uniting three paths

Most of my personal meditations are on the shema, there's always more to say and more to understand. Today I would like to share one of my more recent perspectives:

1. The first perek of the shema is about cleaving to God. (mesirat nefesh, here there is no mention of any evil, at this level who have only good intentions.)
2. The second perek, about Torah learning. (It starts off with hearing--Matan Torah. The evil mentioned here is for biur purposes via halachah. It mentions teaching your children)
3. The third perek, about mitzvah observance. (It specifically mentions observing all the mitzvot, but if it didn't reference the most central mitzvah, tzedakka, it wouldn't fit; but it does mention the word ונתנו which is the root of tzedakka, as well as a palindrome which the Pirkei d'Rabi Eliezer mentions hints at the reciprocal nature of tzedakka, the giver receives more even than he gives.)

Whenever we are taking any action, it is good to unite these three levels in your kavanah, your intentions. Eating, for example, we are taking something within which is Godliness and we are putting it inside of us, so here is our cleaving to God. Next, we can connect it to everything we have learned about eating and when it is and isn't permissible, not to mention it will give us energy to sit and study Torah. Lastly we can rejoice in saying the berachot and in the fact that the food we are eating is kosher, and in so doing we have connected a simple action to all of the three levels of the Shema, as described here.

For bonus points, if you want we can relate it to: thought speech and action(these three are terribly obvious so I won't even do my usual roshei perakim); and then to olam (the world is a relationship with God) shanah (this word for year, literally means to learn) and nefesh (the nefesh is the part we are doing the mitzvot for, it has 613 parts each of which relates to a particular mitzvah).

Now for the trifecta, hesed gevurah and tiferet:

1. Meditating on the kindness of God is the clearest and simplest (and strongest) way to cleave to God. קטונתי מכול החסדים the chassidic understanding of this verse with each kindness one is meant to grow more humble, making more room for God in his life. Is there another way to love God?
   
2. Torah, the gemara says, is a cure for the yetzer harah. Through the fire of Torah we pare down all the potential in the world into what is beneficial and productive, that our children and ourselves should live happily bringing the seas (literally ימים) of wisdom in heaven down to this earth.
3. Lastly, we have the little fringes that complete the edges of the total garment, the tzitzit emphasize an awareness of the whole, of being holy because God is holy. We are told to overcome our eye and our heart--not to fall whether through hesed or din, instead we must keep his commandments exactly, to be holy, to connect to God through the Torah, in manifest action, just as he took us out of egypt. Emet.

In utter knowledge of God, as a husband knows his wife, through thought, speech, and action, through wanting her, knowing/curbing her ways, and making her his, the three paths are united in something so much more complete than they were in their respective pieces.

the light in your wake

At my sister's wedding, I met a nice guy. Organic perma-culture gardener extraordinaire, Akiva, who recently came on aliyah. He was standing under the chuppa after the event had taken place, in his words he was soaking up all the energy and light, because no one else seemed to be interested in doing so. He stayed there for quite some time. It bothered me a little and took me a few minutes to understand where exactly the rub was.

Of course! As Jews, we don't go around looking for energy to soak up. As Jews, it is our mission to make everyone aware of the infinite light lurking in the depths of any thing, any place, any person. God totally and utterly permeates all of the creation. Wherever we go, we are meant to leave a wake of revellation, revealing that light, turning it on for all to see. When we aren't doing that, woe unto us, woe unto everyone else.

Today is the 10th of tevet, a fast that reminds us of just one of the many sufferings our people have gone through, mainly because of our lack of goodwill towards one another. The Baal Shem Tov says that everyone of our experiences is a personal show God is putting on just for us. I'd like to bring a different angle for a minute. Whenever we are experienceing this personal show as a revellation of God, whenever we are picking up our side of the conversation that God is patiently waiting to have with us, the light that shines outward from that interaction draws and warms others. The best way to help eveyrone around you is to personally engage HaShem.

