August 9th, 2018
What is more powerful: small incremental moves, or one great leap? The answer can be found in looking at the secret to all growth.
True sustainable movement and growth can always be traced to small, but consistent, moves.
Your potential is unlimited. You are not bound by the events of your past, nor by negative voices from inside (or outside) yourself. If it seems like you are incapable of living up to your potential, remember that your frustration is a sign that you want to change. However, bridging the gap between wanting to change and taking action is where many people falter. The most accessible antidote to that challenge is to make small moves. The following explains the value of small steps in light of the 4000-year-old spiritual tradition of Kabbalah.
Every Journey Starts With a Single Step
Think back in your own life: When did you accomplish most? While you were still at home, provided for by your parents, or when you left home? Comfort zones are more comfortable. But they are never more growthful. Yes, there is a time for being in a nurturing environment, a home, where we can feel comfortable to explore, to just be. But the real challenge – and true growth – begins when you leave your comfort zone, when YOU are compelled to initiate and create on your own.
When you want to find your true self (not as you are defined by the forces that have shaped you) and reach your greatest potential, to be the best you can be – first you must leave your comfort zones, your biased attitudes, your previous contexts and old patterns. Open yourself up to a new perspective, travel on new roads, meet new people, lift your eyes and see new vistas. Wherever you are in life, whether you have no absolute guidelines that direct your life, or whether you live by fixed laws that regulate every aspect of your day, true growth is only possible when we get out of our comfortable habits, to cease conforming to the past.
And that journey is not about taking great leaps and bounds. It’s about a qualitative internal shift. Your journey beyond your comfort zone begins with a single step — a small move, a shift from the past to the future, from the old to the new.
Trial and Error Requires Small Moves
Every form of training — to master an art, music, language or a sport — is a step-by-step process. No one becomes an expert overnight. It takes repeated steps, learning from mistakes, and developing good habits and best practices to excel at whatever it is you are trying to learn. Even when you are skilled in a given area, it is only with years of experience that you become confident in yourself and your accomplishments.
The same is with your life journey: you learn and grown through a step-by-step process, with plenty of trial and error. Through experience and training – testing different approaches that work or don’t work – you develop successful methods to navigate life’s twists and turns.
You cannot gain experience without failure. When you take small steps, you are able to slowly and carefully adapt and assimilate healthy approaches by learning from your failures and successes. These small steps help build your confidence and resilience.
As you discover your own skills and talents, you’ll probably surprise yourself with how much you are truly capable of doing.
Behavioral Shifts Reach Your Soul
Behavioral shifts that introduce confidence into your actions acclimate you to your inner strength — the unblemished part of yourself known as the soul. By digging from the outside – behaviorally, through small moves – you reach within your soul. Coupled with a growing inner awareness, behavioral confidence will fan the soul’s pilot flame and make it come alive. Then you can truly access your great potential.
Exercise: Think about your goals. Identify the first small step you can take toward reaching one. Begin. Journal about it in your MyMLC journal.
Go deeper into this subject: Mighty Lessons from the Simple Sukkah | Think Different | Changing the World | Unplugged | Confidence | Raise Your Expectations to Achieve More | The Key to Taking Charge of Your Life | How to Create a New Habit | The Spiral Staircase
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Tags: goals, self-help, breaking habits
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August 8th, 2018
It is invisible, but always with us. It brings growth, but also death. It can be our greatest enemy, but also our best friend. It’s always moving, yet unwavering. It can bring hope but also hopelessness. Its nature is change, and it changes nature. It seasons us, teaches us experience, but also erodes us. It can work for us or against us. It is never neutral, and it never stops.
What is it?
Time.
The human race has conquered space. We have cleared out wildernesses and turned them into cities. Travel and telecommunications have allowed us to transcend great distances.
But what about time: Have we conquered time? Most people would answer that we can’t conquer time; we can manage it, but never conquer it, because the clock continues to tick whether we like it or not. We cannot stop the clock nor can we turn it back.
Jewish thought however always made it a goal to conquer time. It wasn’t enough to manage time, but actually conquer it. We sanctify time – Shabbat and holidays.
Time is energy, the Zohar explains. Each moment is potent, filled with enormous power. Each moment is an opportunity, never neutral. By tapping the energy of time, we conquer it. When we utilize and actualize the energy of the moment, time becomes our ally, launching us into another dimension. If we do not use the moment, the moment “dies,” and like deadweight it contributes to the erosion of our beings, as the clock of our lives ticks down.
We have the power to eternalize each moment in our lives. By filling it with meaning and spirit, time doesn’t merely pass; rather it becomes a catalyst for achieving immortality.
Look at your day. How many of its moments are just fleeting specks lost in the shuffle of life? But then comes that one moment – just one second – that can turn into magic, into an experience that lives on forever.
Imagine if you were able to turn all your moments into eternity. That is someone who has mastered the art of time, someone like Abraham, who “came into his days,” he tapped all the energy of his days, turning them all into eternal pilots.
This is the power and the mystery of the Jewish calendar: Each day, week and month is defined by its unique energy. By appreciating the personality of each time segment, time becomes our greatest asset; a silent but powerful partner in life’s journey.
***
We are now about to enter a most powerful time of the year: The Hebrew month of Elul. The energy of this month is love and reconciliation.
In this month Moses climbed the mountain for the third and final time, to gain forgiveness from G-d for the people who had sinned by building the Golden Calf.
The days of Elul are therefore called ‘days of grace’ or days of ‘compassion,’ because in this period G-d was open to listening to Moses – and Moses was successful in his appeal for forgiveness and renewal. Ever since, the month of Elul serves as the month of Divine mercy and forgiveness.
Elul is the story of Moses’ journey. It is the story of building a true and enduring relationship, even after it has been challenged. Moses’ Elul experience provides us with a special energy of love and compassion during this month, when the “King is in the field” and radiates the Thirteen Attributes of Compassion.
This applies to human relationships as well, which are but a manifestation of the relationship between man and G-d. One of the acronyms of Elul is: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li, meaning “I am to my beloved, and my beloved is to me.” (“Song of Songs” 6:3). It is a month when we can find true reciprocal love.
Nothing great is born in a vacuum. The compassion and love of Elul is produced from the pain of the previous month of Av, when the Temple was destroyed. The mazal (sign) of the month of Menachem Av is the Aryeh (Leo), an acronym for Elul, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Hoshana Rabba – four milestones in this time period, all built from the pain and destruction of Av.
I was once asked by a program director who was planning a lecture I was to deliver, “what do you find are the top issues people want to hear about?” I replied, that on top of the list, hands-down, is the topic of love, relationships, intimacy, sexuality. This definitely is the number one topic people are interested in. And number two is the issue of pain and suffering. [I know some of you may suggest to include up there “financial planning,” “how to become a millionaire,” but that’s for another discussion].
