner sun to let it shine.

the third level is to connect to others to kickstart our own simcha. don't let jealousy and desire  take it away. in a real sense. be really happy and work on it.  we feel we have to remove things from our anochius.  work on using that to awaken the sun in you, the inner joy in the self and extend it out.  How?  just look at what it means to be a yid.  learning Torah, just to have the Torah.  to having a national revelation of Hashem in the world. thank you Tati! 

Baruch Hashem there is food to eat, bread!  I can say a bracha to praise Hashem, to acknowledge all that went into creating this bread. I can feel Hashem and I can use the new found energy to turn the next few moments into another spiritual opportunity for avoda.

we feel the joy of that.

that is a tikkun on earth, the breaking down of the negative side and beginning to turn it to the positive side, then generate it to oneself and connect it into others.  we should be zocheh to living in existential joy, appreciating life, how wonderful life is. even that we can feel pain is His way of telling us  what is broken.  we really would like to feel natural illumination and inner joy and the gratification.  we should merit to be true emunah, to thank Hashem.  I want to shine light as bright as possible the light of Hashem and find joy in this moment in a real way, so appreciative.

March 8, 2021

March 13, 2021 - Pesach

April 19, 2021 - Winnowing, Selecting & Sifting

When we go to the reality of creation itself, to Adom and Chava, we were in a sublime state.

there was no mixture. there was Hashem's truth, goodness . the potential for the evil through the nachash - the primordial force for evil in the world - in pure potential.  when the nachash tempted Chava, looking at the tree, that led to the enticement of eating and the actual sin itself, that caused a profound restructuring of creation, where the force of evil in a potential state outside the inner psyche of man, meaning mankind, that force became interjected or internalized, absorbed or built into the actual psyche, which is mind boggling.  all of creation got lowered, divine consciousness got lowered. the reality of truth and falsehood were not clear or clean any more. there is now a mixture of truth and falsehood, blended as the reality of good and evil. the koach of the evil became internalized in the psyche, the origin of the yetzer hara.  they became built into the innermost composition of the inner world and consciousness and action. 

A person had to content with the reality of "is Hashem fully in this world or not." 

They hid in embarrassment and shame, and Hashem says where are you?  that reality became a confusion, a deep confusion of the reality of creation that it was not clear that He is real and the only reality in this world, that there is nothing in this world that is not He.  through that mixture comes this whole new thing of repairing and fixing the world, the fallen state of man and creation, the Arizal says that the higher worlds of shechina and atzilus fell into the lower worlds.  it is complicated.  but there is a fallen light on every level in all worlds.  that means Adom and Chava were no longer going to live eternally any more.  only 1000, but 70 were given to Dovid.  there was a fallen state. they did not have this blissful eternal state in Gan Eden going into hiding. 

At that point, the lower part of the shechina, the revealed part Rochel, was covered by Adom and Chava. 

for the 970 years, their avoda was beginning the process of rectifying the lower part of the shechina called Rochel. the higher part of the Shechina, the more concealed part, called Leah, was so high it was not easy to be fixed, to start this rectification process, until the 20th generation. 

The Gemara tells us the first 2000 years is tohu, then torah for the next 2000, and then 2000 after is tikun

this is to correct the shechina that fell into the lower world in the mixture of tov and ra, intermingled in such a complicated way that it is not easy to release the trapped sparks, the inner divinity of creation in man, in time and space.  through adom and chava through the first 20 generations, the beginning of the fallen Shechina, Rochel, began

The avos were on such a great level with the imahos, they could engage in the tikun of Leah. 

they had to all begin to restore the higher level of shechina to a higher form of judgment rather than mercy.  the fathers were on such a lofty level and judged on a higher level and their service was loftier.  the exactitude was so unbelievably sharp. it was not just the actions of the fathers were for the future although true, but they went back to fix the fallen shechina at the level of Leah that was tied to the level of middos hadin,

the shechina could then be rectified.  all Jews in all corners of the world, throughout every year and experience, but not just halachically. they were torah Jews who understood the necessity of living the avoda and serving Him, understood what galus and exile is and the exile of the Shechina from gan eden, that they were able to break themselves from the sufferings with appreciation for His Goodness.

 each person had to engage themselves as a mixture of tov and ra, of good and evil. 

we call it the yetzer tov and yetzer hara, emes and shecker, the ability to perceive reality as it truly is rather than the distorted reality. 

what we are charged with is that a person is not totally defined!  we are a replica in a form. Adom and Chava were manifestations of the zeir anpin and nukva in the world of Atzilus.  Adom was the upper six and chava the malchus. they were replications of the highest worlds manifest in this lowest of worlds.  they were supernal beings that reflect the higher world. 

throughout the 2000 years of Torah, we begin to learn and internalize in our awareness, intent and actions to begin to internalize a Gdly level of consciousness from our inner will, thoughts into our emotion and action and through that process re-engage our own mixture of tov and ra.

Gradually we do the melacha, to take in the Torah not academically, but as emes.  His Will is embedded in the creation.  in that process we are meant to internalize the Torah to re-engage our mixture.  that is the arma, fire, water wind and earth.  all the middos tovos versus m\middos ra, the negative traits attached to our lower animal will that is what fell in the biggest way.  we go into the animal soul and refine out for the sake of purification, the koach of ra, of tuma, that convinces us we are truly separate beings, separate in ourselves, others and separate from Him! that is the evil, the ultimate grand lie that this mixture brought into our consciousness that created this form of deception, an illusion, and it is simply not true! the ultimate truth is that there is only Hashem even in the mixture.

He wants us to go into our limited existence, the anochius, the limited part of our being, penetrate it, get into the dualities of the world, the conflicts, the inner tensions, the confusion and the doubt and penetrate it and go to the process called borer

where we are a mixture of tov and ra. our awareness, intent and purpose are to purify our inner consciousness, to our innermost identity, to purify it, out of the animal soul, the inner consciousness of our own separateness in any way in will, thought emotion and action.  we are doing borer and we do that whether we are purifying our mixture to uproot the animal soul, the bad middos that fell, and uproot the impure parts of fire wind water and earth in our soul on a spiritual level, the inner constitution of our soul and give it to the Gdly identity. the purity in that mixture is when we remove the undesirable, the inner Elokus, our own perceived identity. I am a soul, pure and reflective of Hashem and I Have no separate existence at any moment.  the undesirable part of the mixture is the middos ra. we push out the negative part and draw in the positive.  we can draw in the nefesh elokis.  when we do that we are engaging at the deepest level of recreating ourselves, our relationships and recreating creation by removing the veil the hester panim that came into being that came in with the sin, and saying I don't want the ra, get away. I want the world restored to its inner purity, the reality of emes, the reality of sheker is clear and never the two shall meet. I don't want that mixture. I want to get back to that place of inner purity, my own inner consciousness, in my middos, in my actions, in the world.

Now the world is transparent, all there is in the world is Hashem. that is the declaration of the nefesh elokis. 

The letters of NEFESH flip in atbash to tet vav bais, tov.  good. when a person rectifies the inner mixture of tov and ra and remove the foreign elements and you discover the inner elokis, you reveal in your atzmius and essential being Hashem's ultimate goodness in you to reveal to this world. that is the rectified nefesh.  the mixture is called desirable or not.  but once all is desirable then it is all good, in purity.  its manifestation of good is all divine goodness in this world. through the ultimate pleasure of knowing His total reality, that He only does good, that internalized consciousness reveals the reality of tov.  now the mixture is pure again.  but borer purify for the future use - we are doing the separating for the  future!  once we do that and pass on, that is we are using this worked to purify to get to the ultimate good, it is going through the reality of mixture itself.  we pass on to the next world, that is the future storage.  we are building and creating olam haba every moment of every week and Shabbos of your life. the storehouse that we are creating is borer, for the future storage and use.  we don't just create our future world; we bask in His Glory to that extent only to which you reveal that through the mixture of your inner constitution of your own nefesh behamis. that is the positive expression of borer.

Finally separating from a mixture with a utensil is the Torah itself. 

the ultimate Will and wisdom of Hashem, the beauty and exquisiteness of divine truth, a specialized utensil, the seiche, the ohr sichli, our divine consciousness, used right.  as we get ready for kabalos hatorah, then we can engage in our middos, our divine identity, the koach of behira, real divine choice.  the epicenter of the conflict is I refuse to buy into the apparent reality. I want to connect to the ultimate reality of His Oneness in every part of the mixture appearing bluff.  it really is only Him and I want to live with that truth.  I want to use my specialized selecting utensil, please Hashem give me the seichel to discern between day and night, light and dark, emes and sheker and remove the tov and ra. i want to perceive and differentiate so sharply that all I can do is fall into my own Elokus that says Tati my whole existence is nothing except You and when I fall into that I feel my inherent goodness, the inherent value and goodness in myself, reflecting in You, and my job is to bring your good into this world. the more I mekabel Torah and fix my middos, in the omer, refining each midda, each day by counting the omer i want ultimate freedom which is redemption of the world itself.

