throw a tantrum

Want HaShem the way a child wants their Abba.

Don't be affraid to scream your head off, or act entirely irrationally.

When you want Abba, no smooth-talking or calming is going to come between you and your Abba.

Candy is great, and you are happy to gorge yourself on it when you have the time, but don't even consider it when you are in the middle of a fit, demanding your father's attentions.

We think kids are here to drive us (parents) crazy, maybe sometimes they are, but really they're here to show us what it means to really want something.

Their job as children is to show us just how much you can accomplish when truly focused on your goals.

Our job as parents is to give them worthy goals to pursue.

words with redeeming quality

When we speak of the redemption from egypt, Yetziat Mitzrayim, we think of something that happened in ancient history. Yes, we have a responsibility, even a number of mitzwoth including a seven day festival, to remind ourselves of that event that took place so long ago, but it's still more or less an inaccessible memory.

The Komarna Rebbe transforms so much historical preservation into a vehicle for redemption:

The words we speak telling the story of the redemption from Egypt, are the vessels through which HaShem delivers us individually (personal salvations) and nationally. ( the ultimate redemption)

So speak out about the story of Egypt and don't hold back, because it isn't some half-dead national memory you're perpetuating without purpose-- it's the direct means through which you are being redeemed, today, tomorrow, and forever.

heads or tails, evil loses

The goal of the klipah (the dark side) is to cause Israel suffering. The source of all the other side's power are the Holy sparks that fell and were trapped there.

The trick is, the Klipah elevates these Holy sparks to its 'head,' where they have the most influence and garner the most ability to stir up trouble for the Jews.

It happens to be that the head of the Klipah abuts the heels of Holiness, making it exceedingly easy to elevate those holy sparks just a little bit higher and back into the feet of Holiness, robbing the dark side of its power altogether.

(Mitzwah 22 & 23 Otzar HaHayyim - Komarna)

We see that God created the world in such a way that all the heavy lifting is done by the system, our job is just the finishing touches at every stage.

(The Baal Shem Tov says mitzwoth really almost perform themselves, without any help from us; May it be God's will that this teaching will help us to perform mitzwoth with simplicity and sincerity.)

[The Komarna brings this teaching to illuminate the mitzwah of redeeming your firstborn donkey. He doesn't say it outright, but it seems like he is equating the firsborn donkey (donkey in hebrew חמור shares a root with חומר matter, corporeality) with the 'head' of the klipah. Instead he explains how the redemption of the firstborn donkey teaches us about how to deal with 'foreign' or 'strange' thoughts. (Machshavot zarot are a complete topic in themselves, the translation does them no justice and we will address them God willing another time.) Tzaddikim raise them up through 'redeeming' (פדיה) them, while everyone else needs to behead (עריפה) them through repeatedly striking them. If you spend thought on this you will find a number of deep connections.]

waiting on your prayers

Pray. Take your time.

We're so tempted to rush, to feel pressed for time, when it's exactly the opposite that is true.

We think the world around us is moving so fast, if we take time out of our schedule to simply pray, there's no end to what we may miss.

If only we knew how wrong that thinking is. I challenge you, take your time, see what happens.

Every time I have ever cut my prayers short because I was running late, the meeting was cancelled, or there was a traffic jam, or any number of other delays that meant I could've taken my time.

The whole world is literally waiting on your every word.

Prayer is what makes the world go round.

How do I know?

וְכֹל שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה, טֶרֶם יִהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ, וְכָל-עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה, טֶרֶם יִצְמָח: כִּי לֹא הִמְטִיר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, עַל-הָאָרֶץ, וְאָדָם אַיִן, לַעֲבֹד אֶת-הָאֲדָמָה.

Bereishith (Genesis) 2:5

Chazal explain, when God created the world the rain didn't fall and so the plants didn't grow until after man existed to pray for the rain.

The whole world is waiting on your prayer..

..so what are you waiting for?

watching the grass grow

Everything around us in nature grows, yet almost none of that growth is perceivable in real time.

Likewise, our spiritual growth should be organic, almost imperceptible if not for hindsight.