Without missing a beat, the program director, said to me: “Those aren’t two topics; they are one and the same…”
How true. Love and pain are two sides of one coin: The coin of your emotional life. When our emotions are awake and active they are sensitive to all feelings: Both love and pain. When you love and are loved you are vulnerable to being hurt as well. When you are locked and detached, you may not get hurt, but also will not get love.
Not to suggest that all love must bring pain. But being vulnerable means that you can potentially experience sadness.
The sadness of the month of Av was a testimony to sensitivity – feeling the pain of life and recognizing that work is needed to repair a fractured relationship.
What is our biggest mistake: The mistake itself or the inability – the fear – to acknowledge it?
Without awareness of the loss, reconciliation will not be possible and healthy love will never be achieved. One who knows how to weep over a loss, knows how to love. When you cry when you need to cry, you will laugh when you need to laugh. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy (Psalms 126:5).
The love of Elul is thus borne out of the pain of Av. As such, the love will endure forever, having been ruptured, tested and rebuilt. The power of the High Holidays is a product of the work done on the previous two months of Av and Elul.
We stand now in these special days. We must tap into the energy of the time and release its enormous power – power that can change our lives in a real way; power that can introduce a new dimension of love into your life.
For this reason I composed the book 60 DAYS: A Spiritual Guide to the High Holidays, as a step-by-step guide though this fascinating personal and psychological journey.
We all have challenges in our lives. Yet we also have tools, assets, strengths that help us face these challenges. One of the greatest of these assets is always there beside us, beneath us, within us and within all that we do. That asset is TIME. Every moment is an opportunity – packed with powerful energy.
The 60 Days begin this Friday, August 18th. Use the time well. Your return will far surpass your investment.
Tags: purpose, self-development, Elul, love, relationships, psychology, Moses, reconciliation
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Personal Life, Re'eh, Devarim | 1 Comment »
August 2nd, 2018
Do you underestimate your strengths and capabilities? How often are you truly able to handle a situation even when you ostensibly claim that it’s too much for you? Are you undermining your own potential success? “Conventional wisdom” today often programs us into fatalistic thinking that we are either cut out or not cut out to achieve certain things. While that may be true regarding particular skills and strengths (for example, some of us have nicer voices than others), more often than not we simply avoid from challenges that we can perfectly face due to our own falsely perceived limitations. Let us learn how to rise to the occasion instead.
Define the Enemy
The secret to access inner strength and resolve is by looking at our own doubts and procrastination as an “enemy.” Define the enemy and then gather all your inner strengths to go into battle. Allow your enemy to empower you. When the challenge seems particularly formidable, act counter-intuitively: Instead of retreating, obstinately commit to taking on the challenge with supra-rational tenacity. Relish the obstacle and make an active decision to do whatever it takes to move forward in fulfilling your mission to refine your corner of the world. Embrace what you believe in and don’t allow anything to stop you from living up to it.
Where Your Strength Comes From
The way to triumph in this battle is to muster the deepest resources of the soul – the enormous, unwavering power of your soul’s natural confident nature – which emerges only in the face of adversity. Rooted in the core of the soul (beyond all other revealed faculties), is sheer determination – total and absolute commitment to forge ahead despite any challenge, unknown issue, or doubt.
The energy of your soul’s natural resolute and triumphant nature comes from a deep-rooted belief and connection to who you are and what you need to accomplish; you access this power precisely when you are under assault. When you fight for your values, to live a virtuous life in a corrupt world, when you stand up firmly for justice and morality, when you combat selfishness, your own or others’, your conviction evokes the deepest spiritual resources. As demonstrated with the example of an actual war: When a leader is threatened and goes to battle, the drive to win causes him to unlock his most precious treasures and resources, ones that have never before been seen. The challenges of life, thus, become catalysts that ignite your deepest strengths. The greater the adversary and resistance, the more powerful are the forces of certainty you awaken and the more determined you are to succeed.
Kick Complacency to the Curb
Complacency is the root of weak resolve. By contrast, when you feel that your spiritual identity is threatened and you fear betraying your own highest aspirations, this danger stimulates new energies and will power, which draws out the unshakable core of the soul rooted in the unshakable essence of all essences.
This is the secret of transcendence: the ability to not be defined by the events and circumstances around you; the recognition that you are a product of your own attitudes and perceptions. You, and you alone write the script of your own destiny and control the course of your life. If you worship man-made devices, your life will be defined by these very devices. Connect to the sublime above, and you will be able to rise above the immediate events and move forward with fortitude and optimism.
If you feel that mortals – or money – control your life, then you have delivered your own verdict: You will be subject to these forces, with all their unpredictability and impermanence. If however, you recognize that the circumstances of your life are driven by a higher hand, and absolutely nothing that humans do can control your destiny, then you have freed yourself from the behavior of others and can ride through the challenges and even discover how they have empowered you.
Exercise: Look at your current challenges and identify one where you could rise to the occasion. Do it. Journal about it in MyMLC.
Go deeper into this subject: Sheer Determination | 2009 | Why You Should Never Say, “Why Me?” | How to Access Your Inner Genius | Why It Is Good That Life Is a Struggle |
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Tags: destiny, strength, Inner Strength, doubts, soul
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August 2nd, 2018
When Innocence Meets Vice
But Zion said: “G-d has forsaken me; my G-d has forgotten me.” [G-d replies] Can a woman ever forget her nursing child; cease to have compassion on the son of her womb?! Yes, they may forget; yet I will not forget you! Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands… Your children hurry; your destroyers and those who laid you waste will emerge from you.
Lift up your eyes round about, and see: They all gather together to come to you…The children that were born in exile will again say in your ears: ‘The place is too narrow for us; make room for us to dwell in.’ Then you will say in your heart: ‘Who has given me these? I had lost my children, and was childless, exiled, and wandering to and fro. Who has brought these up? Behold, I was left alone; from where have these come?’… Even the captives of the mighty will be free, and the prey of the tyrant rescued; for I will save your children – This week’s Haftorah (Isaiah 49:14-25)
How do we explain to our children corruption, hypocrisy, deception – and all the dissonance pervading the adult world? What should we say to our little ones when they are exposed, for the first time, to immoral educators, abusive parents, religious corruption and the basic inconsistencies they witness when supposedly good people behave in bad ways and when hurt comes from those that are supposed to love us?
Various schools of thoughts suggest different approaches.
Most agree that there is no need to initiate the subject with children until they broach it with us. Though there are those that suggest we do pre-empt the issue before children are faced with the quandary.
Some argue, that we should simply tell children the truth: We live in a cruel and hostile world, filled with selfish people, and humans are simply duplicitous by nature. According to this approach, children are just simply naïve, and when the time comes for them to grow up – when they first experience a lie – the time has come to “welcome” them into the spurious adult community of liars and hypocrites. “Lies My Father Told Me” was a popular film that captured the common attitude that adults lie to their children.