The Noam Elimelech says of Noah, that we know the Torah says he was a tzaddik in his generation and that he travelled always with God; but what does that mean? He explains, that a tzaddik's actions and devotion to HaShem bring the revellation of God's blessing down on his whole generation, and that because Noah also travelled through the supernal realms, he brought life not only to his generation, but also to the worlds above. From this we can learn that through our actions, the light spills over to those around us wherever we may go.

When you witness suffering or trouble in your proximity, it's a chance to deepen you relationship with HaShem, to spill more light over and heal the suffering of those around you. Don't forget of course that the mitzvah (tzedakka) applies first and foremost to those in your proximity--so if others seem to need your time/energy/food/money, then giving that which others near you need can also be used a channel to deepen your relationship with God even further. (Remember also that the actions of mitzvot draw light from a place so high it is beyond all comprehension.)

enlightening through the darkness of fire

When I was at NYU I took a course in human innovation. The professor wanted us to pick out that technology which had the single biggest impact on human development. People threw out all kinds of answers, but he waited till we were done to shoot them all down. "Fire," he said conclusively, was the most profound invention that humanity had ever come up with. To this day, no other technology has spawned and affected such a technological boom as the discovery of fire.

I revisited this memory last week during my weekly hevrutah on Rebbe Natan's Likkutei Halachot. In the halachot pertaining to the washing of hands in the morning, he discusses the revellation of HaShem's hashgacha in the world. Night, he says, is the time of the strength of Hochmat haTeva -- aka human knowledge/science. This brought to mind other NYU memories where it became clear that all science grew out of astrology. Rebbe Natan as much as says it: At night, the stars are visible, so Hochmat HaTeva is at it's strongest. Everything about human knowledge covers up the reality that no matter how much it may seem we control this wild ( and mostly) untamed world, it is still all under divine supervision and intervention. Every step in human progress was intended and guided by God.

Day, on the other hand, is the revellation of God's supervision and influence in the world. When
we wash our hands in the morning, we are banishing the forces of this blinding human knowledge and returning to the reality of God's imminent influence in the world. He brings many many discussions and relationships to the forefront in his exposition on the nature of this mitzvah:

Kiddush haLevana: we are bound to the revellation of HaShem in the world, such that it is our job to reveal it, to recognize its presence. So, it is our job to watch for the new moon.

Tevilat Keilim: we are liberating some vessel from the realm of possession of the non-Jew, so we must pass the vessel through water, representing the idealogical--purifying the aspect that was tainted, since the vessel was merely 'possessed' - something that has little quantitative meaning, but significant intellectual/figurative meaning.

Hachsharat Keilim: unlike tevilah, if something has actually swallowed the forebidden into it's essence, like an implement used to cook, then it must be purified with fire

Pesah: the chametz is the hochmat haTeva, we must burn it away specifically with fire. The four cups of wine (a topic for a different post.)

and many other halachot/mitzvot that I don't remember by heart (it was almost a week ago)

Why the need for fire to purify the things which are clearly rooted in and related to Hochmat haTeva? (eg. non kosher vessels & Chametz)
Because fire is the root of Hochmat haTeva. Fire is darkness, hoshech. Isn't that sort of paradoxical? No, he explains that fire is the point at which the light is fleeing from the material. So fire, representing the flight of the light is associated with the darkness. Hochmat HaTeva, which drives out the light of God's divine presence in all worlds, is related to fire. What's the exact nature of the relationship? Fire is actually the root of Hochmat haTeva -- just as my college professor taught me. Why do we use fire to purify Hochmat HaTeva when it's at the height of it's strength? Because fire was given to man at the end of the first shabbat when he was expelled from Gan Eden. Even though, fire is something performed and created through the actions of man, it was given as a gift from God. So too, even the roots of human wisdom, Hochmat haTeva, seem to be the workings of man, but at their essence they are actually the gift of HaShem. (This is why we do havdallah with fire. At the moment when the most Godly revellation leaves the world (motzaei shabbat) that is the time when we praise HaShem through fire, recognizing that even in the strength of Hochmat haTeva, it is merely a different revellation of God in the world.)

