Hashem is the one who is lifting us all the time.

Post-Shavuot Avoda. The work becomes our identity: Netzach / Hod / Yesod: Walking Through the Fire, Rising in the Shame
The sacred responsibility of leadership
By Rachel Leah Ismaeli & Rachel Leah Weiman
 9 Sivan 5785

Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh teaches that shame — that deep test — comes in the month of Nisan — Nisayon! A month of tests. And Shavuot is one of the greatest tests of all. A moment of revelation, yes — but also a nisayon. A big one. And the truth is — we actually failed the first time around. And each year it comes back again, the same test, inviting us to ask:
When faced with Hashem’s presence, His pure eminence, will we receive the Torah directly from Him — or do we still need an intermediary?

After the seven weeks of Sefirat HaOmer — can we transcend the shame and walk that fine, fine line of Tiferet / balance, Netzach / endurance, Hod / humility, Yesod / elevated relationshipping? Can I really let those quintessential stories and triggers melt? Can I rise through it?

As light of Shavuot still pulses in the background — so too does the intensity of what it demands from us. We stood at Sinai. We heard. We received. We re-lived that very moment.

And our challenge now, dear women, nashim tzidkaniyot, is steeped in the ongoing courage to face the test / nisayon of emet / truth. The deepest nisayon… A deeper refining of the Tikkun Eitz HaDa’at Tov v’Ra. How do we face and metaken shame — and this time, not try to hide?

Shame is a distillation process — evoking and awakening within us light that previously could not be accessed. 

Sometimes, it’s the shame of circumstance —  the kind that comes from nefilot / falling, from scabs we carry against the pristine perfection others around us seem to embody or strive for. That contrast provokes something so primordially deep within us.

Sometimes its the shame of external circumstances caused by the cruelty of another person – when it’s not about our own fall, but about shame being projected onto us — a power dynamic, an unacknowledged shadow, emotional abuse, being silenced or erased so that someone else can maintain their persona. And they walk away free.

But not really…  it doesn’t really work that way. Because in his / her subconscious body, in their soul — it still sits.

And our shame lands in our bodies. We carry its heavy load. Disrupting our family life and equanimity. 

But here’s the truth: We can live through these tests / nisayonot. Feel the fear and constriction. Go inside. And pass the test. Elevated. Even in the darkness, the chaos, the mess, the shame, the fire. Especially there.

By not walking away. Not shrinking beneath it. Not letting it crush me. And also… consciously choosing not to retaliate, but to live through it. Grieve through it. Experience it. Metabolize it.

We can choose to humbly and boldly walk that fine, trembling line: between anavah / humility and malchut / dignity, between chash / silence and mal / voice, between shrinking and transcending. 

And we ask each time: What is my next step? Where is the ego death here?

Can I let it melt me? Can I rise through it?

And with Hashem’s loving help — and the support of deep soul sisters — I am… We are… rising. In a feminine way… allowing and not forcing, as our feminine voice is being heard.

With the rise of circle consciousness, diminishment is no longer a threat, as we are positioned in a circle, with Hashem at its center. Diminishment, shame, disrespect is a call to action. The Creator made me perfectly imperfect as I strive and reach for my higher future perfect version of my self. With our re-discovered voices … we are opening the gateway to these elevated conversations around what this deep inner work really looks like — around attachment, attunement, entrainment, transference — around the sacred responsibility of leadership and healing in our times. Around advocacy and speaking boldly — but from a place that is integrated. Humble. Truely aligned in mind, body and soul. So we can move forward in ways that don't retraumatize us or others.

What’s alive in that space? How delicate and humble the healer or leader must be — integrated, refined, responsible — to move us forward in a way that’s empowering, invigorating, illuminating… not traumatizing.

This is not just therapy or personal healing — this is our generation’s work. Tuning in somatically to what the DNA in our bones, our skull, our gut, our nervous system has been trying to tell us.