Within this approach, there are those that go as far as to say that the earlier we wake up children to the harsh “realities” of life the better it is. Let them not live in delusion about the human capacity to harm one another.
At the other extreme are those that suggest we should simply ignore the issue and avoid answering our children’s questions and addressing their confusion. “What’s the point of telling them about the deceptive world,” the argument goes, “when they will learn about it on their own?” Let children discover through their own experiences the contradictions of life, and adapt accordingly.
Then there are those that posit an approach of… lying to our children about the liars of the world. As ironic as that sounds, this philosophy (if you can even call it that) states that when out children come to us with questions about cheating clergy or corrupt educators, we should minimize the issue by telling them that in every community there are a few “bad apples,” which should not be allowed to stigmatize the entire community. We should weaken the blow to our children’s systems and blunt their disappointment by downplaying the problem.
As you can imagine, I am not about to accept any of these three tactics. The Torah approach – which I will try to convey in this column – rejects all these three perspectives.
Lying to our children, even in the name of protecting them, is not a healthy option. Obviously, we don’t have to go ahead and tell our children the raw truth about every tragedy in life; but withholding information until a person is mature enough to assimilate it, is a far cry from outright deception.
On the other hand, bluntly telling our children about the cruelty and duplicity of people can be quite terrifying, and does not necessarily prepare them for coping with this quandary. Is there any benefit in destroying children’s idealistic view of life, by explaining that all humans are selfish and warning our children to always be wary and on guard?! A strong case can be made that this “realism” is actually quite damaging to human growth. Without idealism, without the ability to dream and aspire, without hope, without enchantment and free abandon, what type of people would we be?!
Our greatest achievements come from our childish purity, virtue and innocence. When coupled with the seasoning and experience of adulthood – the combination of maturity and vulnerability, of wisdom and fascination is one of the most potent forces in life. All the most powerful breakthroughs and revolutions come from people who did not succumb to the status quo, who did not accept that everything is corruptible, who believed in themselves and in others.
Is that what we want to take from our children, by overwhelming them with the fear and hesitation that comes from knowing that all our heroes are cheaters, and that all the people we respect will ultimately disappoint us?!
A friend of mine proudly shared with me recently how he finally broke the news to his child that he should never trust anyone. “I always waited for the day that can share that truth with my child,” he told me, “now he will never be hurt and disappointed due to unmet expectations.” Knowing how my friend was hurt by people he trusted his attitude was understandable. But he was absolutely wrong. And I told him as much. He was wrong, because as painful as it is to be hurt by people you trust, it is even more painful to never allowing yourself to find someone you can trust.
Where will there ever be room for love, true intimate love, if we all are taught that all people are unfaithful – either in actuality or in potential – and that we should therefore always have our defenses up and keep a “back door open” in case wee need to escape?!
So the first and last options are unacceptable. As is the middle option of simply ignoring and avoiding the issue. What benefit is served by not answering our children’s concerns? Is it better that they find the answers in the street, on TV or in places that we would rather not even mention?
What is the role of parents and educators if not to address the conflicts of a growing child facing life’s paradoxes – with the ultimate paradox of good people behaving badly, and the struggle of preserving one’s integrity amidst those that do not, of being a good person amongst selfish neighbors?
Is there a more important question to be answered than the one emerging from innocence colliding with deviousness, honesty confronting deceit, seamlessness meeting duplicity?
Before we address the Torah’s approach, one vital introduction is necessary. And that is about the very nature of human beings.
If we humans are truly selfish “brutes” at heart, who have merely evolved into intelligent creatures, then taking this to the logical conclusion, people will do whatever it takes, cheat, lie, betray, to get what they want.
This, in essence, is the prevailing contemporary theory on human personality – one which we shall coin the “Darwinian-Freudian model.” The cardinal rule that drives all creatures, including humans, is “survival of the fittest.” The “Id” is the inherent selfish force within each of us, the primal, unconscious source for satisfying all mans’ basic needs and feelings. It has only one rule: The “pleasure principle:” “I want it and I want it all now.” The id wants whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration for the reality of the situation or the good of others. Yet, we have developed the rational “ego” and super-ego” which superimposes itself on the unbridled id. The Ego’s job is to get the Id’s pleasures but to be reasonable and bear the long-term consequences in mind. In Freud’s words: the human personality is “…basically a battlefield. He is a dark-cellar in which a well-bred spinster lady (the superego) and a sex-crazed monkey (the id) are forever engaged in mortal combat, the struggle being refereed by a rather nervous bank clerk (the ego).”
Based on this human model, we inevitably have to face the depressing reality that all people are capable at anytime to stoop to duplicity if it serves their self-interest. What then do we do with young, innocent children who are not yet aware of this “sophisticated” fact? We see them as naïve and simple, and at best, we hope that they won’t be exposed to the “true” secret of life – the “truth” that people are just untruthful and untrustworthy…
Well, I am happy to share with you that there is “another” approach – one that is diametrically and unequivocally opposite of the one you just read. It is based on the Torah’s human model, which sees us as fundamentally as people created in the “Divine Image.” We are first and foremost, and at heart, not brutes or beasts, but souls and spirits. Yet each of our souls was send down into a material world, dressed up in a physical body, with corporeal needs.
The soul’s radical and dramatic descent from sublime heights to decadent depths – which in itself is an elaborate study in Kabbalistic and Chassidic literature – creates the first and most powerful dissonance (originating in the great “tzimtzum” discussed last week), which will bear all other forms of dissonance in our lives, from the mildest to the most extreme forms.
We thus have two perpetual voices within us: The voice of the Divine soul aspiring to a selfless life of virtue, and the voice of the selfish body seeking to meet its needs; the subtle voice of the spirit in search for higher meaning and purpose, and the voice of the material desperate for survival and immediate comforts
We thus also have a lifelong conflict: Which voice will prevail?
Above all – and this is the most fascinating and empowering fact: Precisely this battle between soul and body is the purpose of our existence. Each of us has been charged with the mission and the resources to overcome the selfish temptations and allow our souls to direct our bodies, rather than the other way around.
And this is our ultimate response to dissonance – in all its shapes and configurations: We were given duplicity in our existence in order for us to overcome it, and transform it into a force toward unity.
Based on this human model, how do we look at our innocent children? As vast reservoirs of truth! Of all people on this earth children, as vulnerable, pure creatures that they are, still retain and carry the secret “truth” of existence: Beneath the dissonant; dishonest surface lays profound unity and seamlessness, waiting to be released.
A pure soul manifested in a selfish body is the conflict and purpose of our lives
Armed with this attitude, we have a most powerful – can we say eloquent, under the circumstances? – response to the questions our children ask about corruption and deception in all its manifestations.