This is what the three melachos are affording the opportunity to do.  the inner and outer freedom to bring true redemption to this world. you have it in you through the koach of behira, the selecting utensil, through the medium of Torah to refine and remove the undesirable parts and bring out the inner Elokus and create this world as olam haba, the world that comes out of this world.   the next world comes out of this world, in how you grow in the most exquisite way through your behira to refine yourself to where you purify your mixture and the world for this world and the next. ein od milvado.  simple divine unity.  everything else just simply is not.  get to the simplicity of that mixture and see His ultimate goodness here and we will have it in the next world.

this is an introduction how the winnowing, selecting and sifting are coupled through one overall principle act of creation to make sure the undesirable parts and working together. 

May we be zocheh to metakein our middos and remove the impure parts, the self-orientation in our elements, to realign and may we build a pure world of true Gdliness and know that place where the Shechina can come fully, Leah and Rochel, and our nefesh, our lowest level of existence should scream the highest reality that all there is in the world is Hashem and there is no such thing as true separation whatsoever.

April 26, 2021 - Mixture

What is a mixture spiritually in terms of the four elements and how do we define good versus bad?

What will be involved in purifying the mixture? What utensils, (free will), to remove the undesirable and leave it behind and when we have the desirable what is a purified mixture. Let’s look at this on the ground.  These are specifically the basis of creation itself.

The fundamental part of the Melachos is that to have separation you need a utensil . there has to be a mixture and different enough that it literally is called a different nature coming together.  A person is a mixture of the human and the divine, the body and soul, the ego and Elokus.  Not of the same type or of the same anything . we have to come to terms with one identity. The apparent is one and the higher true identity is what we are striving for using free will, to activate the tzelem Elokim and purity in this world. It is based on each individual as a full mixture of the two. It gives us permission to see our humanness and strive to become divine.  It is fundamental. If you don’t see it, then you ping pong back and forth and feel crazy. If we connect to our inner voice, great, and if we are lowly and detached and physical we feel heavy.  When we call it a mixture then it comes into the possibility of borer.

This builds on the internal turmoil inside of us, an ambivalence, two things in an opposite nature.

We have our very existence built on a contradiction and the inner tension is healthy if we apply attention to it, identify what is good and purify it and use it correctly.  Even with conflict and turmoil we can handle it.

Hashem made the heavens and the earth. Reb Shimon says those first four words is that Hashem awakened fire water wind and earth and made the heavens the upper worlds and this physical world. That is all duality in existence.   Shemayim and Haaretz are mixed together. We are not just a mixture of human and divine, but within the four elements themselves. These elements are mixed in with our own divinity and body.  Sometimes we feel lowly or so high, we don’t know how to get out.  We are a mixture of heaven and earth and we are in a healthy identity by design. This is our very reality. We are a mixture and see that on all levels. We need to look at ourselves as a mixture of heaven and earth and the more we see the reality we acknowledge the four elements and the inner battle.   The creational forces battle within us.  It normalizes everything we go through giving it validation but also a higher context of striving. 

There is a choice between my limited or divine existence in any moment.  That is a mixture.

Elementally, the divine identity exists elementally so that the different elements are our constitution and knowing them helps us understand our innermost identity.  Conflict and struggle means there is a divine struggle, go into the elements and within the mixture in the elements do borer. The extent to which our humanness is there, what must come out of the element(s) is the humanist part. The element that is awoken as human, the midda ra, and these are animating the elemental force, because that is what He wants us to focus on in that moment.  Don’t think we are horrible for doing the wrong thing and that brings us back to shame and blame.   We are not bad. Hashem designs it. but we are accountable.  We have to take complete ownership.  We have to see that we are mixture. 

We can’t control things, that makes us angry and judgmental. 

Acknowledge the inner being, there is always going to be a falling short. On the other hand we can’t excuse it.  we can’t say this is they way Hashem made it, I can’t do anything about it. that is where we need internal wisdom. I am meant to resolve this, uproot the bad.  In the purity I can reveal the holiness and its interconnectedness to everything . I am accountable.  This is the reality of the world.

The first point is how do we look at ourselves as a mixture. Of nefesh Elokis and body.

 We have to be truthful. Where did I fall short. Where are my standards and aspirations?  Where did I fall short, how do I own it correctly and work towards refining and purifying it.

If we don’t look at ourselves as a mixture, we don’t see the positive side of the constant tension, the turmoil between the Elokus and the body.  We put it back to Him in the creational world.

Most of the time people put it on other people and they sincerely believe that the world has wronged them.  They don’t see that just because there is a duality that there is no inherent shame.  There is a deep flaw in that mechanism that prevents work in an integrated way.  Preconditions for all the Melachos is there is a mixture, know where it came from (Hashem), put attention on it, there is a deep conflict, and on the ground in whatever way, abstract from the basis what the mixture is, what is the identity and don’t say I can’t do it Hashem.  this is part of our divine design.  Don’t over personalize it to a place where something is limited capacity, we did not do anything wrong that is shameful or causes us to be a bad person.

Let go of criticism and harshness. 

We may have a hard time taking full responsibility and it feels safer to put it on someone else.  Look on identity and elemental level seeing ourselves as a mixture. Then we feel positive and proactive and a place to move forward.

In that mixture is an opposite, what we call good halachally and bad halachically.  We may like one thing and someone else something else, it may not be a mixture. Within the spiritual level during the week, in relation to the self, in this mixture, I own it while being kind to myself, I will go into the experience and go in elementally. What do I want and yearn for in myself on an identity level for middos and elementally. What do I really want? This is below my standards and I am lowly.  That is human, I went too limited. These are elements we can bring to Hashem. I fell short.

On the middos level, I had a bad moment and I can be better, in a more elevated place, I can have more character.

  It is my mixture, my identity. I know what my desirable and undesirable are and I know I can do better. That brings clarity. If they are all undesirable, what do you want from me, I can’t get my act together, I keep falling back, I don’t know what is wrong with me, I can’t fundamentally change or overcome my nature, I will be lowly form. When we do that, we are actively resigning, saying we are incapable, I can’t get started, I fall right away.  Inevitably I fall off the cliff.  All these various ways show us that to really accept ourselves as a mixture, is something.  We have desirable and undesirable.  This is the basis for the purification process.

Understand the inner tension so that we don’t feel the pain, what is our innermost truth and what do we desire to become one day?  When we get this clearly, there is a mixture, I see myself as a creation.  We are part of Hashem’s creation, heaven and earth.  Acknowledge our very identity. It is tied to conflict and challenge and we acknowledge and accept that it is the design. 

Accept it and know that when we are a nefesh behama and act as if there is a threat all the time,  the animal that perceives threat everything shakes us to the core.

We are not getting to the epicenter of feeling the tension.  If it does not go by my nefesh behamis, then the elements go there and that is a not good place and it is an illusion, it is all experienced as a threat.

There is a duality.  We need to depersonalize it and repersonalize it in His reality, that we can make the right choices in His Reality. Get out of that perceived illusion of my own separateness.

It is our insecurities and feelings that fall short of what is lacking. Then there is no borer. When we look at ourselves and do a spiritual accounting, we see the desirable too as a given, then we see it for what it is, part of His design, and from there, look at it. if you can’t see both and think we are all bad, shaming and degradation for yourself or others, we feel we are just animals no mixture.  But we are created by Hashem and there is desirable. That which I want to become, I want to strengthen my will for that good, whatever underlying element.

We can blame our parents or our nature/nurture constitution. 
However go in, purify and rectify.
It is fully in His range. 

If I demarcate the lines of desirable and undesirable, then I am in a place to identify the undesirable and purify it and leave it behind and identify with what is gleaned.

It is degrees of purity, 100 percent at its level. It is still impure in its purity.  There is a continuum as we refine ourselves. This is the structure of all growth.

There are additional principles. Man toils and Hashem gives a gift.

This is the nature of our dual existence, how to extend it, how to identify the desirable from undesirable.  We are a mixture and we can do borer and upgrade.

It is for now and for future use, for this world and creating the next world.