Even though we want to feel and see the result of our accomplishments right now, spiritual endeavors are no different in this sense from physcial excersize -- the benefits only become apparent over time.

This is the meaning of "don't ascend stairs to my altar" in the end of Parashath Yitro. The Mizbeah (altar) was specifically designed with a ramp to illustrate that only constant gradual and fluid change bring us to Holiness.

the best of intentions

Good intentions aren't always enough. It's more about the delivery. (We all know the aphorism about where the road of good intentions leads.)

Esav's head (but only his head) is buried in m'arat haMachpelah because he wanted to be a tzaddik.

This is even more true of prayer, the Baal Shem Tov explains, when you pray with kavanah, intent, then your prayer is limited to the level of kavanah you are able to muster.

However, and this is his hidush, when you pray with tremendous energy, when you put yourself into each and every word, without trying to have any kavanah at all, then HaShem supplies the kavanoth for you.

What does this mean?

To me, in the simplest of terms, it means the essence of prayer is connecting to God, the more energy we put into this connection, the more emphasis we place on the importance of this connection, the greater the connection. Simple.

If we manage to entirely lose ourselves in this connection, we are able to receive a much higher revelation of God through that connection.

Think of energy in prayer as bandwidth.

veins of torah run deep

When scholars delve into the history and development of Judaism, especially the development of Torah alongside Judaism, one can't help but marvel at how much was lost along the way, at every stage.

The Komarna explains in the opening words of the Notzer Hesed that none of what Mosheh Rabbeinu received from the mouth of God on Har Sinai could be transmitted. (Every word would take more than seventy years to explain)

On the day Mosheh Rabbeinu died, Yehoshua forgot thousands of halachot.

The codifying of the Tanach left out a number of books from that time period. The hashing out of the mishna left a tremendous body of baraita in its wake. The Talmud is but the smallest drop of the knowledge of the Amoraim, whatever could be committed to text, and whatever we haven't lost of that over the years.

This says nothing of the thousands, maybe tens (hundreds?) of thousands of sefarim that have since vanished from the world. (We're not even going into the secrets of the Torah, we have maybe seven extent chapters (Sefer Yetzirah) from the book of Adam rumored to have at least five hundred.)

Beyond all that, even of the Torah we have maintained to this day, volumes seemingly without end, so much of it has transitioned from Torah with practical application (only in the most literal sense, chas v' shalom that someone should think it needn't be learned) to Torah for its own sake. So many practices and Halachot are no longer performed or held today, either from chumrot, kulot, or different minhagim.

But really, if you think about it, it isn't so shocking.

There are some who might look at all this and see evolution, survival of the fittest, or even a readjustment of norms to meet the expectations of modern society, but I believe that is foolishness at best.

The reality is that yes, it's entirely organic, but in a way our everyday short-sighted view couldn't begin to comprehend.

When we look at the entire Jewish people as comprising a single body, one organism that persists throughout time as well as space, we recognize the deeper meaning of the identification of these generations as the heels--the ends of the feet. It begins to dawn on us, from this perspective, that just as there are veins, arteries, sinews, nerves and more that connect the feet with the rest of the body, there are many more veins, arteries, sinews and nerves, that don't quite reach the feet, many, if not most, never even come close.

If Torah is an integral part of the Jewish body, the life force of this body, then the abundance of Torah centralized in the head (Mosheh Rabbeinu and his generations) and the chest (the Mishna/Talmud and their generations) makes the Torah in the feet almost negligible by comparison.

So, rather than being shocked and appalled by what has become of our Torah, we can begin to understand the role and part our Torah in our day plays in the greater timeless body of Israel and Torah.

when you can't break through

When you are struggling to feel anything at all in your prayer, when you feel the world weighing down on you from every side, start praying for others you know are in need.

Keep praying, think of more and more people in need of HaShem's intervention. Not nameless hypothetical people, but actual people you are familliar with, people you care about, people whose success/wellbeing/happiness is important to you.

This is a key to breaking through depression, to reaching God when you feel He's turned His back on you.

the wild animals

HaShem settled us in the Holy Land slowly, lest the wild animals become numerous and overwhelm us.