When the day comes that our children are old enough to be confused by the dissonance around us, and they approach us with their questions, here are some words that we can offer. Perhaps it’s best to phrase it in a letter form:
My Dear Child,
As pure and delicate as your precious soul is, I want to share with you an important – maybe the most important – thing that you will ever hear in your life; it may be a bit painful, but above all it is empowering:
G-d sent you and I, and everyone in this world, down to a not such nice world. A universe where G-d’s presence is concealed, and G-d’s plan for us is not easily seen. In this type of world it is not difficult for people to wander away from what they were charged to do. Instead of pursuing virtue and kindness, we can sometimes get distracted by our own needs and interests. Instead of fulfilling the “operators’ manual” for life which G-d gave us, we can get busy with other side attractions.
But, please know, my dearest child, this is exactly what G-d intended. He gave us a challenge. Will we follow our hearts’ desires and satisfy our immediate needs, or will we see through the concealment and live up to our true selves? Will we be fooled and seduced by the darkness, or will we bring in light and warmth? Will we ignore everyone around us, or will we work on inspiring everyone we meet?
G-d entrusted us with His world. And gave us this choice. Every moment of our lives we will be confronted with this choice. As children the struggle may take on the shape of how we share or don’t share with our friends. As adults the conflict takes on other forms.
Sadly, people often succumb to their baser instincts and do things that is not consistent with their souls. Sometimes they may even know that they are doing things that are inconsistent with their own values. All of us have a yetzer hara (a selfish inclination); none of us are immune to these inconsistencies.
But always know, that just because others have fallen, you don’t have to. Always remember that you have the power to rise to the occasion and live up to your soul’s highest aspirations. And you have the ability to also help lift others who may have fallen.
As a child, you have something to give us adults that we desperately need: hope. You give us trust, beauty, innocence – and we in turn want to give you love and nurturing, strength and power to use your purity to conquer the world with spirit and soul.
With love.
“The hearts of the parents will return through the children,” the prophet tells us.
But we adults and parents have to allow our children in. This also refers to the “inner child” within each of us. Never allow it to be extinguished.
As the prophet states in this week’s Haftorah – which carries many of the points stated above, and would be worthwhile studying this week:
“I will save your children.”
Even when we experience dissonance all around us and we feel that “G-d has forsaken me; my G-d has forgotten me,” we are promised: “I will not forget you,” even if our mothers and fathers may forget us.
“Even the captives of the mighty will be free, and the prey of the tyrant rescued; for I will save your children.”
“For G-d has comforted Zion. He has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like G-d’s garden. Joy and gladness will be found there, thanksgiving, and the voice of song.”
I will save your children. Now that is a promise worth remembering.
Tags: children, hypocrisy, inner child
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Soul & Mystical, Beliefs & Concepts, Eikev, Free Choice, Personal Life, Home & Family, Devarim, Spiritual, Torah, Pain & Suffering | 15 Comments »
July 26th, 2018
A great mystic uses the “spiral staircase” as an analogy for life’s cycles: In Yiddish a spiral staircase is called “shvindel trep,” literally: Swindling steps. Why? Because when you climb a regular vertical staircase, you see yourself getting closer to the destination as you climb the stairs. A spiral staircase “swindles” you into thinking that, at times, you have stopped climbing and may even be regressing, because as you get closer to the destination you have to turn completely around, in a 360 degree turn, to the point where you cannot see the apex. As you climb, at each revolution you make, you turn your back to the destination, and just before you reach the top, you must turn completely around for the last time. At that point, with you being unable to see your destination, you may give up and feel that you haven’t made any progress. Even though you are a step away from your goal, you may stop climbing … the key is to always remember, even when your eyes cannot see it and your heart cannot feel it, that you are on a climbing spiral staircase, and you must continue to move. For all you know you may need to just make one more turn to reach your intended objective.
Like a Wheel
The wheel of life turns up and down throughout the experiences of life. Human nature is such that when you are on the top of the wheel, you are in good spirits. But in truth only a fool feels content, for the wheel of life is constantly turning. One who is on the bottom of the wheel and cries about his plight is also a fool, for he too is on the turning wheel. Do not be deceived by the fact that you may not see the wheel turning upward. Because the wheel of life is constantly turning. What today is at the bottom, will tomorrow be at the top. And like a spiral staircase, we turn our backs to the destination just before we reach its peak.
Light and Darkness
Life is not static. As much as we would like to just stop moving, the fact remains that the time and space we occupy is always moving, no less than the spinning earth beneath our feet. Light and dark, day and night, joy and pain, ups and downs, the changing seasons – this is the nature of existence. Life is all about cycles that orbit a broad spectrum spanning from the brightest light to the darkest gloom, and back again. All of existence is pulsating with energy. The secret to success in this world is to make our peace and learn to navigate the cycles in our lives and in the world around us. We must learn to swim and not fight the waves. Anticipate, adjust and align yourself to light and dark, search for them in all your experiences – recognize the waves, and they will become your friends instead of unknown, unexpected forces that can flood and overwhelm our lives.
When the Lows Feel Too Low
This is all good and fine in the normal flow of life. We can understand that we all will go through our ups and downs, and need to adjust to the rhythms. But unfortunately at times the “downs” manifest in such intense ways – whether it be in a collective or personal trauma – that all the explanations are rendered meaningless.
Yet, even in the deepest darkness there is always a spark of intense light (like the enormous light trapped in a black hole). Indeed, we see that some people are able to muster superhuman strength that empowers them to hold on and forge ahead; to even become stronger and greater. What can we learn from them? What do they have that others don’t (but certainly could)? They teach us that each of us has more power and light than we can imagine. Even when faced with great challenges, we really have the ability to dig deeper and find astounding and formidable strengths. Throughout the ages, collectively and individually, we are witness to people who have survived and thrived under the harshest circumstances, due to their profound, inherent power to transform the darkest and lowest of places into unprecedented and extraordinary light.
Exercise: Make an effort today to bring light to a dark situation. Record your progress in your MyMLC journal.
Go deeper into this subject: The Sound of Darkness II | The Difficult Dance | Do Our Shadows Have Substance? | How to Free Yourself from Your Problems | Process Is Crucial to Getting What You Want In Life | The Only Way Out Is Through |
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Masterclass
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Tags: Soul Gym: Spiritual Meaning of the New Moon
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July 19th, 2018
Do you feel burned out? Jaded? Like nothing matters anymore? Like the problems of the world are so endemic and entrenched that you can’t even make a small dent in them? There is one key to making your actions matter — faith. Not a juvenile or simple faith — but a confidence in the higher unknown that lies beyond the rational. If you can expand your world to include what you cannot explain or understand, you’re on the way to making your actions matter. How? Read on.
A Platform for a Life of Meaning and Purpose
True and healthy faith creates a platform for a life of meaning and purpose, a life in which our actions matter and our experiences are driven with direction. While a life of no belief may feel alright, it renders life as a random set of circumstances, with survival of the fittest being the cardinal rule. We live in a world in which we are being taught that people are essentially selfish creatures, driven by self-interest. In the Darwinian-Freudian model of life, which is the prevalent theory impacting every aspect of our existence, our psyches are being continuously inundated with how insignificant our lives truly are. The driving ethos of all creatures as “natural selection” basically renders every human virtue, every noble act, every thing we hold dear, as a method for billion-year-old bacteria to adapt and survive.