This is what is behind all growth. It is empowering and obligating. We have a more dutiful basis.  We need other people as well, mentors, friendship, guidance.

Just as we are able to refrain from doing borer on Shabbos, there is a spiritual obligation to create ourselves during the week with borer. 

As difficult as it may be, we strive for it and He helps us. It is achievable.  May we understand the Melachos and see the perception of ourselves a mixture of body and soul and What is a mixture spiritually in terms of the four elements and how do we define good versus bad?

What will be involved in purifying the mixture? What utensils, (free will), to remove the undesirable and leave it behind and when we have the desirable what is a purified mixture.  Let’s look at this on the ground.  These are specifically the basis of creation itself.

The fundamental part of the Melachos is that to have separation you need a utensil . there has to be a mixture and different enough that it literally is called a different nature coming together.  A person is a mixture of the human and the divine, the body and soul, the ego and Elokus.  Not of the same type or of the same anything . we have to come to terms with one identity. The apparent is one and the higher true identity is what we are striving for using free will, to activate the tzelem Elokim and purity in this world. It is based on each individual as a full mixture of the two. It gives us permission to see our humanness and strive to become divine.  It is fundamental. If you don’t see it, then you ping pong back and forth and feel crazy. If we connect to our inner voice, great, and if we are lowly and detached and physical we feel heavy.  When we call it a mixture then it comes into the possibility of borer.

This builds on the internal turmoil inside of us, an ambivalence, two things in an opposite nature. We have our very existence built on a contradiction and the inner tension is healthy if we apply attention to it, identify what is good and purify it and use it correctly.  Even with conflict and turmoil we can handle it.

Hashem made the heavens and the earth. Reb Shimon says those first four words is that Hashem awakened fire water wind and earth and made the heavens the upper worlds and this physical world. That is all duality in existence.   Shemayim and Haaretz are mixed together. We are not just a mixture of human and divine, but within the four elements themselves. These elements are mixed in with our own divinity and body.  Sometimes we feel lowly or so high, we don’t know how to get out.  We are a mixture of heaven and earth and we are in a healthy identity by design. This is our very reality. We are a mixture and see that on all levels. We need to look at ourselves as a mixture of heaven and earth and the more we see the reality we acknowledge the four elements and the inner battle.   The creational forces battle within us.  It normalizes everything we go through giving it validation but also a higher context of striving. 

There is a choice between my limited or divine existence in any moment.  That is a mixture. Elementally, the divine identity exists elementally so that the different elements are our constitution and knowing them helps us understand our innermost identity.  Conflict and struggle means there is a divine struggle, go into the elements and within the mixture in the elements do borer. The extent to which our humanness is there, what must come out of the element(s) is the humanist part. The element that is awoken as human, the midda ra, and these are animating the elemental force, because that is what He wants us to focus on in that moment.  Don’t think we are horrible for doing the wrong thing and that brings us back to shame and blame.   We are not bad. Hashem designs it. but we are accountable.  We have to take complete ownership.  We have to see that we are mixture. 

We can’t control things, that makes us angry and judgmental.  Acknowledge the inner being, there is always going to be a falling short. On the other hand we can’t excuse it.  we can’t say this is they way Hashem made it, I can’t do anything about it. that is where we need internal wisdom. I am meant to resolve this, uproot the bad.  In the purity I can reveal the holiness and its interconnectedness to everything . I am accountable.  This is the reality of the world.

The first point is how do we look at ourselves as a mixture. Of nefesh elokis and body.

We have to be truthful. Where did I fall short. Where are my standards and aspirations?  Where did I fall short, how do I own it correctly and work towards refining and purifying it.

If we don’t look at ourselves as a mixture, we don’t see the positive side of the constant tension, the turmoil between the Elokus and the body.  We put it back to Him in the creational world.

Most of the time people put it on other people and they sincerely believe that the world has wronged them.  They don’t see that just because there is a duality that there is no inherent shame.  There is a deep flaw in that mechanism that prevents work in an integrated way.  Preconditions for all the Melachos is there is a mixture, know where it came from (Hashem), put attention on it, there is a deep conflict, and on the ground in whatever way, abstract from the basis what the mixture is, what is the identity and don’t say I can’t do it Hashem.  this is part of our divine design.  Don’t over personalize it to a place where something is limited capacity, we did not do anything wrong that is shameful or causes us to be a bad person.

Let go of criticism and harshness.  We may have a hard time taking full responsibility and it feels safer to put it on someone else.  Look on identity and elemental level seeing ourselves as a mixture. Then we feel positive and proactive and a place to move forward.

In that mixture is an opposite, what we call good halachally and bad halachically.  We may like one thing and someone else something else, it may not be a mixture. Within the spiritual level during the week, in relation to the self, in this mixture, I own it while being kind to myself, I will go into the experience and go in elementally. What do I want and yearn for in myself on an identity level for middos and elementally. What do I really want? This is below my standards and I am lowly.  That is human, I went too limited. These are elements we can bring to Hashem. I fell short.

On the middos level, I had a bad moment and I can be better, in a more elevated place, I can have more character.  It is my mixture, my identity. I know what my desirable and undesirable are and I know I can do better. That brings clarity. If they are all undesirable, what do you want from me, I can’t get my act together, I keep falling back, I don’t know what is wrong with me, I can’t fundamentally change or overcome my nature, I will be lowly form. When we do that, we are actively resigning, saying we are incapable, I can’t get started, I fall right away.  Inevitably I fall off the cliff.  All these various ways show us that to really accept ourselves as a mixture, is something.  We have desirable and undesirable.  This is the basis for the purification process.

Understand the inner tension so that we don’t feel the pain, what is our innermost truth and what do we desire to become one day?  When we get this clearly, there is a mixture, I see myself as a creation.  We are part of Hashem’s creation, heaven and earth.  Acknowledge our very identity. It is tied to conflict and challenge and we acknowledge and accept that it is the design. 

Accept it and know that when we are a nefesh behama and act as if there is a threat all the time,  the animal that perceives threat everything shakes us to the core. We are not getting to the epicenter of feeling the tension.  If it does not go by my nefesh behamis, then the elements go there and that is a not good place and it is an illusion, it is all experienced as a threat.

There is a duality.  We need to depersonalize it and repersonalize it in His reality, that we can make the right choices in His Reality. Get out of that perceived illusion of my own separateness.

It is our insecurities and feelings that fall short of what is lacking. Then there is no borer. When we look at ourselves and do a spiritual accounting, we see the desirable too as a given, then we see it for what it is, part of His design, and from there, look at it. if you can’t see both and think we are all bad, shaming and degradation for yourself or others, we feel we are just animals no mixture.  But we are created by Hashem and there is desirable. That which I want to become, I want to strengthen my will for that good, whatever underlying element.

We can blame our parents or our nature/nurture constitution.  However go in, purify and rectify. It is fully in His range.  If I demarcate the lines of desirable and undesirable, then I am in a place to identify the undesirable and purify it and leave it behind and identify with what is gleaned.

It is degrees of purity, 100 percent at its level. It is still impure in its purity.  There is a continuum as we refine ourselves. This is the structure of all growth.

There are additional principles. Man toils and Hashem gives a gift. This is the nature of our dual existence, how to extend it, how to identify the desirable from undesirable.  We are a mixture and we can do borer and upgrade.

It is for now and for future use, for this world and creating the next world.

This is what is behind all growth. It is empowering and obligating. We have a more dutiful basis.  We need other people as well, mentors, friendship, guidance.

Just as we are able to refrain from doing borer on Shabbos, there is a spiritual obligation to create ourselves during the week with borer.  As difficult as it may be, we strive for it and He helps us. It is achievable.  May we understand the Melachos and see the perception of ourselves a mixture of body and soul and embrace the healthy tension, what is truly desirable and undesirable. Leave behind the undesirable. In essence we have true divine identity.  The innermost depths of our being is to be rooted in Hashem and reveal His light in the world and we want a redemptive world with His presence. It starts with us. , what is truly desirable and undesirable. Leave behind the undesirable. In essence we have true divine identity.  The innermost depths of our being is to be rooted in Hashem and reveal His light in the world and we want a redemptive world with His presence. It starts with us.

May 3, 2021 - Winnowing, Selecting & Sifting:
Purifying a Mixture

Winnowing, Selecting & Sifting:
3 aspects of the melacha of purifying a mixture of undesirable elements.

It is working on a level of soul time and space, purifying the undesirable elements, taking the bad from the good. If you remove the good from the bad that is not prohibitive for a melacha. Only when removing the bad from the good.  Using a specialized utensil is sifting and for future use or storage is winnowing.

