Getting past the me

[This post on self-labeled Flexidox Judaism really pinpoints how little any of these denominations, or any denomination has to do with the Torah or with the change in mindset that our fathers instigated thousands of years ago.]

What was the initial spark of Judaism? Seeking God. Avraham sought and found God. He believed in God, he put his faith and trust in God. He put his life in the hands of God. How did he accomplish the jump from seeking out God to putting his life on the line in the name of the very same God he discovered?

Avraham's search began in a rational understanding of the world. According to one understanding, he saw that everything in his immediate surrounding was the result of something else. Sometimes one thing, a person for example, or the rain for another, would initiate many things. Following his logic to its most elegant end, he determined, there must be something that initiated everything else. Simply, if each thing has a source, then every thing must have a source. Avraham desired to connect to the source of all things.

But according to another understanding, it wasn't order that drew Avraham to God, it was disorder. He saw that nothing made sense, the world was like one big city burning up in smoke. It was only when Avraham arrived at the realization that there was no purpose in anything that God actually revealed to Avraham that there was a purpose and logic behind the development of the world.

Both of these perspectives are valuable and fundamental to Judaism. There is an order and a structure to this world that we live in, but structure for its own sake is of no use at all. There is a chaos, an underlying turmoil to the world that keeps us moving, that keeps undermining the structure. Avraham survived the fiery pit for one reason alone, that it was God's will; but he jumped in for two reasons:

1. The world was full of false structure, false truths.
2. If the world was just chaotic, there was no point in being in it.

Instead Avraham, by choosing the cauldron over idolatry, said that there is a fundamental real purpose and structure to the world, and its sole purpose is to serve God. Fire only burns to do God's will.

Judaism is founded in iconoclasm and unrelenting optimism. We bind ourselves to the truth of God and to nothing else. When we start to identify with denominations, sects, congregations and trends, we are buying into the false structure of the world, we are buying into the chaos. It isn't to your denomination that you need to answer on your day of judgement. It isn't to your parents or the principals of your schools. It is to your creator. If you are more concerned with fitting in to any group of people at all, instead of bridging the infinite gap between you and your creator, you are wasting precious time. Sure, God will forgive us for our faults, will judge us in the best possible light. But how stupid will we feel if when we get there he needs to come up with a good excuse for why we spent years of our limited lives focused on how to 'define' ourselves when all he really wanted was for us to get to know him?

The us is the barrier between us and God. Throw the 'you' in the furnace and start to explore the infinity of God in his creation. You don't have to, life will do it for you anyways, God made it that way; but why wait when you can take control of your own destiny(literally).

hear it or lose it

The Maor Eynayim of Chernobyl explains about Noach: He was a tzaddik because he reprimanded his generation and they refused to listen, and so, all the good that was in them was transferred to him. This is the way of things: when the spiritual energy of the speech of the tzaddik falls upon the ears of the sinners and they refuse to listen with the spiritual potential of their hearing, the tzaddik's speech returns to him, taking with it the sinner's hearing. Hearing, he adds, is at a much higher spiritual level than speaking and so, the best part of the sinner is transferred upon the tzaddik. This is the meaning of the phrase, Noach was a tzaddik from (literally) his generation.

Moshe gathered in the best of all of us when he admonished us and we didn't heed his words. But, it says yismach moshe bmatnat chelko - moshe is gladdened by the receiving of his lot. On shabbat, when we are complete and worthy, the best part of us is returned by moshe to each of us, and this makes moshe happy, to have only his lot and not that of others.

During tefillah this afternoon, it occurred to me that HaShem always listens to our requests, which is just another way he is always the best. If he were to turn deaf ears on us, perhaps we would be entitled to a greater portion of his goodness. (L'havdil) But then, his goodness is there waiting for us to want it, waiting to sprout and grow like the grasses and the trees before Adam prayed for the first rains. Moshe truly is the closest to HaShem, for like HaShem, Moshe derives his deepest joy when we each earn and receive our lot.