The Soul Is Beyond Selfishness
While its true that every person has a selfish inclination, we also have a transcendent side, which is capable of the noblest behavior. The deepest part of the human being is the soul rather than the “id.” The essence of the soul is a bulletproof, eternal source of goodness. The easier route may be the narcissistic one. But the more meaningful route is the benevolent one. A person always has the choice to overcome his/her primitive temptations and access the transcendent soul within. The soul is a rich resource, with layers and layers of potential. The challenge is to recognize and draw forth this dimension, which can lay concealed beneath the outer shell of material survival.
Believe in Yourself
“Impossible. Absolutely impossible.” How often do we hear these discouraging words, pouring cold water on our freshly hatched ideas? Don’t you think that the first inventors of the airplane or any other technology were told by their peers that their dreams were an impossibility? Yet, they persisted and finally prevailed. History is witness to countless stories of humans achieving the impossible.
And how else do we explain the seemingly irrational — or more accurately: supra-rational — drive that we can overcome any challenge. How, for instance, are doctors utterly convinced that they can ultimately conquer every illness?! It is because we have an instinct that all is possible. This instinct stems from the power of the soul — the inherent faith and trust we carry in our soul — that transcends mortality and all the limits and shortcomings of human existence.
It is critical that we believe in ourselves to be able to achieve anything in this world. That we can touch the infinite and the eternal. But we must also know that our psyches are under a constant assault of many forces reminding us time and again about our limitations, feeding our insecurities and fears. You have the power to be Divine, and with ease! You only need to believe that it is possible.
Exercise: Ask yourself: How sacred do you feel your life is? How pure are your activities? How indispensable do you think you are? Do something — one act — infused with the absolute confidence in your soul’s infinite capacity. Perform a good deed that will live on into eternity. Journal about it in your MyMLC journal.
Go deeper into this subject: Possibilities | Pure Ones | Lonely Man |
SOULGYM I MASTERCLASS
Live with Rabbi Simon Jacobson
Why Did a Spiritual G-d Create a Material World?
May 24, 2023 @8:30pm
Live Stream | Podcast
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Tags: soul, spiritual and material, potential, Freud
Posted in Your Mission, Your Purpose, Faith, Soul Gym, Soul & Mystical, Beliefs & Concepts, Personal Life, Spiritual, Torah | 2 Comments »
July 19th, 2018
We are now in the saddest period of the Jewish calendar. During these “nine days” we commemorate the tragic destruction of the two Holy Temples, the first by the Babylonians over 2400 years ago, and the second by the Romans over 1900 years ago.
The mystics explain these days as a time of intense “concealment” of the Divine presence, with the objective of us uncovering a deeper light within this darkness.
In personal terms this concealment manifests in different forms of dissonance in our lives. Who among us does not have a conflict between our home and work, between our personal and professional lives, between our own ideals and moral standards and the need to conform to the demands of the marketplace? We all have to face the tension between our hearts and our minds, between our desires and our disciplines, between our bodies and our souls?
All these dichotomies are an expression of the schism that takes place during the “nine days,” when the Temple was destroyed, closing the window between heaven and earth, between the Divine and the mundane. Yet, in a mysterious way, this dissonance can lead us to discover deeper truths amidst the ashes.
When challenged by intense darkness, we are compelled to dig deeper. These “nine days” are therefore an appropriate time for embarking on a profound search of the hidden Divine which lies embedded in our lives, even as it may appear dormant.
In this spirit, we present here a correspondence between Rabbi Jacobson in response to a self-proclaimed agnostic.
Dear Dr. B.
Let me begin with my feelings of appreciation for your letters. I am humbled and touched by your remarks regarding the book Toward A Meaningful Life, which I had the privilege of adapting from my great teacher’s works. Without even entering into a discussion of the presenting issues, the mere fact that this book provoked your thoughtful remarks and opened up a communication between our two “worlds,” is in itself a meaningful achievement.
Now to the issues at hand. If I understand you correctly, your struggle lies, in essence, in one all-encompassing dilemma or paradox. Namely: how can I suggest the reconciliation of a deterministic world of nature and the indeterminacy inherent in man’s free will, or in other words: the reconciliation of reason and faith? You see them as mutually exclusive, and even if they are both valid perspectives, they remain separated by an absolute divide.
To allow for a meaningful discussion, I would like to dissect the issues into separate items, which can then be reviewed point by point.
Every discourse needs to assume one or more axioms. In your letter it was unclear to me what points you are ready to accept (or at least concede). So, without assuming anything, allow me to build this from scratch.
Question number one: Do we accept that there are two legitimate and valid realms (albeit, at this point, mutually exclusive ones) – reason and faith, determinacy and indeterminacy (allowing for free will)? I’ll assume that we don’t accept this, thus the need to backtrack:
Do we accept the existence of G-d? And if yes, what type of G-d? You “grant the existence of G-d as a possibility,” but your “own faith is much more mundane, gleaned from admittedly finite experience and lodged finally in the concept of a unified deterministic universe; a universe which, for all practical purposes, operates without intent.” (In your updated version you write: “I believe that that the existence of both G-d and/or chaos are possible, my own faith, when I cannot keep it at bay leans more towards a deterministically unified existence…which operates like a machine”). My question to you then is: what kind of G-d would create a mechanical universe operating without intent? What need is there for G-d and what does a G-d contribute to a universe that functions like a wristwatch? You must be suggesting a G-d-engineer that basically set the wristwatch in motion, a G-d, as you put it, who is at best “a semantic question.”
May I offer another definition of G-d and existence. Our existence does not have to be. It came to be — created by G-d. G-d implies design and purpose. No engineer would create a machine — no matter how organized — for no purpose. Organization is not an end in itself. Design implies not just a systematic machine, but purpose; a raison d’être. We need to understand why the cosmic engineer created this organized, deterministic universe. It is insufficient to say that He created it just in order to demonstrate His grand power of design. G-d created this deterministic universe in order to accomplish some objective. A universe without purpose may as well not have a G-d; G-d then is only semantic.
I believe that you may have a problem with the notion of existence being created by a G-d. You would rather prefer defining existence (the universe) as one with no beginning and end, and G-d being the designer that wound up this wristwatch. However, my definition of G-d includes the possibility that our existence has a beginning — it is just a “tip of the iceberg” of reality, a part of a much greater whole, and this “whole” informs the “part” of its unique design and purpose, its reason for being.
What is G-d’s purpose in creation? That we humans contribute — as partners with G-d — in transforming our lives and the entire universe and reuniting its material side with its spiritual side, creating one integrated universe — as a G-dly place. G-d created grain seeds; humans plant the seeds, harvest the wheat, mix the flour with water and bake bread. We tap the infinite resources G-d instilled in this universe, and actualize their great potential by civilizing and refining the world in which we live.