In order for something to be in this realm, it has to be a mixture. If it is not a mixture, then we as created beings are a mixture of body and soul.  if not a mixture there is nothing to purify.

There has to be desirable and undesirable. There has to be a voice of nefesh behamis and nefesh elokis. If there is confusion, how do we label which is desirable and undesirable for me.  each person is on their own madrega. We have to be clear where we are holding relative to where we have come from and where we seek to be in torah observance. Once clear about where we are holding then we can label it as desirable or not.  If it was good for a time and is no longer, and we label it, then we know what our objective is.  the melacha is purifying the mixture, taking the bad from the mixture

The melacha of sifting, removing bad from good, is free will, to sift the undesirable and leave behind the desirable.  We are looking to Rabbi Dessler Free will, a chapter to learn well. Free will in its depth and essence is doing something miraculous, it is overcoming our human nature and acquiring freedom transforming a physical to eternal world.  How does the specialized utensil of free will work in this way?

Our soul is connected to the higher world.

We can sift with behira.  It is overcoming our core human nature. 

It is not a preference of two menu options.  A real choice has to do with two opposing realities in conflict and at an equal level of opposition to each other.  We have a competing force of truth and falsehood. When one is much stronger than the other there is no free will, each is too strong. There is no equal opposing force so there is no choice. Only at the point of deep conflict where the two are opposing is where free will exists.  Free will is an abstract point where two dual forces are competing and we can work through and override this system of nature and upgrade to divine soul, overcoming our tendencies.  No excuses.  Whatever your nature and nurture constitution are, you can change.  No matter how you were socialized, whatever the flaw, Hashem gave it to us.  All those are ours. We have to be bold and courageous enough to go there and see there is free will and do battle. What is desirable and undesirable and make a choice to remove the undesirable.  Disidentify, don’t orient or relate or attach emotionally to the undesirable in this moment and realign towards the desirable. That overcomes the tendency.  Then we recreate ourselves. We remove the veil of creation and feel the eternal reality in this world.

Hashem is asking something of us. The fundamental point to get us to this ability is to identify conceptually and practically. We have to get to the free will point and it is inflamed and engulfed in real struggle, too scary to go to, to fearful.  So how do we get there to evoke free will and use the borer and the koach of our free will to overcome our tendencies?  It is a transcendent experience.  Why is it so infrequent says Rav Dessler?  Why is it so easy to be observant by habituation rather than free will.

The core capacity is how we relate to ambivalence.

We need this to use our free will.  We do not like conflict or tension or difficulty or pain and suffering. The body says stay away.  I want comfort, ease, predictability with the least amount of resistance.  Free will says the exact opposite. Comfortable living is one thing. Spiritual living is healthy attention on this point of tension. Hashem is asking us to hold space for the duality of creation, hot and cold, true and false.  I want to draw close and run far away. Every point of conflict will have these ambivalences underlying the conflict.  If we are unwilling to go into them, we just hang around our good zone but there is no free will in that, it is habituation,  Rav Dessler is what we acquire in free will each moment.

We have to drive on, be excited by and have the humility to hold space for two opposites that even though they feel real, I can identify a real place of core tension and disidentify with that which is undesirable and identify with a higher level of what is desirable.  Reidentify the behema with the transcendent desires and yearnings. That comes from a willingness to put attention on the tension. Where is the mixture, where are the opposite sides?

Migrate to the intense point,
the epicenter of the struggle
and sit with it.

I will not implode.
I do not have to run away.
I can hold space for the duality,
the base of creation, and seek the aleph. 

The forces of creation are battling within in this moment
and it is so huge I will get swallowed up.
Please Hashem help me align with what is desirable to identify with the Elokus side,
and help me align with the divine part of the trait
and that it is rooted back in You
so I can choose it.

I am going against my humanness and
actively negate them
to get back to inner essence.

This has to happen fast and furious
or else the yetzer hara will pummel us. 

Sometimes we have seconds other times longer. But we have only some capacity to sit on these points. It is hard when it is a whirlwind. We do not like conflict.  Around fire water wind and earth we can go to these points with a sense of our smallness.  The goal is according to Rav Dessler is to fulfill the work of creation, to reveal the shechina, our place of freedom.  We want a higher level of freedom in an active way. We want to convert our free will point to identify with our divine identity.  At the places we are aligned with the animal side, we don’t exist.  Nefesh flipped over is tov.  What is left is the desirable. The mixture is purified of the self-orientation, and that purity, the inner Elokus rooted in Hashem that desires the good and only wants to reveal that good. It is not our good anymore.

He is working through us a a vehicle of the merrkava. Our inner essence is one with His tov umativ and we want to reveal Him.

Is this ego based or not? If we go into the mixture and purify, we realign with His ratzon and there we feel our essence as inherently good and bestow true good and we will ache and long for.  I love chesed because it is Yours and I have subjugated my will so it is now mine to bestow upon others. That is the goodness that will come out, that is what happens when we purify the mixture. We feel our essential essence to bestow pleasure on others to lift up their souls. That is what purifying a mixture is all about.  We feel more inner alignment with Hashem. it has no bounds. We want Hashem’s will to go throughout creation and with borer, winnowing and sifting, there are many levels to work on to get it to pure. The impurities are much more subtle and intricate and nuanced, and also on the anochius level.  If we are doing wrong, below standard, too human, whatever it is, just know yourself and the mixture of the body and soul the conflicting part of fire water wind and earth and the middos and actions that are in conflict, our will versus His, label them desirable and undesirable.

Then put attention to the tension, go deep and dive and explore the inner conflicts, the epicenter of the ambivalence, and where they are equally pulled, that is where the free will point is. shift your identity with choice to remove the veiled part of existence. That is the real will. We can remove ourselves from the confusion and get to clarity.  Each time we know more of what we are doing and building our threshold of pain.  Each time we do the shechina gets an aliya and the world gets a tikkun and the world is a better place.

So I fell short, I was so close but I fell back to what was comfortable. I could not align with the higher part. I was not ready.  But we have the reality of mechila, of teshuva, the ability to return back to Hashem after falling away.  We have the ability to be moichel others and ourselves and strive.  If we fell is it that I was not courageous enough?  Or was I afraid of succeeding, of how awesome I have to be and it does not feel like me. I have not mentally resolved that, give myself permission to be at that place. 

Or maybe I am just simple or plagued my whole life, why now am I capable?  Nonsense. You can’t make free will on your own. It is the interface where infinite melds into the finite. Hashem lift me higher than where I am. I can’t do it and you can, and He takes us to a place of liberation flying in a higher place. We cannot do it and it is not about deserving. Get out of the limited existence to connect to infinite existence and we have to rely on Hashem and nullify ourselves.  That is the specialized utensil of sifting the bad from the good, the sifting.  If it feels too much to live a life of free will, if it feels exhausting, that Hashem wore us out and we need a week to recover.  Hashem says your job is to be a bas olam haba to create your future world and convert the limitations of the world into the future.  Just as Hashem renews the world continuously, with His Good, and just like we are a portion of Hashem, we are meant to do the same thing. We have the ability to recreate ourselves spiritually, the core identity, remove the veil on a continuous level. It is embedded in us.

Avraham was so great that every three seconds, he built himself up to what he saw reality to be. He was in a state of re-creation.

They were constantly recreating creation. They were vehicles for Hashem and we have that embedded in us, we don’t just have free will but identify it access it and using it to be brave enough to challenge the inner falsehood to its ultimate reality in creation. It is a specialized utensil to remove the undesirable, purifying the mixture and the world and drawing His light into the world. That is geula, to live in that space. I have an ultimate yearning to live in that place where it is only Elokus, His Name and presence, that is a redemptive reality. Having and using free will, to bring out tzelem Elokim, that brings redemption and then we live in it. we want to live in the world seeing Hashem’s divine unity and oneness in time and space. Otherwise we want an escape from all the pain. Life is about transforming the pain to greater levels of pleasure to know His divine reality, push out all the forms of ra and purify the mixture of creation to have a revelation of olam haba.

This is the medium to get free will and lift our identity and get closer to true redemption.

THE MECHANISM OF FREE WILL:

To what extent am I aware of my ambivalence?
Do I externalize them?
Do I sublimate them?
Placate them?
Anesthetize them? 

If we use the Melachos correctly we have to see there is
nothing wrong with pain, find the place, fix it and rework it.
Use it for a tikkun.

We can bring His Glory in a bigger and larger way. 
We cannot run away from the pain. 
Use our free will to borer.
It is difficult but it is where the real inner purity of a yid exists.

