“In praying, in trying to approach God with thoughts and words, the essential factor is nullification of self.
Especially when one recites the Shema prayer, thoughts should be concentrated on the Divine oneness, not as contrasted to duality or multiplicity, but as His all-inclusive unity, in the sense that nothing else exists.”
“On Rosh Hashanah we plead with God to go on running the world’s business and be our King.
“The essence of repentance is awakening the potential for renewal, awakening one’s ability to return to being oneself instead of a reflection:
A reflection of media images.
A reflection of neighbors.
Or even a reflection of a younger, more authentic self.
Certainly this might seen doubtful:
Is return in repentance (in the sense of return to a more religious life) really the path to self-renewal?
Isn’t religion itself, with its thousands of prescribed mitzvot and deeds, instructions of “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not,” a piece of the same perpetual cycle and routine multiplied exponentially?
Actually this is not the case, for two reasons.
In truth there is an established routine of prayer, mitzvot, and good deeds.
However, this system does not simply carry on, concurrent with the other empty routines of life.
To the contrary, these routines clash ceaselessly.
Religious life disrupts the normal course of eating, drinking, and working in its tracks, and this disturbance of one type of continuum rouses it to transformation.
Practically, the minute interference of Jewish law into every detail of life rescues individuals from sinking into the mire of animal-like behavior.
For every action there is some small pause, saying:
‘For a moment, unleash from this race, shift for a moment to another paradigm—one of blessing, prayer, the ritual washing of the hands—that is neither connected to nor anchored within daily life.’”
"There is a story about a man who was a famous recluse and ascetic.
He was also a great scholar and something of a saint, wearing sackcloth next to his skin and practicing self-abnegation.
One day he went to visit one of the great Chasidic rabbis.
On arrival, he thought it would be appropriate to open his jacket a little and expose the sackcloth underneath.
The Rabbi peered at him and kept saying, 'How clever he is. How wise he is.'
After hearing this repeated several times, the ascetic could not refrain from asking, 'Who? Who is wise?'
And the Rabbi answered: 'The Evil Impulse -- who took such a one as you and put him into a sack.'
The truth is that a person can remain all his life a modest and frugal and decent and can still be doing it entirely for himself."
"The great Tzadikim in Heaven do not pray for the community.
They can no longer relate seriously to the frivolous requests of men.
God, however, who is Infinite, makes no such distinction;
He hears all men equally.
What is more, there is no before or after in God, no distinction of time or place, size or value.
This means that causality, as men know it, does not necessarily correspond to the true process and cycles of existence".
"He who is satisfied with himself, smug in his proper performance of mitzvot and the correctness of his life, may be somewhat perturbed by the injunction to be humble before all men, irrespective of who they are.
He has to compare himself in subjective terms:
Does he, indeed, struggle with himself to the same degree he requires of the most casual delinquent?
Can he put himself in the others place and overcome the same temptations?
There is the story of the Tzadik who, after passing through a forest, said that he was amazed at the awe and fear of God he had seen displayed by some nameless person there.
An uncouth and unlearned youth had been standing among the trees, shouting at his father:
'Were I not afraid of God I would smash your head with my axe!'
This indicated, said the Tzadik, that the youth had overcome a powerful urge to kill his father and had done so because of a genuine fear of God.
'Such a victory,' said the Tzadik, 'is more than I can claim for myself, never having struggled with such a terrible passion; and I am humbled by it -- not at all sure whether I, or those around me, would be able to make the same sacrifice.' "
"Some Chasidim used to say: 'We study the secret lore, learn about the existence of other worlds, angels, seraphs, and heavenly beings.
But we don't see any angels or heavenly beings, and we don't believe that anyone who studies more is able to see more.
Nevertheless, the difference between the one who studies and the one who does not study is that, in the future, when these things are made manifest, the one who studies will be able to recognize them better, to relate them to what he has learned.'"
“While playing hide-and-seek with the other children, the grandson of a famous rabbi hid himself.