In order for our lives to have any meaning and significance, we must have the ability to choose (with free will) whether or not to utilize our resources constructively.
You suggest that perhaps the meaning of life is to gain pleasure. However, this leads us back to our understanding of G-d. If G-d would be even half as sophisticated as a great writer, He would have greater intentions in creating a universe than just for pleasure.
But now we must address your question. You write “an inferential analysis of common experience suggests that existence is One (one universe under G-d…). If this is true, then free will is an illusion… for while we obviously can do as we please, we cannot exist apart from the laws of the universe and must be not only guided, but forced by them. That man alone should be granted the reprieve from physical law required by a doctrine of truly free will seems to me ludicrously anthrocentric, appropriate only for a superstitious and primitive people.” So, how do we reconcile the divine design of the universe and free will?
The answer goes back to how we interpret G-d. Is G-d Himself bound by the deterministic laws of the universe that He created? The answer is no. G-d transcends these laws, or better put, G-d could have created entirely different laws or no laws at all. Your questions are valid only in a world of our deterministic logic where everything is governed by deterministic laws and we have no reason to say that man is different. However, this is only from a human perspective that in itself is bound by laws. From G-d’s perspective, which is not bound by any of these laws, there always remains an element of indeterminism, and He chose to infuse a glimmer of this indeterminism into our existence by granting free will to man who G-d created in His own “image.” In other words, an indeterminate G-d (undefined even by the word “indeterminate” and “undefined”) chose to create a deterministic system, and bestow man with free will to transcend the determinism of nature and choose to lift the universe to a higher place than it could ever achieve on its own.
This presents an interesting paradox: since G-d is not bound by any laws and impositions, therefore when He chooses to create a deterministic universe, it become absolutely deterministic; because G-d did not have to do so, once he chooses to do so, the determinism is much more air-tight than if G-d Himself was deterministic and simply acting according to His “nature.” On the other hand, there always remains an element of indeterminism, because even after G-d created the universe, G-d still remains G-d. And this indeterminism is reflected in the universe, in the inherent uncertainty that exists on a quantum level, which is also beginning to be understood by scientists as having effects on our macroscopic universe (enclosed are copies of two articles on the topic).
I believe that as scientists discover more of the underlying unity in the universe, they may also come to discover, that the ultimate unity (the so-called “unified field theory”) can only be understood by including the “observer” — mankind — into the equation, and recognizing that this “observer” is no objective “observer” at all, but man’s moral behavior, resulting from exercising his indeterministic free will, has an impact on the universe.
By now you see that the issues you raise are all related to our definition of G-d. For more discussion on my description of G-d (being neither deterministic or indeterminstic) as opposed to other descriptions, please read the chapters “G-d” and “Unity” in Toward A Meaningful Life. I also have tapes of my classes on the topic of free will and determinism, where I discuss this issue at length. Should you be interested in them please contact my office at the number above.
Finally you ask me how did I come to my beliefs? Before I answer that I would like to take note with the final line of your last letter describing me as “Orthodox” and yourself as “Agnostic.” True faith, as I understand and experience it, is not some cop-out or crutch. Faith does nor preclude doubts, questions and agnosticism. Neither does it deny the paradoxes of life, of reconciling a good G-d with the pain of good people and the prosperity of the wicked, and other such contradictions. Faith is an all encompassing experience that includes faith in logic, and respects all the realities of our common and empirical experiences. But it does not stop there; it also includes awareness of our sublime experiences, our feelings and intuitions, even our subconscious and beyond (or: within), regardless whether we are comfortable with the consequences or not.
If you wish, I, too, can present a compelling argument for agnosticism. After all, G-d created an agnostic universe (as I discuss in the chapter on “G-d”). However my honesty and integrity dictate that I not allow myself to be trapped in my mind. Yes, my mind, as all minds, can explain the impossibility of proving whether G-d exists, whether we have free will, or, for that matter, whether we matter at all. But if I want to live life to its fullest, not just relegated to my mind, and not just locked by my logic, but one that includes my feelings, all my innermost resources, a full-blooming life of love and intimacy – I must include faith in the equation, not some blind faith in the unknown, but a deep sense of a greater presence, of a higher “Itness.” Only logic and faith allow us to be most complete – to experience it all, and not just part of it.
I have come to my beliefs in many ways. By process of elimination. By intuition. Through logic. And perhaps more than all — through love, that all embracing feeling that also has no logical explanation, and yet it exists as the most powerful force in life. All these processes have helped eliminate some of the obstacles that obfuscated my inner voice and allowed the natural knowing of my soul to emerge. After taking into account everything I know and feel, I firmly believe that we are all people of faith (read: people who have an intimate relationship with G-d), which becomes increasingly obscured as we grow into “adults” with minds that help us obfuscate our inner voices and become ever more comfortable with the “here and now.”
Dr. B., let me add this on a personal note. Faith, like any of our resources, needs to continuously be nourished. Indeed, if our bodies continuously need food for sustenance, how much more so does our faith — which can be so elusive — need “food.” The “food” that nourishes faith are the “mitzvot,” living our daily lives and behaving according to the divine laws of the Torah. Putting on tefillin, keeping the Sabbath, eating kosher, study, prayer and charity. Though we may not fully understand the dynamic, these deeds are all different “vitamins” and “minerals” that feed and nourish our soul, our faith. They instill us with confidence in our inner voice, and allow it to be channeled into our conscious, material, “faithless” life. Faith is a continuous struggle, paralleling and reflecting the struggle of life itself. How often is our faith tested, how often does it waiver? However this struggle is our greatest challenge and gift: Will I rise to the occasion and allow my faith to fill me with passion, to lift me to the greatest heights in impacting this world in a G-dly way, or resign myself, as so many have, to the mediocrity of a meaningless existence, where my greatest passion is in the temporary and the mercurial?
G-d’s question to Adam, “Where are you?” is an eternal question asked of us all. It is a spiritual query not a spatial one: “Where are you” — what are you doing with your life? Where do you stand? Are you recognizable as one created in the Divine image?
I invite your response to this letter and any further dialogue. As you suggest, perhaps our discussion can be of assistance to others as well. Feel free to share these thoughts with anyone you choose.
All the best,
Simon Jacobson
Tags: creation, divine image, purpose of existence, concealment
Posted in Devarim, Weekly Parsha, Tisha B'Av, Faith, Soul & Mystical, Months & Holidays, Religion, Beliefs & Concepts, Devarim, Spiritual, Torah, Av | 10 Comments »
July 12th, 2018
Are you responsible to repress your opinion if it may offend others? In a culture where trigger warnings, safe spaces, and social-media outrage have become part of the common parlance, it can be hard to discern what your responsibility for another person’s reaction is. Is there an absolute guideline?