We are not afraid to grow.
Everything is divine opportunity. 

May we tune into our day to see the points of tension and conflict and the good embedded in it and to live in our inner world and the world at large with the awareness that everything is from Hashem and good. We only want to live in His world.

This is a way to prepare for shavuous. 
The practical and mundane living is really divine.

May 10

May 31

Bringing the internal world to the external one is our topic.

We are discussing borer, winnowing and sifting to the element of wind.  We are dealing with three Melachos. There are five points

What is the mixture

What is desirable and undesirable (soul versus body)

How to separate and remove that which is sheker (body) and leave behind that which is good and serves Hashem.

We spoke about aish last week, rectifying the seichel of a person that perceives the ultimate truth of Hashem.  today we will look at ruach.  In that context how ruach can be rectified with speech.

Speech cannot be avoided unless we go to taanus dibur, fasting of the speech.

We want to use our speech in prayer that Hashem hears us. We want to be attuned to the voice of our spouse.  How do we rectify and stimulate this?

There are forbidden forms of speech, lashon hara, onas devarim, flattery, etc. but how do we rectify something. Why would He grant a capacity and then say don’t use it?  He gives it to us!  Shaare kedusha tells us to be silent like a mute.  But then he says we should be silent like a mute and not open our mouth except for that which is necessary for toiling in torah or that which is needed for the fulfillment of the body or the honoring of others.  We cannot say what we want. Be quiet. We have to reign in the koach of ruach.  We have to go into the mixture.  Body and soul.  there is good speech and lashon hara. When we look at the reality of speech we have to say we are a mixture and we want to separate out the bad forms and undesirable parts tied to the body that put our Elokus into hiding causing us to be more human. We want to leave ourselves to be more pure, to see the divinity in the world. Rabbi Vital tells us to use the words for Torah, mitzvahs, for the body and for building others.  We have to work on this so that purity of speech, the inner core of each of us, can bring out the holiness and purity of others, speaking words of emes, words that build and not destroy.  That is where we have to go to rectify wind.  We need speech ongoingly, anytime we are with a person.

One halacha is fascinating.  The implications are so very deep. The halacha tells us it is forbidden to share private information that an individual relates to us.  If someone says I am sharing with you private information and I don’t want you to tell it even to your spouse.  If you relate it you are over on the mitzvah. We have to be silent like a mute. If someone is sharing private information, we feel we are special.  I will tell a few people, look what I know.  That happens often in a marriage but we cannot say everything.  Where is the borer? Where is the free will?  How do be bring it to its higher form?

We are not supposed to say anything and that is it. Hashem in creating our tendencies and greater strivings.  See the mixture. Someone tells me something private and I have a tendency to relate it. know your tendencies. Be silent and do not say anything. Now label it, I betrayed someone’s confidence and trust, their sense of loyalty to me.  at some level I am questioning my trust. It puts things into suspect.  That waters down loyalty. Separating the bad. Why am I sharing? It is gaiva. We have to nullify the arrogance in ruach, I am in the know and someone else is not. If I am in the know I am important, they valued me and told me something private. I take it that I am special because I am in the know.  The specialness is not brought into humility. Once we feel haughty, we want to aggrandize the self and have a desire to tell. I am in the know. The I takes on a bigger form.  The arrogance gets ignited.  The arrogance is coming on and I feel more powerful in the know.  It is the expression of that which the element of wind, the tzelem Elokim is lowered, and we are brought to an animalistic state.  And others too. The justification is the bad part of mixture.  The chofetz chaim lists the excuses.  It was true. Or it is common knowledge even though they told it to me.  or I did not really say anything. Excuses.  NO! it is undesirable to lower oneself from a nefesh eloks to a behema, to lower one’s divine identity by speaking lashon hara.  I must be silent. The justifications are there to preserve the undesirable part. The kernel of truth is it is true.  The negation part of separating the bad is separating the falsehood of the justifications of why you speak that lashon hara. 

There are 8 stringent conditions before speaking negatively is justified. Borer removing the bad from the good is remove the inner falsehood and know your intention to inflate the self, to awaken the nefesh behamis.  Do not lower yourself. If there is a kernel of truth of why it is justified. Better to not talk about it.

The redeeming part is to use speech for words of Torah, mitzvahs, needs of others, of our bodies. Use words for a higher avoda.  Turn on my soul for lashon tov. Be excited by communication.  We may not be an orator but we have to develop our abilities to communicate clearly in a way to invite others to be gdly beings, we are meant to use our speech for that,  every point of lashon hara has a flip to lashon tov.

Some are logical.  This one is more unusual. If the halacha says do not share private information with others in a way that is betraying, then in lashon tov, you have a deep yearning to know and to know others.  You have a strong desire to share private information with others, showing a degree of exclusivity with others.  I want to share something very personal and private, we share it because we trust and respect someone but when we share that, we give a portion of our soul in trust.  Hold onto my divinity. I want this to be part of you. That is closeness and connection.  A piece of me in the real sense is by sharing.

As a therapist people share their souls with me, and I have a little fear but it is a bracha that someone can share from the depth of their soul heavy stuff.  I am opening to a level because I have a need to connect to others, to be seen as I truly am. I want to be known, understood, valued and loved for who I am. This need to share private information is the soul’s need for connection and intimacy and to merge souls in friendship.  You are being entrusted in that so our souls are bound together. We are fulfilling out of lowliness thank you for sharing that part of yourself with me, that was very brave.  How shall I carry this and hold this space, what do you want me to see?

The halacha of not sharing private information, using shtika, to be mute, it allows us to uproot the falsehood of self referencing that we are something and self important because we are in the know. Do borer remove that, get your mixture more pure and be that kind of person who will listen to other people and hear these special places and see the higher good in everyone.  Hold on for a greater space.  Where are the higher aspirations. Orient to the greater potential.  I believe in you, in your inner portion of Gdliness.  Through that privatized experience we can bring out a new portion of Gdliness.

On the sharing end it is also amazing. it is very risky, private, personal and near and dear.  How will it be seen?  Will they look unfavorably upon you?  Will they question my motives and intent?

Torah tells us we have the deepest yearning to know and be known. On the lashon tov, the rectified speech, we are to be a true listener to allow someone to share their personal information, that we can give an experience of being known and hold them in respect.

We have a deep desire to be known, and have other people to want to know you.  That is what it means to share, when one soul is bound up one with another. That is the immense pleasure of sharing private information

A halacha near to me – when I was a teenager, I liked to go out with friends and stay out late and share deep from the soul. there is an immense pleasure in it and there was a place we would go, sharing heart to heart, and feeling each other, is an immense pleasure.  It is a place where we can feel deep connection to Hashem.  we can know ourselves through the knowing of others.

The soul has this great need, especially if we have been burned a lot or do not trust.  If people betray us, it hurts.  We think we cannot trust humanity.  You can only trust Hashem, that is distrusting of man. If we do not also risk, we do not have the great pleasure of what Hshem wahts us to have in using fire to reveal the truth through speech in a personal and private way. Lashon tov is an unbelievable gift that He gives to us every moment.

One of my son’s rebbeim had laryngitis and he wore his voice out from speaking to the boys.  When we daven we have to hear our own voice.  He could not generate any speech for months. The question is, did he fuflill his obligation?  No.  It is silent prayer but it is words that we have to say to go deep into our soul.  He asked a shaila what to do, that he is not yotzei.  The answer was have your wife daven for youm she is your other half, and so she davened next to him and he was yotzei her tefillas.  What was amazing is that he could not exempt himself from his obligation.  He had to have surgery and it was not a small thing,  a spouse is like our own voice.

The awesomeness of speech to convey words of truth, it is an honor to speak, the koach of wind. In terms of speech we want to rectify it to bring Hashem’s Elokus in the world. Otherwise we lower ourselves.

 We see through this halacha of not sharing private information, we have to ask explicitly before even sharing it with our spouse. Our tendencies need borer and to be negated. They have no place in the higher soul. we have to rectify it, purify the mixture, and flip the halacha to understand we have a tremendous need to listen so people can be known.  We bring out the inner Elokus and one soul is bound up with the other and we feel that deep desire to be known and to know others and from there we redeem our soul.  we bring out the Elokus and one soul is bound up with the other and we feel the intimate bond. That is ultimately what we need to do.