My own two cents: Once we understand this idea, that human wisdom is as much a gift from God as fire is; we can then use it the same way, to exalt and purify the world around us, as a testament to God's supervision and influence in the world.

short-sighted pronouncements - mine or others? the future will tell

From wikipedia by way of boingBoing:

There have been some amazing projects in recent years which have matured now to the point that a new alternative is possible. Wikia is funding and supporting the development of something radically new.

Nutch and Lucene and some other projects now provide the background infrastructure that we need to generate a new kind of search engine, which relies on human intelligence to do what algorithms cannot. Just as Wikipedia revolutionized how we think about knowledge and the encyclopedia, we have a chance now to revolutionize how we think about search.

(the blue is my emphasis.)
People don't so much grasp the idea that the emphasized statement is very short-sighted. It really isn't going to be very long at all before software and algorithms will be way better at sorting (even images) than they are currently. We're talking maximum maximum ten years tops. I'm willing to bet, in less than five years computing technology will powerful enough that we won't be able to justify having to deal with the complicated matter of human bias in place of using machines to sort and organize all our data.

This should really only scare you if you think that all we are is walking meat pattern-recognition machines. More importantly, it should make you realize how many things that might right now seem really important and really special will very shortly be irrelevant. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. We will still be human, social, in need of companionship, food and air.

Hopefully we will all have developed our direct high-bandwidth connection with HaShem further. I think it will still be a long time before a computer can perform mesirat nefesh ;)

cleave before you leap

According to the Noam Elimelech on the beginning of parashat Noah. Noah was a tzaddik of level 2 Meaning that he was always connecting his actions (via his intentions) to Godliness. He goes on to say that only through this kind of lifestyle does one get to the challenges/levels that we discussed in a previous post. This is the meaning of the verse "he was perfect in his dorot," dorot, he explains, are the different challenges placed before us. Why? because when we are faced with a new challenge and surmount it, we are new and different than we were before. (I suspect the implication is that we are considered a different generation of ourselves because we are still products of our former self.)

The chidush of the Noam Elimelech here is that the only way to arrive at a new challenge and thence to a new level is first to perfect our current level by wholly devoting it to the service of HaShem. Only through this cleaving to God do you reach a plateau from whence you are required to leap with pure Emunah--which ultimately leads you to the next plateau add infinitum. As it is said, אין מנוחה לצדיקים -- tzaddikim know no rest, even in death they are forever ascending higher and higher throughout the upper worlds. ילכו מחיל א ל חיל

because the blood is the nefesh

Every day at work my lunch arrives some time after 1pm. (13:00 here in Israel) Every day (God-willing) I pray minha at 1:30pm. (13:30) So, if lunch is a little late, I have to rush and scarf it down in order to have time to bench and get to minha on time (to say part of karbonot) so that I'm not starting my amidah when everyone is leaving (the relatively fast) minyan. Which means that I try to be done eating at 1:25pm so I can bench and run (saying karbonot while in motion) so that I can start Ashrei at 1:30pm exactly and in that way, hopefully finish ashrei right with the minyan.

Today's Tanya talks about how immediately after you eat your food is already being turned into blood to nourish your body. And how food (that is permissible to eat) gives you strength which you choose to use to serve HaShem or do something else. Obviously, serving God is preferable, and in so doing, you raise up the life-force that was in that food to holiness.