Self-expression is a divine right that we each have. At the same time, this right comes with great responsibility to be sensitive to others with different and even conflicting opinions. (It’s not just a free-for-all for you to express your ego.) How can we balance the two?
The 4000-year-old tradition of Kabbalah offers a practical answer that encourages personal responsibility while supporting autonomy and free-speech. The following three guidelines for communication can help you to communicate sensitively while maintaining your right to express your truth.
Guideline #1: Humility
Humility is the key to balancing your right of self-expression and consideration of others. Your right to express yourself is not about you. It’s about a gift you were blessed with to illuminate a deeper insight into life and the human condition. When communicating truth, emotional and spiritual tools to help people live better lives, ego, arrogance and the likes, all block the way for healthy communication.
If you are truly humble in your critique, you open up the listener to feel that you really have his or her welfare in mind. Whereas if you are arrogant, the other will close up and not be receptive to your opinion. You may even evoke a sense in others that you are just angry, obnoxious, and condescending, looking to show someone up and demonstrate your sense of superiority.
Your responsibility is to be humble, not to be silent. To express yourself with gentleness and care, not to placate others and their feelings.
And when you communicate that way, you engender and cultivate respect and dignity.
Guideline #2: Mutual Respect
It’s crucial to create an environment of mutual respect, even as you exercise your freedom of expression. There are ways to communicate, even if you disagree with someone entirely. What is offensive is not having another opinion, but the lack of respect for the sacred space of another human being, including their opinions.
The sacred-space of another human being does not equal the common perception of “safe-space” — it’s far deeper. It means respecting the essence of another person — the fundamental internal goodness and dignity of a person. We are all responsible for our own emotional reactions — your responsibility as a speaker is to communicate respectfully and from the heart.
Guideline #3: Don’t Intentionally Offend People
You have a right to speak the truth, not a right to deliberately offend people. In the media culture of pundits, shock-jocks, critics, and social media provocateurs, it is unfortunately profitable to intentionally offend people. However, money is no barometer for success — adding light to dark places is. The best way to help inspire others to improve their ways is by showing love. Not as a gimmick or maneuver to warm that person up so that you can rebuke him, but simply, with genuine, sincere love – demonstrating that you really care.
What really lays at the heart of the resistance anyone has to hearing rebuke? Pride, fear of being judged, shame, exposure. And conversely, what truly motivates one to try correcting a wrongful situation? Warmth, kindness, care, and concern. If your words of rebuke are condescending, rest assured that your words will not have an effect. If however the other person feels that your words are coming from a heartfelt place, that you sincerely care about him, then he may be open to hear what you have to say.
Exercise: Make a concerted effort today to examine how you communicate with others. If you find yourself criticizing another, check yourself and change your tone and attitude. Take responsibility for your form of expression. Go out of your way to speak to one person today from your heart. Record your progress in your MyMLC journal.
Go deeper into this subject: In Defense of Anarchy | To Intervene or Not to Intervene | Humility Is Not Self-hatred | The Art of Communication | Art, Religion and Democracy | Mixing G-d and Politics |
Tags: communication, communication skills, dignity, freedom of expression, public speaking, respect, teaching
Posted in Soul Gym, Personal Life, Social, Emotions & Psychology, Education | 1 Comment »
July 11th, 2018
If you could choose to meet one person in history, who would it be?
There’s a part of me that is very curious to meet a man who was derogatively called ‘Acher’ (‘someone else’ [sic]) after he turned apostate upon leaving the famous ‘garden.’
The story goes like this: His original name was Elisha ben Avuya, one of the greatest sages of his time. Elisha together with three of his colleagues, Rabbi Akiva, Ben Azai and Ben Zuma once went into the ‘garden,’ i.e. they had a mystical experience. Ben Azai died in the process, Bem Zuma went insane, Alisha became an apostate. Only Rabbi Akiva came out intact.
After he became a heretic, his crime was considered so terrible that his colleagues no longer referred to him by name. Instead, they called him ‘Acher,’ the unmentionable ‘other.’ Alisha was considered the epitome of “one who knows his Master and intentionally mutineers against him.”
A related story that contributed to Acher’s rebellion is when he saw a father tell his child to perform the mitzvah of ‘shiluach hakan’ (sending away a mother bird before taking her eggs). The child in effect preformed two mitzvot (shiluach hakan and honoring your parents) both of which carry G-d’s promise for a reward of long life. Instead, what happened? The child climbed a ladder to fulfill his father’s wish, and he fell to his death. When Elisha saw this he ripped his clothes and cried out: “There is no Judge and there is no justice…”
Acher’s story is both fascinating and mysterious. I am strongly tempted to meet and ask him what he saw there in the ‘garden’ that so disturbed him. It would be amazing to hear his experience. To hear what he felt like when they changed his name. And when his great student Rabbi Meir would study with him and would justify it to his colleagues by saying: I eat the fruit and discard the peel, I suck out the juice of the fruit and discard the pits. What did Acher think about that? Did he agree? And what did he feel when he was finally allowed into ‘hell’ (yes, even hell didn’t want him) and then into heaven? And what does he think today – thousands of years later – about the issues of justice and corruption?
Indeed, who among us has not been plagued by the question of justice in this world? When we see tragedy strike good people – and recently there has been a spate of these around the entire world – when we see good people suffer – we all wonder where is the Judge and where is the justice?
We all wonder where is the Judge and where is the justice?
So, Acher would be an intriguing person to get to know.
But that’s in my more rascalish mode. In a more sober moment, I think that today I would like to meet Moses. A far more complicated individual. One who spoke to G-d ‘face to face as one speaks with a friend,’ and he not only maintained his faith, but he is the ultimate symbol of faith and dedication, the quintessential man of G-d.
Moses was no less a sage than Acher. And he too was in the ‘garden’ – like no other person in history, and he too witnessed the suffering of the innocent, and confronted G-d on the topic (“Why do You do evil to this nation!?”), yet he maintained his deep faith. What did he know and what did he see?
I am absolutely infatuated by the journey Moses took on Mt. Sinai. First he spends 40 days receiving the Torah (from Sivan 6-Tammuz 17). Then he returns for another 40 days to pray that G-d pardon the people for building the Golden Calf (Tammuz 18-Av 29). Unsuccessful, he returns for yet another 40 days (Rosh Chodesh Elul-Yom Kippur) and he finally secures complete forgiveness on the holiest day of the year.
We are actually now in the second week of Moses’ second climb on the mountain. These days are not considered such great ones – “days of wrath” – which include the Three Weeks when we mourn the destruction of both Temples and a series of other tragic events in history.
What was Moses doing up there all this time? What did he see and what did he learn? What did he say and what was said to him?