This awakening of consciousness is divinely orchestrated to propel us forward. Speaking humbly, boldly and profoundly — in our refined speech, in our tefillah / prayers, our Torah learning, our hisbodedus / talking to Hashem, and in our communication with others.

We are in this boat together, in our divinely guided process. And it is only through the work of shame that we can truly move forward — rectifying the generational, quintessential shame spasm we first experienced in Gan Eden / the Garden of Eden.

Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh teaches that shame — that deep test — comes in the month of Nisan — Nisayon! A month of tests. And Shavuot is one of the greatest tests of all. A moment of revelation, yes — but also a nisayon.

A big one. And the truth is — we actually failed the first time around. And each year it comes back again, the same test, inviting us to ask:

When faced with Hashem’s presence, His pure eminence, will we receive the Torah directly from Him — or do we still need an intermediary?

Are we willing to risk ego death to receive truth in its rawest, most unadulterated form — straight from the Ribono Shel Olam?

Can we stand before Him — trembling, open, exposed — and receive His 13 Middot of Rachamim and the Ohr Pashut / undifferentiated light in our kli / vessel… in His kindness, ever so lovingly, drip by drip, without a buffer? Without the need for intermediaries, for distractions?

Because that need is what led to the Egel HaZahav / the Golden Calf — the idol we turned to because we couldn’t handle the fire of truth.

Can we rise from this story of deepest separation — from ourselves and from Hashem — rooted in fear, in disconnection, and in spiritual bypassing?

And so we ask again — because the test returns again and again and again:
How do we approach the nisayonot of our lives?

When faced with Hashem’s eminence, will we walk into the fire?
Can we endure this test of ego death?
Can we let it refine us, elevate us — so we rise from it?

Or do we flee and run?
Do we freeze, shut down, project the shame onto someone else?
Do we say, “I can’t handle this! I’ll project my shame elsewhere so I don’t have to feel it — because it’s unbearable!”

Because the test keeps coming — until we face it. Until we hear it. Until we pass it.

This, dear sisters, is the avoda of Sivan.
To walk through the fire. To not turn away. To mekabelet / receive directly… with expanded consciousness, breath, and deveikut / direct connection to Hashem.

Because in this geulah, we are being asked again and again: Are we ready to receive from Hashem Himself? Or will we fall into the same patterns, stories, and triggers — hiding behind a persona, a mask?

We don’t want to make that mistake again — not now, not at the end of times.

So this is the call.

With all our training — meditations, healing modalities, therapy, yoga, breathwork, sound baths, aromatherapy, elevation, IFS, NLP, EMDR, etc. — can we be in nochachut / presence enough to walk into the fire?

Can we be brave enough to feel it? Let it burn away what’s not true? Let it melt away the klippot?

That is what Shavuot ultimately comes down to.
 And now, in the days after — this is our avoda.

Let us not flee this time.
Let us not turn away from the fire.
Let us allow our fire element to touch us. Feel the heat, the passion, the constriction.

Let us not silence ourselves or erase our own knowing.
Let us remember our emet ha’amitit — our inner truth.
Let us walk through the fire.

To let the shame transform us — not collapse under it.
To recognize when we’ve been erased.
To listen to the silent inner voice with humility.
To learn and practice the inner avoda — the techniques of tikkun ha’middot, birur / refinement — with dignity, teshuvah, and emunah.
To listen deeply.
To speak boldly, when the time is ripe.
To become integrated leaders, therapists, teachers, mashpi’ot — attuned, entrained, accountable, embodied.
To rise.
Together.

As we are living through these tests, lets reflect to each other,
 “Wow, you so exquisitely faced your trigger. I’m witnessing your quantum growth. You are shining!”

And say to ourselves,
 “Hashem was so with me — even in my fall… with who I am, and with what I’m bringing forth. And I am receiving — vividly — His light… in order for me to shine and give nachat ruach / pleasure to the Borei Olam — Master and Creator of the World.” 

May we walk forward with the Torah we are receiving now — directly, personally, intimately — from Hashem Himself.