Until now I've been grumpy about the stress of having to eat quickly especially if my food is (unpredictably) late. Now, having learned this Tanya, (for the eighth time, but only just finding it meaningful and relevant) It's just plain cool to find out that my mincha lifestyle means that even the very first energy I'm getting from my food is being channeled directly into the service of HaShem.

emunah is anything but blind

אמונה - this is the basic superlogical belief in God. That HaShem exists and that He is intimately related in your every experience. That He has limitless control over your immediate circumstances. That He cares what you think and feel and want. That He hears your cries. That He hears your prayers. That, if you have no conscious relationship with Him, it's not for lack of His desire for you to have one with Him.

In judaism there are basic tenets of emunah. (loosely translated as faith) The Rambam numbered them thirteen. Another perspective, Habakuk, had only one: צדיק באמונתו יחיה - a tzaddik will live through his emunah. (the Baal HaTanya mentions this amongst others)

The basic Chassidic understanding of this passuk is this: People's lives are perpetually growing through periods of growth preceded by periods of challenge. When HaShem challenges you, you suffer a spiritual fall, associated with death. (moving to a lower spiritual state is akin to dying) If you hold onto your emunah in HaShem, you overcome the challenge and are not only restored to your previous state, (you are brought back to life) but to an even higher state than before.

Thus, literally, a tzaddik, who is challenged by falling into a state of 'death', by clinging to his emunah will return to a state of 'life'.

past potential energy

The Notzer Hesed (Rebbe m'Komarna) relates about the Baal Shem Tov, that they used to bring him various (hand crafted) utensils and other items, and he would tell them exactly what the craftsman had been thinking at each point in the crafting of the item.

He explained, this is a manifestation of the passuk כח הפועל בניפעל (translated, that's koach ha'poel b'niph'al - the force of the worker in that which is being worked) Namely, that even after the action was completed, the force of that action was still maintained in the result. All the moreso in HaShem's creation, that the imprint of God's actions are imminently visible in the creation.

Talk about an unbelievable feat that seems like the only thing left out of the description of the Ariz"l that he could see peoples' every thought and action, including every thought and action of their ancestors. Amongst an endless number of other unbelievable feats attributed to him.

some snow pics.. again from my phone

it's been two years since a good snow.. it's still going now and everything is almost covered.. my wife picked me up from work early or i'd still be in traffic trying to get home. so nice, snow in jerusalem.

snow in jerusalem - cameraphone this afternoon

a generation of procrastinators

I used to worry about how we would ever get everything done. The great "mission" we have lying before us. There's so much to do, and so many are so far away. I'm so far away. How can we ever get there?

Anyways, I was talking to my chevrutah last night, and he was talking about how he can't get over procrastinating..I agreed, I'm the same way. But then it hit me. What did I learn from highschool and college? That I could do a semester worth of work in only a week and no one would be the wiser. We are a generation that waits till the last minute, the last second, and then pulls off the greatest comeback victories imaginable. We're all about the comeback.

Now, when I realize how much there is left to do, how far we are from where we need to get, it just makes me smile. Because one minute before the game is called, we're all going to shift into gear and it's going to be the most unbelievably beautiful thing any of us have ever seen.

I have goose bumps.


I think the Vilna Gaon said the whole final endgame will last something like 18 minutes. I never could believe that before, but now it makes perfect sense. It's really exciting, God-willing I'll be there not just to see it, but also to take part.

paradox of free will: we don't have any.

yodayid mentioned the /. article on the Economist article that I had intentionally avoided, and now I cannot avoid it anymore.. here's a short summation:

Science is discovering that the more we learn about the brain, the more we notice that people are just pre-programmed machines responding to stimuli.

Now I will summarise yodayid's response to this:

No matter how much we are a function of our programming, we have the ability to override that programming and make choices of our own. So, we can't let people off to easy for the things they choose to do, because no matter how much they want to do it, they still chose to do it. (<-The basic Jewish line) Further, there's no point in thinking along the lines of us all lacking free will, because that leads straight to nihilism.