The others forgot about him somehow, and after some time, the little boy ran weeping to the rabbi.
‘Grandfather,’ he cried, ‘I hid myself and no one looked for me!’
Whereupon the rabbi was deeply moved and answered, ‘Why, that is the very same thing that God is saying all the time.’”
“The result of one's performance of a mitzvah is of no consequence;
it is the moment of the mitzvah itself which is the victory.
It is the moment in which the King is presented with sparks of holiness from below, and it contains the whole of one's own significance on earth.
A person should see himself as part of a caravan that is climbing a high mountain;
his body and soul are on call, ready to do whatever is needed.
When one is busy with one's hands, one is doing God's actions.
When thinking or feeling, one is occupied with God's thoughts.
When speaking, one is uttering His words.
Such a life is called "soul restoring" in that Torah brings the soul back to its source.
As it is said: "the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart" (Psalms 19:9).
Their capacity to make the heart rejoice comes from the fact that, no matter who the person is, what ever his level, when he does the will of God, he knows that he is redeeming the world and redeeming his soul.
The sanctified deed extends in unknowable ways far beyond the confines of the action.
In such a life, a person forgets the personal accounts of his own self and becomes absorbed in the task of Divine work.”
"It is not possible objectively to compare men in terms of their transgressions, because this is not the correct gauge of worth.
One should compare them on the basis of the degree of effort required to overcome temptation.
What for one person is a terrible temptation, on account of his personality or history, is for another of no import whatsoever.
For a gambler, playing cards has a different weight than for someone who has never played.
Thus, it is always easier to tell someone else to overcome any wrong impulse.
The question is whether I myself can do as much even if I am a very righteous person.
And it is not necessarily a matter of correcting conspicuously appalling sin, but rather of the ordinary virtuous man's capacity to flee from the passionate urges of his own heart, to avoid the evils of slander and other seemingly trivial modes of behavior like thoughtless speech or careless dealing in money transactions."
"A great number of civilized human beings live comfortably with the notion that they would like to know God; and this is as much of a search for meaning as they can indulge in.
They do not get beyond the daily obligations of ethics and religion.
Their search is, at best, the search for an earthly fortune, a matter of putting effort into something and getting a more or less just compensation.
However, using the same logic, there is the story of the rich man who asked the rabbi: 'What will I get out of the next life?'
The Rabbi answered: 'At least as much as you invest in it.'
If you put a lot of money and effort into an earthly endeavor, you are likely to earn even more.
If you put a lot of thought and energy into your spiritual endeavors, you're liable to gain more in the heavenly hereafter.
The trouble is that men are much more troubled about the loss of a 10-pound note on earth than about losing a spiritual opportunity to perform a kindness."
“There are many levels of repentance.
One person may need to make ever greater and more intense efforts towards Divine unity while another may desire no more than to be able to make an honest living.
True, there is also a matter of proportion -- the more one has been sunk in sin the greater the pressure to emerge.
Just as a dam holds back a body of water, the higher the dam the greater the power which can afterwards be extracted from release.
But all this means that the sinner has to go through all the intervening stages of growth and comprehension, and that the more he learns of the magnitude of his past transgressions, the more painful the knowledge and the more effective the transformation.
A person who has sinned for ten, twenty, or fifty years, feels the immense vacuum in that part of his life.
Although he strives desperately to fill it, there seems to be an emptiness that nothing can satisfy, and his past evildoing, even if thoroughly repented, becomes part of the structure of his soul in the opposite direction.
This is why it is said that, in a way, a true penitent, with that extra power of recollected sin, stands on the higher level then a tzaddik who has never sinned at all.
The nature of the transformation is more like a chemical change, a change of essence rather than a change of form or place.
Everything that was true of a person is transmuted into a different substance.”
"Much has been said of the love that can be evoked by proper contemplation of the Divine.
It is important to bear in mind, however, that not always do things work out in the same way for different people.