This is the secret of coming close to HaShem. When we grow in holiness gradually, with humility and patience, then we will inhabit the whole 'Land,' the entirety of our spiritual portion/potential.

But if we try to rush, the wild animals, the yetzer hara of ego and hunger, will grow too strong and overpower us.

This is why Yaakov's path, as a sincere student dwelling in the house of Torah was successful, and why l'havdil, Esav's path of action, a man of the field, was unsuccessful.

hearing the love

וחרה אף ה' בכם

It's so important not only to pray, not only to learn Torah, but also to find the hidden blessings, the hidden points of light within even the darkest places. (As a matter of principle, we don't seek out the darkness, but when we find ourselves in it, we are required to reveal the light hidden therein.)

Every day, at least twice a day, we say the prayer Shema Yisrael. In the time of the Holocaust, the Partisans in the woods would identify a Jew based on his/her ability to recite the Shema Yisrael. The Shema is in many ways the essence of the Jew, and many a Jew has died with these holy words on their lips.

In the second chapter/paragraph of the Shema, we speak about the performance of the mitzwoth and the negative reppercussions of our transgressions. To me this part of the Shema is always difficult, we are proffessing our love and devotion to God and in the midst of this recounting His capacity to consume us in His holy wrath.

"And He will grow angry with you, and the heavens will cease, a stop to all precipitation, the land will hold back its bounty, and you will be lost from the land."

That's rough. How can we really and truly mean it when we say we love God, when this threat hangs over our heads?

So many times I've set out to try and understand the deeper blessing, the light within this darkness and it has taken me until now to understand the smallest part of it:

When something displeases or angers you, you have a number of potential responses, depending on the importance of the annoyance in question. If it's the weather, you do your best to ignore it. An insect? You swat it away. A piece of paper, toss it in the waste basket. Another driver in traffic? Perhaps a gesture or an expletive but then they're gone.

What about your wife? children? parents? what about your best friend? These are the people that really get you angry. They make you angry because you care about them, because they know you and you know them, because you are intimately connected to them. You don't threaten your college professor that you won't ever talk to them again. You don't threaten to never visit a television reporter.

We are so close to God that He knows we can even take His anger. In hebrew it's rendered and His anger will burn in you. Not only does God dwell amongst us, but even when He's angry his anger is within us. He reveals Himself in this world through us. The heavens 'cease' when He's angry, the land's bounty is withheld, but He is still in us. He threatens to remove us from the land, because it's something of real value, a place to be close, to be intimate with Him. It's what He wants, it's what we want, and so it is withheld.

For one thousand nine hundred and forty one years, we have bourn His anger, and if that's what He's willing to give us then that is what we'll take.

Because all we want is Him.

That's a real relationship.

Someone you care about so much that they make you angry sometimes.

Someone who cares so much about you that your anger won't scare them away.

the real pursuit of happiness

The Ohr HaHayyim in his opening commentary on the weekly parashah, Ekev, mentions that Chazal say one shouldn't be happy until he has performed all of the mitzwoth.

That's a tall order, and being that I'm so steeped in Hassidut (whose overarching principle is to always be happy) I feel compelled to offer a couple of explanations of the discrepancy:

1. When one is involved in a mitzwah, one is (temporarily) not required to perform other mitzwoth. Perhaps the deeper reason behind this system is that as we know of the world, everything is connected to everything else. So, as long as you are involved in a mitzwah, then you can be happy because the performance of any mitzwah has an aspect of fulfilling all mitzwoth.
2. The Ohr HaHayyim goes on to say that Chazal say one must be happy in order to pray. Since an aspect of Hassidut is to be in a constant conversation with God, so the everpresent nature of this prayer necesitates an everpresent happiness. Perhaps it is for this reason that it is said, "it's a very big mitzwah to be happy always."

Either way, there is still a real need to learn and perform all of the mitzwoth which HaShem commanded us. Each one is a priceless treasure and the deepest means available with which to bind oneself to the Life of All Worlds, blessed be He.