First, I'd like to say that it's ironic that Snake Eyes, one of my college proffessors back in the day, claimed that unlike all other animals, humans have no instincts. He then defined instincts as things which we are utterly compelled to do. I guess the only irony was that it was a case of science toeing the Jewish line perhaps without knowing it.

Here's my summary of the problem:

I think everyone needs to realize how much more complicated these issues are. The kind of lack of free will that we worry about as citizens is the kind where all of our options intentionally lead us to choices we would not have otherwise made. The legal ropes that bind us into decisions we would never make if we were free to rule our fate. Next is the fear that we might never notice being forced into making decisions at all. That we might be lead without even ever seeing those ropes that bind us. This is really nothing new. We outlawed subliminal messaging because we know that it can and will have a certain amount of control over us. This pseudo-scientific article only reiterates those ideas and that fear.

Here's my calling it all ludicrous:

I think the biggest illusion here is the illusion of free will. If we had complete free will to do anything at all that we might want, would our lives be very different from what they are now? I think you would say, "Hell, yes!" Game, set and match. We don't have free will.

From the cracking of our eyelids at some morningish hour, till the dazed fall into slumber, most of our decisions are not our own. At most we have control over the tiny details that we never give a second thought to. It's actually truly ironic that the things we care about most are the things we are powerless to control. Anything we control, we hardly care about at all.

Let me just say that again: Anything we control, we hardly care about at all.

Let's take time for example. We always wish we could go back in time, or forward. We never wish we could take a step back or a step forward in space--because we can. But, can we? In reality our movement through space is almost as restricted as our movement through time but we don't notice it and so we don't care about it. Case in point: Wherever in the universe you would like to go, you are limited to a very small speck of dust named 'Earth.' Sure, you can move around wherever you want on earth, provided that it's not more than a mile or two up, or a few hundred meters down. Sure, you could hypothetically go to space, but then you are stuck in this tiny little solar system when billions of stars out there are still off-limits. [Beyond that (if Einstein has anything to say about it) you are (almost (hey, he could be wrong)) definitely not getting out of your light-cone alive.]

That is the paradox of free will. We spend all our time worrying about things that are out of our hands. We don't give a care to realize how little control we actually have, even over those things we take for granted. The way to take back your free will is to actually focus on those things that are within your sphere of influence. (there's a self-help term we can throw in for fun) Right now, all the good little parts of life we are ignoring, and all the really insurmountable, unchangeable stuff gets all the focus. We have free will. Let's use it instead of throwing it away on choosing to worry all the time. I think Ghandi said something to the effect of "Worrying about things you can't change doesn't help, worrying about things you can change is a waste of time, better change them." Here we have a deeper problem, we are worrying about things we can't change but think that we can.

[There is a Jewish answer to this question and I dealt with it in my writings. I also should add that I've spoken at length to people about it, but can't find it anywhere in my blog, that the Jewish path to free will is this: Whenever you find a juncture at which you actually have options, give that choice to God. Do a mitzvah. Act according to God's commandments. When you make such a choice, you are presented with further choices, further free will to choose again to give that choice to God. At any point you are free to choose something else, but that's about all the free will you get. You get more real free will every time you give that free will up to God. The only people who actually are in control of their lives are the tzaddikim.]

the 3 levels of the Noam Elimelech

according to the Noam Elimelech, there are three levels in the service of HaShem:

1. תורה צוה לנו משה - we have to learn even if it's not l'shmah.
2. מורשה - learning l'shmah, to raise up the nitzotzot of kedushah to their source, so that all of our actions are focused on serving God.
3. קהילת יעקב - the tzaddik whose whole being is cleaving to God, and he brings life and bracha to klal Yisrael, and actually is makhil bnei yisrael as they gather shelter under his shade. (Interesting analogy as a tree creates comfortable shade on a fine sunny day--and we know a tzaddik is likened to a tree.)