From the account in the Torah (primarily at the end of Exodus, and a bit in Deuteronomy and in other places) we know that his hands were full. We know that he did not waste any time and immediately confronted G-d. We also know – from a series of cryptic verses in Exodus (33:12 and on) — that Moses got straight to the heart of matters by asking G-d to show him His (G-d’s) ways and His personality. And G-d complies. Moses learns about the Essence of G-d and G-d’s mysterious ways in running the universe.
In a most intimate exchange, Moses asks G-d to see His face. Instead G-d shows him His ‘back.’ G-d places Moses in a ‘crevice in the mountain, placing My hand over you until I pass by. I will then remove My hand and you will see my back, but My face you will not see.”
What did Moses see?
Perhaps we may never fully know. Perhaps you have to be a Moses to know. Yet the Torah does document it. I am sure that many other things took place on that mountain that the Torah does not share with us. The fact that this is shared with us means that it must be relevant to us, and that we can in some way understand it.
Whatever the explanation – and we have plenty of time to analyze it – the entire journey of Moses is just so compelling.
One thing we do know: Moses did not give up. 40 days, another 40 days, another 40 days, and he prevailed!
He must have heard every possible reason from G-d why the Jews deserved what was coming to them. He must have learned all the complexities of Divine justice and the balance of things above and below. Yet, single-mindedly, with no support system, he hammered away again, again and again…
No matter what actually happened up there, what we do know is that Moses – as opposed to Acher – was not only undisturbed by what he learned, but he came back with the biggest gift of all: There is always hope. Even when things break – and how they did break! – the human spirit is endowed with the power of persistence, and sheer and absolute persistence can break down any door.
Acher may help legitimize and lend credence to our doubts and questions, but then what are we left with? The same questions and confusions that have disturbed countless generations before us. Great! As if we didn’t have enough doubts and fears…
What does Moses leave us with? He leaves us with confidence in ourselves, belief in the future, hope in our children and grandchildren.
What does Moses leave us with? He leaves us with confidence in ourselves, belief in the future, hope in our children and grandchildren. Yes, to believe – what a concept, what a force! And to believe even when there seems no reason to – that takes guts, that takes courage, that takes real power.
So, though we don’t really know what Moses was doing up there, day after day after day for 120 days, what we do know is that he left us an eternal legacy – the ability to face our deepest questions about justice and injustice, about the innocent and their suffering, about G-d and His mysterious ways – and come away stronger, more confident than ever.
Perhaps what he ultimately learned is that our questions, doubts and fears don’t weaken reality, just as our answers and courage don’t strengthen it. So why spend the rest of your life agonizing, justifying, excusing, cowering (of course, with a courageous masquerade) – spend it better on growing, building, perpetuating. Even when the going gets tough, hold on to the future, rather than be victimized by the past.
What else can be said when I see friends and colleagues suffering senseless loss.
Yes, while the people were suffering below Moses was experiencing a parallel reality above. He did not succumb to the resignation and the quiet — or loud – desperation from below. He wasn’t interested in the millions of arguments making a case for despair and hopelessness. He had no time for that; he knew that anyone can come up with such arguments. With half a brain (or less) in your head, every conceivable argument can be made – and a strong one at that — that we are going nowhere, and the more things change the more they stay the same. A strong case can be made for a life of complacency and mediocrity.
Moses wasn’t interested in repeating all the arguments for negativity that came before him and that would inevitably come after him. He wanted something unique, something legendary, something unprecedented – something that would instill hope in humanity, hope in our future, hope in our destiny.
Ahh, Moses. What a character! He would be a great person to meet for a drink…
Tags: Moses, faith, justice, Matan Torah, doubt, Inner Strength, questions
Posted in Biblical, Weekly Parsha, Faith, Beliefs & Concepts, Personal Life, Torah Personalities, Bamidbar, Torah, Pain & Suffering, Matot, Massei, Moses | 1 Comment »
July 5th, 2018
Each of us hears many internal voices tugging us in different directions: The voices of parents, teachers, peers, employers, critics, fans, people who love us, and people who don’t. These voices — as well as other social forces stimulating our senses — often drown out your true inner voice. How can you sift through the noise to find your inner voice? Try the following three methods.
Find Your Inner Sanctum
Beyond all the complexity of life, beyond all our jaded experiences, beyond all the clutter and turbulence, we each have within our souls a very quiet, intimate place – a soft and gentle voice. This is who you are at your purest core. This is what you looked like when you were a newborn child. It is the part in you, like freshly fallen snow, that has not been polluted by life experiences.
Seek out and identify your inner sanctum — the purest and most innocent place within your heart and soul; a place where you can dwell and find comfort; a beautiful core whose pleasantness you can behold, which you can regularly visit.
Live By Your Life’s Purpose
Every time you experience a moment of truth – an experience that resonates – you are hearing the inner music of existence. This awareness taps into the very fabric of the harmonic chords of life, allowing you to perceive the choreography within your life, rather than the outer narrative being lived out on the surface level.
How do you access the music within at all times? By getting in touch with your life’s purpose, and recognizing that every moment of your day, every activity, every interaction is a spiritual opportunity. You are charged with the mission to realize each of these opportunities by ensuring that all your material experiences and gains are simply a means to express higher spiritual truths and values, and bring more virtue into this world.
In every life experience you have two options to choose from: To serve your own needs, or to serve a higher cause. When you touch the surface of any experience it usually will result in serving self-interest. But when you tap into the inner meaning of the experience, its music will play, and it will result in some form of transcendence of self and serving a greater purpose.
Tap Into the Power of Silence
Our deepest and most powerful experiences happen in silence. Not to be confused with the silence of the weak or the fearful, the profound silence of the intimate is louder than sound, stronger than force. It is the essence of your being experienced not through the senses but in silence.
The still, subtle voice – that is where you should enter. Everything else can remain outside your door. Initially, left to your own faculties, your senses alone can distract you from your inner life. The sensory stimulation of everyday life – not to mention being inundated in every which way by marketers hawking their merchandise – is a constant reminder of the formidable forces consuming your life which you must contend with. You therefore need moments of silence and spaces of solitude to access your soul’s inner journey. Too many extracurricular noises will drown out your ability to hear the subtle hum within.
Exercise: Close your eyes. Lower the volume of your senses. Take your mind, heart and presence to another place – to who you truly are beneath it all – seek out the single most important thing of all: your essence. Journal about it in your MyMLC journal.
SOULGYM I MASTERCLASS
Live with Rabbi Simon Jacobson
World Peace Begins with Inner Peace
Wednesday, July 20, 2022 @8:30pm
Live Stream | Podcast
Add to Calendar
Go deeper into this subject: Rosh Hashanah: One Request | Song | Jerusalem 2009 | Fireworks | Basic Soul Awareness | How to Access Your Inner Genius | When You Feel Discouraged, Get to Know Yourself | How to Find Your Inner Strength | How to Live On Your Own Terms |
Tags: Soul Gym: Your Inner Mystic
Posted in Soul Gym, Personal Life, Emotions & Psychology | 1 Comment »