For instance, the Shulchan Aruch, The Code of Jewish Law, instructs the reader to wake in the morning with the thought that the King of Kings, the Lord Himself, in all His greatness and glory, is standing over him and watching his every move, so that he should bestir himself, jumped out of bed, and begin to serve the Lord as best he can.
However, as we know, even the wisest of men find this difficult."
"The day is short, and the work is great, and the laborers are idle, and the wage is abundant, and the master of the house urges"—Pirkei Avot 2:15
Rabbi Steinsaltz writes:
“That ‘the day is short’ is a discovery which I make daily.
I wake up in the morning, and within a very short time I discover that it is midnight or 2:00 A.M.
And I wonder: What has happened to this day?
Where did it evaporate to?
Every Rosh Hashanah I regret that there is no double leap year, with a second month of Elul.
Had there been a second Elul, I might have been able to finish something before Rosh Hashanah.
But there is no second Elul, and again I feel that I am short of so much time.
The day is short, amazingly short, and it ends in tremendous speed; and thus go by weeks and months and years.”
"There is an expression in the United States: 'Put your money where your mouth is.'
Instead I would say people have to put their lives, their souls, where their money is.
This is much more difficult.
There are still enough Jews here.
Many of them, even though very estranged from anything Jewish, are nonetheless good people.
We have here, all in all, a fair number of individuals who are first-rate.
These people can become the foundation for a different, better future.
But we cannot expect this building to construct itself.
There can be hope in our future, a promise, something to reach for.
If we want to have such a tomorrow -- a real tomorrow, and not just a bleak putting off of death for another half generation -- it will require a great deal of effort.
But although this work is unprecedented, it can be done."
"We speak about continuity and about passing on our Judaism to the next generation.
But what is Judaism?
In many cases, it is an empty word.
It is what we call, in mathematics, a zero group, a notion that contains nothing whatsoever.
Imagine that someone has a document that can open the gates to Heaven.
He takes this document and runs with it to the ends of the world.
When he finds he is unable to reach Heaven in his lifetime, he gives the documents to his children.
And his children go on running with it and keeping it safe, generation after generation.
But with time, the words, despite all the beautiful boxes in which the document is safeguarded, are rubbed away.
The people who carry the document are no longer able to read it, and it becomes a faded manuscript.
Later still, it is reduced to a mere piece of paper, and even this piece of paper starts to rot.
Yet each new generation takes this heritage and tries to pass it on.
Eventually, however, the people who carry the empty box that once contained the precious manuscript will discover that they are running very hard and very fast but carrying nothing.
And so they will stop running.
In one way or another, this is what is happening to us.
The inscription has faded from our lives.
Some of us still speak about our "message," but we no longer know what it is.
Not only are we ourselves unable to read it: the words have been entirely obliterated.
We have only an empty shell, and even this shell is no longer in tact.
So we go on, but for how long does it make sense to run with such an empty thing?
That loss of inner sense is the essence of the problem.”
"It may be that a specific person, many people, and even the greater part of the nation will try to escape from its inner essence, to deny it, or to exchange it – entirely or partially – for other purposes and values.
Yet every such attempt at escape and denial, even if it actually succeeds, is a failure from the inner viewpoint.
It is a denial not only of the past, of the heritage, or the national duty, however confused it may be, but an escape from the person's essential nature.
The changes that are made by everyone are merely masks, disguises, imitations – the exchange of the essential me for other identities.
This escape may be successful externally, but it is really a kind of suicide, a denial of the main essence, an escape from the true self."
"The prophets protested against the pre-occupation with sacrifices even in Temple, as opposed to inward religious commitment, not because they were opposed to the sacrifices, but because this worship became more and more a focal point in itself.
They detach one from the perception of divinity and become a relationship to something materialistic – even though they be holy – and they become more and more detached from inward devotion.
The evil inclination of idolatry is the outcome of a conflict between the deep need for religion, faith, and serving God, and the human difficulty of creating a relationship with an abstraction.