I think these levels are there in tefillah to:

1. First you return to the daily grind of davening because that is what you are commanded. (Psukei D'Zimrah)
   
2. Then you start to bring kavanah into your davening, having intent to connect to HaShem and not just say the words. (Shema & its brachot)
   
3. Finally you lose yourself in the experience of prayer (amidah)

Of course, this isn't how it happens for everyone every day, but I think it's the goal and it's possible. Of course, there are both higher and lower levels of tefillah.

Maor Eynayim: Parashat Vayigash

Paraphrasing the Maor Eynayim:

The Maor Eynayim asks what we can learn from Yehudah approaching Yosef, is the Torah just a bunch of stories? No. The Torah is fire, and like fire can't be held without the proper protective clothing, so too Torah cannot be held without the proper clothing. God clothes the deepest Torah in the stories. [btw Shlomo Carlebach said that sharing stories is a much richer relationship than sharing information.]

But, the Torah is also likened to water, he continues, and this is part of the deeper meaning of Shamayim, Esh u' Mayim (tans. Fire and Water) -- that God binds both fire and water to make peace and perform His will. The whole of the Torah is infused by the combination of Ahavah w' Yirah (trans. love and awe) , in illustration, we see that the gematria of the word torah is 611 leaving the last two mitzwot, loving God and fearing God, out because all the remaining 611 mitzwot need to be performed with both love and fear of God.

In the final step he goes on to add that Man is created by combining together all of the worlds. Just as, in the heavens God brings water and fire into united service, in the creation of man, He unites all of the worlds. This is important for us to remember because the moment we detach ourselves from this reality, and forget that it is God that binds all our forces together (even the spiritual and material) we are delving into idolatry. This is the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov (on וסרתם ועבדתם אלוהים אחרים in the second perek of shema) that the moment you 'turn away' you are already serving other gods. Even something as simple as moving our hands, who is it that's moving our hand? It is God's force flowing within us, that empowers us to move.

This is the intimate knowledge of the Tzaddik. God says that the Tzaddikim 'rule' him, because they can dissolve his decrees, and he upholds their decrees. Is it the Tzaddik's place to second-guess God? Of course not. Instead, if we understand the phrase more clearly מי מושל בי who rules through me? The Tzaddikim live with an awareness that it is God acting through them, so they are actually enacting God's will when they dissolve a heavenly decree.

This is all he says, he never really gets into why it is that Yehudah approaches Yosef. Yehudah represents Malchut, and Yosef represents the tzaddik. This coming close of Yehudah to Yosef describes a relationship between the Shechinah and the Tzaddik, but I don't know enough to understand it more deeply than that.

The Maor Eynayim might also be suggesting that just like HaShem brings together fire and water in the heavens, and all the worlds in man, that He is the force bringing Yehudah and Yosef together.

One last interesting point is that the same word Vayigash is used regarding Yaakov and the rock he rolls off the mouth of the well. Interesting parallel that Yosef is now the rock on the mouth of all the food of Mizrayim and Yehudah approaches him, to roll him off?

japanese man-bear

i wonder what other hidden talents humans have yet to discover? (this is up there with that discovery that some deep-sea divers secrete liquid into their lungs like some aquatic mammals)

a heart to know

Lev ladaat, we are given a heart to know, to know what? v'chol ha'aretz maleh de'ah - that our whole desire, should know God.

Anyone who has known depression, knows there can be times when you are so devastated that you know literally nothing; nothing is certain, everything is a meaningless fog. When you reach this point, it's sometimes painful to those you love because, before we can love anyone else, we first need to rediscover our love for ourself.

This is the same as ahavat yisrael, love of israel, we are all one, we are all connected, but when we are distant from one another, we can't know anything for sure, we become depressed. Only once we have reestablished love of our fellow can we begin to know and love God.