Don’t sell yourself out.  Don’t miss out on the elevation of the halacha. Have reverence with the inner element of ruach and being able to speak to listen to our own self talk, listening to others, sharing personal information, restoring trust and intimacy and foundation, bringing out divinity and bringing hashem more and more into our lives. Even if you cannot share what you want to unburden ourselves, talk to Hashem, he is always there to listen.  The deepest pains and pleasures. He is with us and we are bound up with Him. The connection removes falsehood and brings truth and brings out the holiness and kavod shemayim.  We use wind rectified through dibur. Speech is incredible. Every part of our existence is an immense gift.  Let us use it wisely to uproot the undesirable falsehood, subjugate, bring out the lashon tov within, listen to the depth of our soul, honor others and bring Hashem into the world.  It would be a radically different world.

If we take these laws seriously we can rectify wind. 

June 7, 2021

We are going to go further into wind

Shmiras Haloshon is important as we discussed last week.  Today we will address hurtful or painful words and see how to apply borer and winnowing to cut out lashon hara and recreate ourselves spiritually.

When it comes to our speech, there is no place to speak it unless all 7 conditions are met.  We seemingly are never allowed to speak.  To fix wind, we need silence, like a mute person, except for torah and mitzvahs and giving to others.  Onas devarim has a depth that can be worked to the positive.

Any form of non communication that is verbal or non-verbal that can cause pain to others, or ultimately to oneself.  Judgmental words, shaming words, anything that inflicts pain intentionally or not, verbal or non-verbal is onas devarim.  It is not a matter of people being over sensitive. 

Torah tells us that onas devarim has a vast range of hurting including praise.  Why does Torah focus on the stringency of it?

Simply we are not here to destroy or dimmish or degrade people.  Torah tells us if we are looking at the four elements and the correction of our character traits is to shift our identity from human to divine.  In every incident in our life is to help us with that.  All people can justify why it seems appropriate to speak harshly to others. Torah tells us that, with fire in mind, the only way to fix our character traits is to shift our inner arrogance. That gaiva goes to wind in our speech and desires and in our physical ways, the earth. To shift towards divine we must subjugate the ego based parts of ourselves that seem independent of Hashem.  we think, feel, speak and act unto ourselves and that only builds the self. 

Torah teaches us that we cannot say what we want.  No freedom of speech.  We cannot minimize people and we must maximize others.  Wee must examine our own arrogance that came from fire. Otherwise we have no way to protect our tongue.  If we feel entitled to say whatever we want, that is not freedom.  Speech is carefully crafted and onas devarim, verbal or not, has an impact.

So we tell people to get over what we said, but Torah says why painful words are so important. In protecting one’s speech, our words have to create tremendous capacity for pleasure in people.  Words are capable of helping someone.  Words have enormous capacity to give pleasure to people in ways that are barely noticed, whether important powers of chizuk or other.

To understand our tzelem Elokim, in that is an awesome power to lift and build people. Not churban.  Torah tells us that we have a mitzvah of lashon hara. We are a Gdly being, a speaking spirit. That is the high level of soul. we have that inner ability to use all forms of communication to restore people and build them to a mini-bais hamikdosh level.  We will speak words of kindness to you and speak words of strengthening and comforting to them to heal their wounds and move ahead even more strongly towards the direction.

We also have words of comfort when people are grieving. Communication and speech is about bringing out Hashem’s goodness in the world.  When we know our connection to Him we have that connection and can feel Hashem between the person we are speaking to. That is where the real ultimate pleasure can be. 

Separating, winnowing and sifting are crucial for this.

What is someone telling me that I do not see when someone hurts us?  Perhaps I do not have the right “read” on someone. I am not paying attention to how another is communicating on the inside. Dialogues can be different, but what is common to all, onas devarim tells us that just as we have – years ago I had a group and a 42 year old woman burst out crying that when she was a child a group of kids made fun of her for several minutes and would not come out. She cried for two hours.  She stopped going to pools since then. Surely the children did not realize how intense and fearful their words were. The group was a comfort  - we cannot avoid the pain and have that be the focus, I can’t say this or that, I have to communicate just right.

Hashem wants us to use speech to lift people up.  To have a divine connection. The challenge is daunting.  The various forms of communicating – the Chofetz Chaim was even against phones.  Digital communication brings a loss of restoring people and lifting them up, building them. Building people is an inner sanctuary.  Be encouraging. Are you using your speech for what you want or is it a speech for creating connection? There are many ways to intentionally or not hurt people.  Some people are highly insensitive. Others very sensitive. But our commitment is to bring Hashem’s goodness to the world, to bring everyone’s Elokus brought to the front, to bring out the very best in themselves. That is where the shechina exists.

Gemara in Sotah quotes ish and isha and the shechina is between them. The shechina can dwell inside the person in the elements, between them in their communications to bring out the inner divinity between. If we focus on the awesome pleasure of talking words of kindness and love when we help connect or reconnect them through verbal communication. Not because we have to be vigilant to hurting others, but in the positive form, to promote lashon tov, to bring out the greatest pleasure and joy and inner goodness, not just words of falsehood. The extent to which we get lazy because of external communication, we have to get back to seeing how to bring out the inner Gdliness.  We cannot do it in texting.  Nothing is being said! It is tremendous meals with empty calories. It is a travesty and it includes telephone too.

The real roots of the bais hamikdosh is connecting authentically, the art of dialogue, to work on this within ourselves. How many times can we be harsh and bitter and judgemental and degrading? Even to oneself?  We have to do teshuva on self-deprication. 

We have the capacity to bring out tremendous pleasure. Identify the positive qualities in oneself, build the muscles to have an ayin tov to see the kernel of good in our intention. Judge ourselves favorably and speaking kindly and compassionately and supporting ourselves.

Bein adom ‘chaverio is an extension of our inner communication and releases the trapped divinity within.  We can communicate with taanug instead of onas devarim that brings out blessing.

If I would talk to myself in a loving, kind compassionate way, would I need to talk to any other way?  If I can’t do it for myself I need to go to others.

We can inflict pain to others and to ourselves.  Wee have the ability to inflict pleasure for the sake of releasing the trapped kedusha and bring it to the forefront and fan it. it is coming from a higher place.  The core is addressing Elokus.  Be that person who brings out the good in yourself and by extension to others. It is so important to learn to speak in a pleasing and appeasing way. 

The sole/soul purpose is to bring out the Elokus.  Real Gdly unity comes in – in the communication, the tikkun of ruach.  That is where we have to start asking ourselves – to what extent do I see myself as a purvayer to lift and uplift, build bring out and release and glorify the divine goodness in another. That is the tikkun of ruach.

If it is just about fear of saying the wrong thing, that is not what Hashem wants. Yes be mindful of onas devarim and of our loved ones and our inner essential self. Sometimes we have to give tochacha, but even rebuke will only want you to bring out the very best of oneself.

Pirke Avos says to make a fence around the Torah to protect what we keep out and keep in. to keep inner Elokus strong we have to push out the variables that diminish us.  We have to be strong on the inside. 

Going in a Gdly direction is because we truly are made in His Image.  We can do teshuva without shaming ourselves. No self deprication. Believe in what you can be. Ask hashem for help, for ourselves and others. 

Speak to oneself in a very kind way – anything that I ask of someone else in the end it is not just about not hurting people. We want to bring out the best in them.  Use words to uplift and start with oneself.

All my inner judgments and criticisms are not who we are.

Talk from a kind, gentle respectful way.  If you need to more firm and direct and tougher, okay.  Do what we need to do, let’s get going.  But only to bring out the best in oneself or others.  No basis to cause pain.  Hashem wants His ultimate goodness to spread and it starts with you. Flip it with the level of wind.

The laws of onas devarim require us to sensitize ourselves to how we can hurt people verbally and nonverbally. But we can also bring out idealism by releasing the inner Elokus.  Minimize and reduce hurtful talk, conscious or unconscious. Challenge it. I want to be more committed and devoted to bringing out the inner goodness in myself, my inner kedusha is trapped and I will employ strategies to bring it out.  Have an inner redemptive reality.  Return to the essential divine self. That is who we are. 

And that fixes our actions, to engage our middos.  to fix our middos. we go more inwardly to our inner wind that is an expression of our Gdly soul, connect it upwards and bring it out through positive speech, Torah, tefillah, hisbodedus.  It is an immense treasure. In whatever ways you use words, look at the arrogance or woundedness and be committed to refine it, to awaken the inner Elokus.  We are acting out our fears and vomit them out.  Keep them in and work it out, don’t project it.  Hashem we want to use our inner Elokus to serve You, to bring out the inherent goodness of others, the pleasure of how others see themselves. Redirect it. do it for the right reasons and Hashem takes it forward.