This conflict, this tension, is what creates the temptation to satisfy the longing for the divine with something perverse – that is, by means of idolatry, cultic ritual, and devotion to something simpler and easier for human beings.
It is thus that the urge toward faith takes the form of idolatry.
Sometimes when a person finds that the existing forms do not suit him any longer, the urge is to create a new god, a new faith.
The Midrash has already said that quite often, when a gentile sees a new type of God that he has never seen before, he says, “This is a Jewish god.”
That is to say, they see another god that the Jews have created for themselves in order to satisfy their desire and inclination to serve them."
"The existence of a 'holy nation' means that the role of world priesthood is not the role of particular people within the nation, but of the entire Jewish people, with all its members great or small.
This means the individual cannot say that the priesthood does not interest him, that it is not his business and does not belong to his occupation.
A 'holy nation' means a whole people that is completely holy, and that is entirely destined for holiness, and each of its parts has a role to play in this framework.
However, even within the people of Israel there is a subdivision of priests who have ritual, cultic functions, of sages who teach others or strive harder in this direction.
Yet those with special roles do not exempt themselves from the rest of their duty and commitment.
The acceptance of a special role--whether it is inherited or is the result of choice or personal talent--does not free people from fulfilling their duty.
This internal hierarchy is a secondary division of roles within the general framework, and is aimed at the same objectives.
Just as the High Priest does not exempt the other priests from their priestly responsibilities, and army commanders and officers do not exempt the rest of the soldiers from their fighting duties, so those who have special duties do not exempt the others from their obligations.
For this reason there did not, and could not, exist to a formal group of religious functionaries among the people of Israel who had a status of their own.
Undoubtedly, there were, and are, such functionaries, but they do not in any way constitute a separate group because the priestly duties are the general duties of all the people.
Those who are exemplary in their service of God are simply a model for others who need to do as they do and to follow them closely.
However, the leadership that has existed for generations -- the sages and their disciples -- is not a closed group but one essentially aimed at and committed to continual growth.
Even if in reality there are Jews, whether few or many, who are unaware of their duties or are incapable of fulfilling them completely, their behavior is considered a deviation, an inability to do the right things, or at the most a temporary situation.
The role of priests is not one for particular individuals who are God's servants.
This is the task of the 'holy nation,' the entire people, who are totally directed toward sacred matters."
The previous post has an error worth correcting. Here is a corrected version:
Friday, September 5, 2008
"A clear sign of being lost"
"When a person feels that things are going smoothly,
that he has no difficulty in getting up in the morning to pray,
to recite blessings over food,
to set aside adequate time for Torah study;
when he feels that there are no obstacles on his road to holiness--
this is a clear sign that he is lost, that nothing can prevent his descent into hell.
That is an unmistakable marker that if he wishes to save himself, he must immediately rise and commit himself to drastic action."
When a person feels that things are going smoothly,
that he has no difficulty in getting up in the morning to pray,
to recite blessings over food,
to set aside adequate time for Torah study;
when he feels that there are no obstacles on his road to holiness
--this is a clear sign that he is lost, that nothing can prevent his descent into hell.
That is an unmistakable marker that if he wishes to save himself, he must immediately rise and commit himself to drastic action.
"There are two aspects to serving God.
The first is to do His will.
The second is to make oneself able to see the Divine as fully as one is able to see with one's eyes.
A person achieves this by overcoming the images created by the complex of the body and animal soul's sensory organs.
He must conqueror and cast down the animal soul, breaking down and removing the sensory images that prevent him from seeing the Divine light.
When a person successfully overcomes this structure of falsehood, the world’s illusions and its material nature, his Divine soul can perceive the Divine light with a vital and genuine feeling, existent and active within him at every moment of existence."
"Altogether, faith, in its essence, is beyond the mental grasp of the human mind, and perhaps even of the soul.
It belongs to a realm of existence higher than our normal scope of recognition, where reasoning does not seem to be much use.