So it is not that ahavat yisrael supercedes ahavat haShem, it is simply that the latter is contingent on the former.

a whole heart

one of the important things in the teshuva process is gemira b'lev -- completely leaving the sin behind you and moving on. I'd like to spin it a new way. Gemira b'lev is actually, reconnecting the broken connections between you and klal yisrael, you are completing the heart, completing klal yisrael, as it says 'yotzer yachad libam' - you formed their heart as one.

the little known world of virtual air traffic control

Vatsim is apparently a massive multiplayer online game where everyone gets to train to pilot planes and control air traffic. People log a lot of hours in this thing, and the regulations and manuals you must read through in order to actually qualify to do the cool stuff is more reading than I think I did in all of highschool. http://www.vatsim.net/

Here's a video made entirely in vatsim.

This is such a great example of the niches of customer-driven & customer-centered development that the internet makes possible.. I'm waiting for the first large-scale virtual terrorist strike in-game.

aerogel mistaken for comet

check out this Scientific American article . The image to the right of the article looks really cool, but to the best of my knowledge it has nothing to do with the article. It's a picture of a NASA invention, Aerogel, something my friend Eric introduced me to a long time ago. Funny to see that image turning up next to an article about comet dust, it actually looks like comet dust, but it isn't.

update: my bad, apparently Aerogel was actually used to obtain the comet's dust.. nonetheless, you should really check out Aerogel, it's cool stuff.

Hok L'Yisrael online

woohoo! one less project I ever have to work on: someone put the entire Hok L'Yisrael online--even with english.

living@home

I read on Heichal Negina (aka the other Yitz in the blogosphere)

Rebbe Avraham of Kalisk, who came to the Land of Israel on the first Chassidic wave of Aliya in 1777, wrote in a letter, printed in the sefer Pri Ha’aretz, that anyone who comes to Eretz Yisrael goes through a great deal of tribulations until he is able to live there. It's not a matter of days or months or even a year, but of many years. A person is literally "born there" - one has to pass through a period comparable to conception, development and childhood, until "face to face, he will see the Face of the Land, and his soul will connect with its Soul."

As someone who moved here and went through such an experience I can't begin to tell you how true this Torah is. Thank God all my struggles were internal and not external suffering. Nonetheless, my life was in utter chaos for at least 3 years before I learned to walk/live again, in a whole new way. There is nothing that compares to the life of a Jew in (her/) his homeland.

To all the Jews outside of Israel, I can only say that it is supremely worthwhile to consider.. though I have come to understandings of why some of you need to be there. (Which has nothing to do with parnasa, at least not directly.)

Personally, I moved here because living outside of Israel was tearing me apart. Though, I think I've reached a place (of internal strength) where I could survive there (anywhere but Israel).. but it would be just that, survival. I thrive, I live, I grow here. at home.

stopping to smell the roses

"Space Cadet" raises a question (via A Simple Jew) re: the mishna that says someone who stops in the midst of his torah study and says 'what a beautiful tree' is mitchayev b'nafsho. He brings up Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook who elaborates:

only when one interrupts his study does it pose a threat to his life, but if he connects the beauty of the tree back to its creator and recognises that this is simply an extension of his learning, then there is no problem. (paraphrased)

I just wanted to point out a parallel, namely that this isn't the only mishna that mentions someone being mitchayev b'nafsho and in another instance, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov turns the whole mishna on its head and says that mitchayev b'nafsho is actually a good thing, it means he is assuming responsibility for his own existence, a kind of maturation process. He is mitchayev his own existence. He is causing his continued existence.

Always important to learn the Hassidut in order to see the world on its head. Otherwise we forget how complicated it is, and how thorough our own preconceived notions.

save mount zion..

Yerushalayim is not for sale (via LazerBeams)

not perfect and not knowing it

Today's Tanya, as well as R'Moshe Hayyim Luzzato (in Messilat Yesharim:1, via Cosmic X) and others, mention the plight of the neshama in this world, in this body. Namely, that it suffers down here in this body, in this world, where it is far from the perfection of it's origins. These same sources talk about how the Godly soul itself has little to do with this world other than to be a shining example to the Animal soul within each of us. Our Animal soul being that which needs to be fixed and perfected. Ok, great, but still I never asked this question before today but: Why this particularly Godly soul with this particular Animal soul?