People give real deep encouragement and support. This gives permission for the Shechina to exist between us. That is what onas devarim teaches us when we do borer on it, submitting the negative side. There is no justification to hurt others. The kernel of truth might be there is some tochacha needed, but often we go too far. The higher truth is we do not want to inflict pain. As we start to remove the falsehood of the illwilled intentions and see the truth that we want to help that person steer away from pitfualls – but are we helping or hurting?  Instead see the inner good in them and speak only positively, say words that bring out that person’s good. We can uplift others. It is really there that the inner illumination can shine, even when we fall short we can go higher. We are always hopeful, with kind gentle uplifting words, even if bold.  Don’t just seek to not inflict pain and avoid discomfort.  Be committed to bringing out the deeper pleasure of giving the experience of inner Gdliness. This capacity exists in our actions and middos and we bring out the nefesh elokis. This uses borer, winnowing and sifting.  We have to seek to bring out the greater pleasure.  Then pain is very boring. Bring it to its higher place and get to the place we really want. We want the shechina and it starts with each person and interaction.

June 24, 2021

Water corresponds with vav.  How do we use the melachos to rectify.

How to purify ourselves as a mixture of emes and shecker – we are using the four elements, using fire to refine the intellect, and wind to fix speech such as private information and hurtful words.

Rabbi Chaim Vital tells us that the reality of water is the desires of the body on the animal level.  This keeps us going.  Water gives us vitality. It energizes and gives nourishment and sustenance.  Fire and wind can then go into earth.  Water gives vitality to grow so it can come to fullest expression. Without it, we covet, wanting what others have.

Taivas of the body are about self-gratification, gratification of the self. Using the mechanism of pleasure reinforcing the animalistic nature and human existence and the problem is that it distances us from our Gdly being.

Water gives us vitality to serve Hashem through pleasure

On the positive side, if we remove the arrogance and bring it to the side of Gdliness, the water gives us vitality to serve Hashem through pleasure.  This is where we have the practical question of what is the relationship with pleasure.  In Judaism, with all our simchas, we mekadesh things, bringing out physical reality to its divine expression.  We are trying to distance from it being an end in itself.  Self-indulgence, boredom, distraction, anesthesia that numb us – that is animating pirud, separateness. That is what we have to stay away from.

Hashem bestows good pleasure is knowing and connecting to Him. The goodness is the pleasure He bestows.  If we want to subjugate the human part of ourselves and bring to the Gdly self, we have to reconsider and use borer to push out the false aspects of the pleasure to extract out the truth behind it. 

How do we relate to pleasure? 

Three ways,

1. imbalanced,

2. Extreme

3. Out of whack. 

If it is excessive, more than necessary, there is what I really need and what is beyond.  We can relate to the pleasure, like eating too much, but we feel bloated.  Or if we have insufficient pleasures and we feel deprived, I long and hunger for something.  We are not at the place of enough. So we eat to be full for benching, or are we inadequate.  Do we have the right balance but not using it in a Torah way?

How do we begin to examine?  We can use money or any desire.

In the realm of food, what type of pleasure is it?

It is an expression of love from Hashem, He loves us.
Or it is survival, to have energy to move forward?
It can be boredom, nervousness… it can be damaging and destructive. 

There is a profound misuse of appetite.
There is a misperception of relating to food.

There are many ways to use food extensively, insufficiently or inappropriately (not to lift us up.)

what does food mean?  Look at nefesh Elokus, fire, wind water and earth, in terms of the Elokis side, not the behama side. If we inadequately relate to it, we are reinforcing and fortifying the nefesh behamis. 

Food awakens the Elokis when it is about tov u mativ, that Hashem bestows pleasure.

Food has to be a conduit of pleasure.  This is clear through brachas. 

The brachas are for us to take pleasure in the food. 
The brachas that have to do with relating to pleasure. 

If you have to eat a food and you need it for medicinal purposes with no pleasure, then you do not say a bracha!  If it is not going to give you real pleasure in the Elokus, then we are not to say a bracha.  All brachas around food are about pleasure, that we have a relationship with Hashem tov umativ, that You are known to us, a Source of constant pleasure. We are strengthening our relationship with You as the source. 

When we eat with others for connection, we sing and share Torah, a meaningful connection. 

The mouth is yesod, connection.
We are connecting the neshama to the guf. 
The pleasure of eating is the pleasure of connecting. 

Our brachas have to do with giving pleasure.  That is an incredible thing.  if we have more than what we need and not just enough where we are saying to Hashem that He is bestowing food to me and I am receiving it, that You are feeding me.

We can then take the new vitality and dedicate ourselves to serving Hashem, that is an after bracha. 

If we eat and feel lethargic and go to the couch, food weighs us down. It is to give us energy and vitality and renewed energy for service.  Once we are full, stop eating, just enough is right and more than enough diminishes us.

Too little is obviously an extreme,
losing weight, headaches. 

On the inappropriate level, we do not have to consume everything.  Our body soul connection requires a certain type of fuel through the laws of kashrus.  How it has to be properly prepared, cooked and served. That food will fortify the connection between body and soul, and the mind becomes attuned. 

 We want connection… not separation from body and soul.  The right measure with the wrong intention, even if healthy food, that we are just eating, that means it is about me, the gaiva, the self-orientation.  We talk about the food, the flavors, that is excessive.

We enjoy food but we do not have to talk about it!!!
Appreciate it and thank for it… but it is the animate and strengthen connection to Hashem.

If used appropriately, the right amount, the right measure, the right food (kosher) with brachas and intention and purpose, the food gives vitality and gives strength and keeps us connected.  That itself creates a paradigm on how to look at pleasure. Pleasure gives us vitality. See the Gdly part, the body/soul part, the higher purpose of the connection.  That paradigm becomes an important part of our relationship with pleasure and it goes to all areas of life. Hashem is feeding me. Hashem is bestowing His goodness through the natural world. He is taking care of vitalizing me. It is good and tastes good. When I thank and praise Him, that is the goal of what higher pleasure is.  We are eating for the body and soul. That is fundamental. That realm of pleasure is in everything.

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Shabbos… What is it that they are not seeing and what are we getting? 

Shabbos has many restrictions and people do not understand why we follow them. It seems like we are missing and giving up things. Shabbos is oneg Shabbos, taanug of Shabbos. What is it that they are not seeing and what are we getting?  They see we are giving up all the fun at the mall!  We focus on the ultimate spiritual vacation, to awaken the soul and be spiritual every single week, built into creation.  Every seventh day.  And it is tied to what we do during the week. Shabbos is a taste into the future eternal world as revealed in the pleasure of Shabbos.  We are giving up the lower physical thing but getting the higher physical thing. Everything converges on Shabbos where we feel His presence, His unity how everything connects and returns.  We are giving up base level desires for the higher yearning of the soul. Look at any mitzvah. Is it so hard?  That we have to give money to tzadaka?  It is our money and we have to give it away?  Who are you to tell me to give it away, don’t tell me what to do. 

This was never our money.  It is a gift of Hashem to us created Rosh Hashana and bestowed every day to give us what we need. He gives us the merit through the pleasure of giving to other people, to be like Me, to be a giver and emulate Me. Be a Merkava to partner with Hashem to share abundance.

The other people will feel Hashem and not despairing.  There is always hope.

That pleasure of giving meiser, the money is all Hashem’s. 
He is giving it through us and it is unbelievable pleasure. 

Regarding earth…
when the edginess has to do with filling all the needs of this world, it is up to us.  It used to be that we hunt to eat, animal talk. 

When things don’t go our way, we get nervous…
what will we do when we retire, or if unemployed and we unravel.  It is Hashem’s money. 

The water element in every mitzvah is that we get to be ego-less.  We want the right thing and toil for it but Hashem is the one that gives. He decrees and fulfills.  It should be in a sweet way, not a toiling way. That is the pleasure of the connection itself and that gives vitality.  Observing Shabbos is a revitalization of the soul.  the world of tremendous tests is money.  We put it back to Him, it comes from Him.

When we daven it has an element of speech with opportunities for a higher connection. 

If we have a big meeting, and we talk to Hashem, that is the real thing, not with the boss or the friend.  The Creator wants to talk to us. We are not too busy. Or we did but not with concentration.  The pleasure and opportunity of davening is all about pleasure.  We have to direct it all back to Hashem.   we can get into all the back and forth of the laws, but it is all pleasure. All the forbidden pleasures in Gemara have a permissible and prohibited form.  If we perceive that Hashem wants to bestow a whole new reality, He is not depriving us of pleasure. Give up the counterfeit one, they are temporary, short lived, and can’t be brought with us to the next world.