According to one of the Baal Shem Tov's most profound Torahs, every day everything before us is the subtext of our constant relationship (conversation even) with HaShem. His words surround us all the time, we need to listen and hear his words in order to receive our lot. Three times a day we have a chance to really take our daily experiences to heart. If you miss those oppurtunities, stop before you go to sleep and think on your day, extract the meanings and messages and remember that HaShem fills the heavens and the earth, no place is absent of his presence. Even the sins for which they say there is no teshuva are forgiven when you realize each night that you would readily give your life to fulfill God's will. (Notzer Hesed end of perek dalet)

rock of our life

the story at the end of this post totally overpowered me. I cried. Especially because lately I've been mulling an idea. There's a reflexologist who comes to treat my father-in-law, and lately he (the reflexologist) hasn't been well. He chalks it up to a 'weakness of the flesh.' Apparently he gives so much of himself during healing that it drains him.

I once spoke to my rav about praying to take on another's suffering, and how I could never and would never do that, about how I'm not strong enough to bear their suffering myself. I made him (my rav) smile though when I told him that I found something else that worked better. If I suffered because of the fact that someone else was suffering, I could pray to God to relieve that person's suffering out of pity for me, that he relieve my own suffering.

I can't help but be troubled by people who think they can just give of themselves in order to solve other people's problems. It's false selflessness. One of the first lessons I remember my rav teaching me is that giving for the sake of giving is not the highest, it's just a juvenile stage on the way to goodness. Receiving for the sake of giving is instead the highest and most refined level. If we realize that we are capable of nothing, and all of our achievements are gifts of God, then all of our actions can be augmented and strengthened even beyond our imagined limits.

When we give of ourselves to heal someone else, it should be making us both stronger. We are revealing more godliness in the world. If, instead, the healing, the giving, is weakening us, it isn't healthy and it's in essence weakening the other person as well, by making them dependent on you, putting their faith in you and not God.

[Now, there's a less popular point in this as well -- both eastern and western healing techniques were designed by those who rely solely on their neshama behemit, their animal soul, because that is what they have and what they know. When you have a neshama elokit, a Godly soul, you have to adapt those techniques to work on an entirely different level.]

[regarding yesterdays post: "throwing glass stones" i need to highlight how much i need to internalize this lesson myself. To give of that which God gives me, rather than of that which I think is mine.. so that the giving is true and it strengthens both myself and the receiver of the gift. This is such an important lesson for me especially before I can become a parent.]

God is the source of [everything, especially] our own strength, there is a specific mitzwah to remember this truth every day.

throwing glass stones

i can't find any previous posts where i've discussed this, but i'm sure it's in there somewhere. (yet another reason why blogs are not so useful for recording information that's meant to be accessible in the future)

The baal shem tov says that when we judge someone else, we are actually judging ourselves. I learned it first in Likkutei Moharan, but I've since come across it again in the Maor Eynayim as well as the beginning of the Notzer Hesed. Rebbe Nachman tells it loosely like this: Before God punishes us, he puts before us a person to judge. Unknowingly that person's actions reflect our own actions, and when we judge them, we are really only judging ourselves. Only if we find ourselves guilty does HaShem move forward with the punishment.

My take on this: for selfish reasons, it is highly beneficial to never judge anyone.

So, when it pains me to see people acting elitist and dividing themselves from the klal, the whole, I have no one to blame but myself. Even criticising them would only cement my own short-comings. So, instead I'm learning to find the faults in myself, being so lofty as to get upset at others for being lofty. Rather than correct them, I correct myself. Because most certainly, if I eliminate my own divisive loftiness, then God won't present me with the divisive loftiness of others, for i will have nothing to learn from it.

Years ago I came to a similar conclusion, that i'd fix myself first and then worry about the world, because if i tried the reverse, I knew i wouldn't get anywhere.

This is a deep part of the life-fu of overcoming our own small-minded limitations. Recognizing that sometimes haShem wants us to grow greater through growing smaller. When I judge someone else and find them wanting, it's myself who i've injured. [This I think is the deep pshat of Achen noda hadavar. (So, the deed is known) that Moshe utters when he says to the Rasha why do you strike your brother? and the jew responds, "So you want to kill, me?" I think the word ha'li'hargaini carries with it a subtle connotation of 'the person getting killed here is the "me", not the victim.' So the jew isn't saying you want to kill me, rather he is saying: "you're speech will kill yourself."]

Interesting that Rebbe nachman is the first place i saw this teaching, because his torah is all about how judging someone else and giving them the benefit of the doubt will actually exonerate them of their wrongs, and bring them over to the side of good, changing their very being. finding the points of goodness in others.