I read today that Rebbe Baruch, the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov (by his daughter Adel), said that an herbal remedy not only cures the patient, but that that particular patient actually cures the herb as well, fixing the 'brokenness' that this herb has been suffering from since the orginal sin.

This is a really radical and novel point of view. Visible elsewhere in the ideas of God's supreme justice. But still, looking at things in this way opens up new possibilities. Namely, that the Godly soul you have been given is not complete, not until it refines the Animal soul within you, through which it completes and refines itself as well--even though the Godly soul was initially blind to any fault or lack in itself.

Maor Eynayim: Parashat Vayishlach

The Maor Eynayim on the parshah is rather short.

He explains that just like there are 365 sinews and 248 limbs in the soul (nefesh), there are similarly 365 sinews and 248 limbs in the complete level of both the world (olam) and the year (shanah).

He goes on to explain that the 365 days represent the 365 sinews of the year, and the year analog to the soul's gid hanasheh (sciatic nerve -afaik) is the 9th of Av. The gid haNasheh is the source of the power of the 'other side' in the level of soul. The 9th of the month of Av plays a similar role in the level of the year. The 9th of Av is the day when the 'other side' is at its most influential, hence the destruction of both temples and the sin of the golden calf(?) happened on that day.

When it says that the Angel strove with Yaakov until the rising of the sun, he teaches that the Satan will strive with Bnei Yisrael until the coming of the mashiach at which time, the 'other side' will be annihilated. Until then, he used his expanded influence over the gid haNasheh/Tisha B'av to wound us.

two becomes one

There is nothing more basic in the world than putting two things together in order to create some new object. This is a fundamental essence of being alive. We consume food, reordering it into flesh and blood. We look at a bunch of stones stacked a certain way and see a house. We see a face, recognise a friend, and wish them well.

Every morning we are plunged into the chaos of existence, and we make order out of so much noise. Every generation we move further along in the task of classifiying and taming that chaos, drawing ordered logical rules out of a seemingly unpredictable environment.

Why is this the basis of life, and why is this possible?

When Yaakov Avinu has a divine revellation in his dream, the only physical proof left is the pile of rocks on which he slept; they were fused into a single rock. Why is this significant enough to warrant mention in the brevity of written Torah?

When we take two things that seem completely unrelated, and we combine them, the fact that this is even possible is miraculous. Look at man-made tools, if you are in the wrong country with the wrong standard voltage, your appliances might not work, or they might get fried. If you try and mix lego and duplo, you're out of luck. If you have the wrong component, your computer won't function. If all you have are AAA batteries and you need a 9-volt battery, what to do?

When we find novel and new ways to overcome apparent limitations and differences between ideas, people, languages, or other more material things, we are connecting to their underlying commonality. We can understand about the health of a human from the health of a flowe or of a mouse because we can get down to the level of DNA and find commonality. When we set off a fusion reaction, we are getting down to the level of the atom, common to all matter. We can go deeper and deeper and as we do, we see that everything is essentially the same, everything shares a common essence.

Everything comes from the same source.

Everything can be related because it all draws its existence from God. It is to remind us of this that God fused a couple of rocks under the head of the tzaddik Yaakov Avinu. Yaakov is called so because his name implies that he reveals Godliness throughout the entire world, even down to the level of the heel, the lowliest level.

This is a lesson especially appropriate to the coming festival of Hannukah, in which it is said (in the Torah Ohr among other sources) that the divine pressence sheds its light even down to the lowest levels, below the ten handbreadths that are normally untouched by such a revellation.

The goal of all of science is nothing more than to unify everything in existence through a common set of rules, a common foundation. In this sense science and religion blend perfectly.