On the soulful side, the physical pleasures need to get upgraded. Hashem wants us dripping in pleasure.  It means feeling His constant pleasure, bestowing to us. 

When we make mistakes we have the pleasure of teshuva.

Just because we are flawed does not mean we are excommunicated.  We made a mistake. I took for myself as opposed to a higher form of giving.  We have the ability to redo it. the ability to take a limitation and become less limited and even convert it to a strength.

If we have a limitation we can forgive ourselves, for giving – and the traumas and mistakes, all of these can be taken to teshuva that was created before the world.  Hashem is writing the script.  This is the place where we have a personal destiny and a destiny of the world.  Hashem restores us, and that is pleasure. Even a flaw – let’s say between people – we have to talk. We have a deeper understanding of each other.  Reconnecting is joyful in a relationship. Brokenness Hashem turns into a better relationship. That is the power of teshuva. You can do things, with all types of intentions, fear, but the reality of pleasure and connection to Hashem through water, through the middos, it is essential to have a relationship to pleasure, not excessive or inadequate and use the pleasures to give us energy and vitality. 

We may feel deeply lonely…  But Hashem is here and He will bring us to the right place at the right time.  Hashem is in it with me. all will be good.

The beginnings of the taivas of the guf, if it is self-indulgence that is nefesh behama, it won’t be enough. We will want to steal others, to get out “fix” because the whole world is there for my pleasure. I may covet others.  It is ever expanding. The ego has to be fed. If we puncture the falsehood in the pleasure, remove that from the mixture, that is undesirable. If it is a pleasure, and Hashem wants me to have that pleasure, to have vitality to serve Him in the right way, to know Him in the ultimate goodness, so maximize the pleasure the way the Torah tells us.  That is the ultimate way to do it, to unify myself connect to others and closer to You, that it is Your world and we are radiating Your pleasure.  Not out of self-indulgence, but fr4om my subjugation, I can’t grow anything but You can will and bring to grow and I can enjoy it and give it back to you.  The more we see how to use physical pleasures, and even the painful parts of that, to the core level of connection with ourselves others and Hashem, the depth of oneg is to experience on the ground the interconnectedness, that it is all bound up together.  The bliss that we feel through what we do is oneg, the pleasure.

Then we are connected to our ultimate sense of self. We have an important role that no one else can fulfill.

We have to be in it for the long haul.  We need the stamina and passion and intensity; our existence is tied back to Hashem.  be kind and patient but we really want to be more spiritually driven, get into the whole reality of pleasure, sift out undesirable parts and strengthen desirable parts. We want it to merge together that all is from Hashem.

That is what we are striving for.

3 Weeks 6-28-21

The 3 Weeks.

Thankfulness and sadness are the themes. 

We are grateful to be in the world and sad from the initial decree.  From the 10th of Teves, the decree began whether there would be construction or not of the Bais haMikdosh.  We are in the final time period, the three weeks, from then.  May we be zocheh to the reconstruction.

What are we trying to do.

We understand the breakdown. The mourning, the four stages, three weeks, nine days, and day of Tisha B’Av.  These reverse the regular mourning where the intensity is right away.  We accept the painful loss and try to move on with the person’s legacy.  But when it comes to this aveilus, we do not accept the loss, the very thing that is missing, what we are looking for, is the Shechina.  The Shechinah is what we are looking for.  But it is in hiding, not really lost. While it is lost, it is a temporary loss and it is up to us to find it.

Let’s make it intimate and personal. It is necessary. We look at the Melachos to fix our core identity, to restore the Shechinah lost and needing to be found within ourselves. We want to get back to the Nefesh Elokis.  We want to give back our inner divinity.  Remove the veil from within, the evil.  We want to live with the divine reality in us, the Nefesh elokis. We want to go into the inner elements of fire wind water and earth, in a way we break our actions and traits to get to our core identity, which is where the Shechina lies.

Nefesh parallels Malchus where the Shechina is.

We want to begin to do deep reflection and go inward to examine our inner structure, to study our character traits to see the inner elements. Where is the Shechinah found, concealed, trapped? Even though it is lost within us it is not taken away. 

We see the word ego and anochius and we think we are just human and not divine and even though I am precise with mitzvahs, there is not on the ground. We want to release the inner trapped divinity, the divine presence within on the Nafshi level.

On a person to person too.  And with Makom. 

But the Shechinah within, what does it mean to confront that the Shechina is lost but not gone?

Take a look inside. What we have seen in the last several months. There have been many tzaros, structural failings that give way, things not properly built.  When structural failures happen, with implosion, they blow in, Hashem is telling us that things are breaking down.  Anatomically restructure ourselves on the inside.  Restructure ourselves into a mini bais hamikdosh, strengthening ourselves through our core middos.  Hashem does not want to break down the world except to rebuild it. the flip of implosion is deep introspection for the sake of reworking our inner structure and reformatting it and building it anew.  That is relationship with ourselves. When we make ourselves a mini mishkan within, an inner divine being, then we are identifying with the Shechinah within us.  We are not just a body, or a body with a soul, or I am a soul.  we are a portion of Hashem and our very existence is divinity. We have to awaken the divine flow from above and channel it through to the four elements that emanate to our guf to reveal Hashem in this world. The physical becomes a place to manifest Hashem’s divine reality. To the extent that we do not want that or think that about ourselves or speak or act that way, we are in galus within ourselves. 

We are simply not just a human being. That is galus. We are in this world to break the superficiality of the triviality of our physical existence. It is falsehood.  Do not buy into it, for that is galus.

We are shifting the focus out from the body and shifting towards our inner divine reality

We enter the three weeks, removing external pleasures, the comforts, we are shifting the focus out from the body and shifting towards our inner divine reality. For the nine days, the crying and mourning is to dig deep into the infrastructure.  Between the straits, is suffering, the inner will of a person, in the depth of our suffering is ultimate inner will. The paradoxical thing is when we feel distant and detached and from there is an unbelievable place of yearning and longing for Him. The further we are from our own divinity and find ourselves in the limited dimension, from that deepest place of pain, there is a diamond in the dung. The depth of the pain and suffering that we feel, not to go into deep depression, but to dig into the depth of pain with hopefulness and inner truth and awaken a yearning to return to Hashem from a place within our nefesh Elokis, to come home, to come home to our eternal existential reality, the truest me. not me in my limited existence.  But to be aware of the divine origin of our being. We struggle in a world of falsehood, where things appear to be but are not.  Embedded in that is the yearning that allows us to come back from the depths of it.

Boomerang Mashal

Boomerangs are almost perpendicular. You can through it a quarter of a mile and lose sight of it and it will come back around 180 degrees and you can be in your own spot and catch it after a full 360 return. It is awesome.

When Hashem throws us so far into exile, our will comes to want to return with a profound yearning and longing born from the distance itself.

As it comes around to the point of origin, the reconstruction is that the light will shine and we can catch it and return. It will come from great distance to the point of origin. That is the transformation from tzara to ratza, go into the pain for the desire to return. 

The distance is to feel the separateness and create an inner trajectory to want to come back and when you come back it creates a new radiance.  Those who mourn the bais hamikdosh will receive that.  We are going to make a boomerang, go out from the furthest place and come back to the point of origin. We see that there is no true leaving Hashem, to sanctify the pain itself. We are meant to use all the halachas to renew it. we are trying to do this within ourselves. The avoda is on the ground.  We have done 8 melachos, gone deeply into our own nefesh to restructure animal to more divine. Who were we, who are we now, and who are we truly becoming. Face the inner exile within ourselves.  Do not get pulled down by sadness and hopeless.  Dig deep to strengthen faith, no matter how distant we feel, we did not throw it forever away.  It starts to break around and come back.  Like a boomerang.  Throw turned around is worth.  We are worth everything. Our intrinsic value and love is built in.

Return to the original source more committed to who we are, fortifying our inner mikdosh, with the freedom to be in that place that Hashem can dwell within us, in our marriages.  What we contribute to this is rectified consciousness and we can merit the emergence of Moshiach.  That is what He is asking.  No more structural collapses. Hashem please give us the strength to go inside to analyze our souls, understand the elements and character traits, and feel our inner exile of the Elokus.  Feel the depth and pain of the exile for the sake and striving of removing the kelipot to remove the trapped Shechinah in ourselves.  That brings the boomerang back the Shechina is restored, and power of exile turns to being able to live more redemption.

How do we relate to our own exile?

Let’s discuss. It is time to awaken the inner joy and take ourselves more seriously.