Similarly, in the physical life we may know a sensation of nameless fear without any reason; we may experience the inexplicable or visionary.
Yet faith is much higher even than these mystical experiences.
And even if the intellect is needed to make God comprehensible, it is not the mind that grasps God.
It therefore cannot be a simple matter to explain what faith is.
It may be appropriate first to relate to its contents.
The faith of Israel is primarily a belief in the one God who is more sublime than anything that has form or that can be conceived.
This faith rests also on providence, on personal Divine grace, on a particular relation to the individual person and situation.
This is the problematic faith which the research scholars cannot quite grasp.
Indeed philosophies of all sorts, including those that take pains to prove the existence of God, have trouble with this problem of the relation between the world and the Divine, between personal providence and Divine essence.
According to the Baal HaTanya, the people of Israel, devout believers and children of a long tradition of faith, receive and absorb this faith from their earliest years.
It is not given to analysis or reason; it lies rooted in the depths of the soul.
This fact implies that the commandment to have faith is rather absurd.
How can such a "mitzvah" be ordered or commanded?
If one has faith there is no need for the mitzvah or commandment to believe; if one does not have faith, the commandment can have no effect.
It is not a matter of making an effort.
In contrast, the mitzvah to love, for example, may be considered difficult for those who do not love naturally, but it is certainly not absurd to demand it.
Perhaps the mitzvah to believe is a directive to recognize that such a mitzvah exists, but one either believes or doesn't believe, regardless of the mitzvah.
It may be argued, therefore, that this mitzvah is really a commandments or injunction to know and not necessarily to believe, a matter of the intellect and not of the heart.
The Hebrew word for faith is "Emunah" which is of the same root "Emet," or truth.
So faith and truth are really the same word, or at least derived from the same root.
To believe is to recognize the truth of something, and to admit a truth is a matter of faith.
What we consider truth is almost always a leap of faith at some point.
The problem lies in the fact that not every level of faith has the same degree of clarity we require for certainty of truth; there are differences in the way things are believed in.
Some concepts are clear, others quite vague.
For example, items directly perceivable by the senses provide us with a clear faith in their existence.
I can be more committed about the reality of the table before me than that of Mount Everest.
Not that I question that such a mountain exists; it is only a matter of the distinctness of my certainty about it.
The unquestioning faith in objects one can see and touch is different from the obscurity of one's faith in more abstract or paradoxical objects.
For example, there is the children's paradox of trying to envision that people on the other side of the globe are not walking on their heads.
It takes some time and effort to distinguish the transparent truth of antipodes; not everyone accomplishes it with the same ease, although there is no real doubt in anyone's mind about it.
In other words, there is faith that is clear as day, readily seized and easily grasped, and there is the faith that is not clear in this way, but has to be learned or at least worked at with the mind or heart or both.
A person may be very intelligent and even learned and be unable to grasp certain matters of faith in their simple clarity.
This obstacle is not connected with issues of good and evil, but is a consequence of one's powers of abstraction, or rather of seeing certain kinds of truths clearly.
What may be obvious to one person is often beyond another person's perception, just as one person has the ability to see a joke whereas there are others for whom no amount of explanations will help.
Of course, the capacity for faith is not the same category as a sense of humor or feeling for aesthetic beauty.
It may have something of the essential quality of inwardness, beyond the intellect, but it is far more profound, since it is not only a matter of the mind but also, to a powerful degree a matter of the heart."
Today is the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul !
Rabbi Steinsaltz writes:
The month of Elul is called the "month of mercy" or the “month of Selihot," and is devoted entirely to repentance and preparation for the days of judgment -- Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
During this month, it is customary to fulfill the commandments in the most perfect way possible, and everyone tries to make amends for one's misdeeds, to the best of one's ability.
Some are accustomed to hold a Ta’anit Dibbur, a "fast of speech," in which an individual, or sometimes an entire group of people, avoid speaking of secular matters for one or several days, during this period or part of it, and some fast throughout the entire month, eating only in the evenings.