letting it all hang out

"Tzitzith are supposed to be warn over the clothes, plainly visible to all." While there are many who agree that while living amongst the gentiles, it is ok to wear the tzitzith garment under their clothes, those who tuck the tzitzit (the fringes) themselves into their pants are dishonoring one of God's mitzvot. If they had an article of clothing inscribed with the name of their king, you can be sure they would be wearing it proudly, adorning themselves in it as often as possible.
(paraphrased from: Mishnah Berurah 8:11[26])

This should speak to our generation, whose every possession is branded labeled and relabeled with so many slogans and logos.

The Hafetz Hayyim hints here to the fact that God's name is hinted at in the number of strings and knots in the Tzitzit. Why don't we wear God's name proudly and openly? Why do we hide it away while sporting endless articles of clothing emblazoned with Nike, Apple, Obama, Sports teams etc.?

I think what is beautiful is that there is a movement in our times to bring the emphasis back to Judaism, and to wear it proudly in so many ways. I don't always agree with the means or the message, but it's breathtaking to see a generation living the words of the Hafetz Hayyim, at least in spirit if not to the letter, even in the midst of so many other confusions.

What we can take from this is to strengthen ourselves both with pride in being Jewish, and with stronger dedication to perform and guard HaShem's mitzwoth -- the two go hand in hand. That's why the most widely accepted book of Jewish Law (The Shulchan Aruch) begins with the lesson that we must be mighty in God's service, we must have the courage to go against the grain, against the social pressures of wherever we may find ourselves.

May we merit to see Jews in increasing numbers flaunting their Tzitzith, enjoying their God-given duty to walk around wearing God's logo.

[note: this is not halachah for Sefardim who, based on Kabbalistic reasons, don't wear their tzitzith openly. Nor should anyone be basing their actions on any halachah mentioned here, they should have a Rav/Rabbi/Rebbe and be in touch with them. If for some reason, you cannot find or have not found a Rav/Rabbi/Rebbe, I will be happy to try to put you in touch with someone appropriate to your spiritual, intellectual, and geographical predicament.]

without graphs

When I studied Astronomy in university I wrote software to help make the boring parts of the work more trivial. When I studied almost anything I would graph the ideas out visually making logical and useful connections. At times, when there was so much information, I experimented with grouping whole structures of information into simple icons and then graphing the relationships between the icons. Sometimes I would crack open a 3d animation software package and start laying things out in 3 dimensions when I wanted to be able to see the big picture, how everything interacted.

Imagine my disappointment the first time my Rav told me I couldn't draw representations of the interactions of sefirot, partzufim, or any of ther other Kabbalistic constructs that exist in the Kabbalistic literature. Why? There's two major reasons, as best I understand it, and I still hope to convince my Rav to help me to find some way to circumvent them but they go a little like this: 

(a) God forbade us to create an image of any of the constructs we see in the heavens, this is too close to idolatry -- even if you and I both know it's not God and won't get confused.

(b) We can't draw it out lest someone think these constructs really exist, which we know ultimately that they really don't. (As the Sefer Yetzirah says (translated by R' Aryeh Kaplan) 'Ten sefirot of nothingness.')

Yes, there are diagrams of some things, and yes some people do diagram some things. But. But according to the traddition that we have, we don't. And, on the limited occasions where we do draw some sort of graphical representation to help momentarily it is on small pieces of paper or dry erase boards that will be burned/buried or erased (in the case of dry erase boards)  in short order.

I can't claim to understand this all, or even very much, but stop and think about it. What's the difference between graphing out chemical interactions or cognitive ideas and graphing out Kabbalistic concepts? 

The goal of understanding chemicals, mathematics, medicine, biology, literature, etc is to understand them in order to use them to some end. 

Kabbalah (read: Torah and Judaism) is an end in itself. We are drawing ourselves closer to HaShem, becoming more sensitized to holiness and HaShem's designs of and for this world. It isn't that once we understand the constructs of Kabbalah we take them and do something else with them, it is precisely through pursuing these ideas (the same can be said for any level of Torah learning) we are drawing ourselves closer to HaShem.

Does one map out one's spouse's likes and dislikes, or the 'way they work?' No. We get to know them so intimately that the answer to whether they will like this, or how they will react to that is obvious. That is the point of any Torah study, to develop this intimacy with HaShem. 

Always deeper and deeper levels of intimacy.

It isn't even about knowing something in the end, it's about closeness. Developing a closer relationship. You could spend your whole life on the introductions to learning the most basic levels of Torah, and be closer to HaShem than one who davens with all of the yichudim and kavvanoth of the Arizal. It's about your desire to be close to HaShem. 

When one has the desire and burns with  it, so then as you grow in Torah and Tefillah, you pursue that which brings you closer, including study of the hidden aspects of Torah. But that is the true measure of your accomplishments, did they bring you closer.

This helps us to narrow in on exactly what the problem is: HaShem, isn't like your family, when you're at work they aren't there so you draw a picture of them, or commission someone to do so, in this day and age we have cameras so we just snap a quick picture. Since HaShem is always present, drawing pictures or creating some other representation actually creates distance. Would you gaze at a photo of your spouse if your spouse was there in the room having a conversation with you? 

When we gain any true knowledge pertaining to our interaction with God, it's only as true and as deep as it is patently obvious to us. The deeper the connection the more we 'know.' Memorizing names, letters, configurations, constructs, what does that really mean? At most its evidence that we want to be closer to HaShem, even if it testifies that we don't know how to get there. But drawing pictures means maybe we'll settle for the picture the way people hang posters in their room of people they will never be able to relate to personally.

When we grow closer to HaShem with new knowledge it means we've changed. If we sketch something on a piece of paper or in a file, all that's changed is that paper or that file.

We're here to grow, not to amass pictures, charts, or graphs. It's not about commiting it to memory, it's about commiting it to our essence, about internalizing meaning.

To me, this is such a vital lesson for people living in our day and age. And I can't begin to explain how much I benefit from this knowledge. every. single. day.

brand spanking new

When a baby comes into the world, there are two things (and only two things) it needs to work on. Only after it has mastered these two can it really move on to the rest of life. What are the two things? (1) eating its food, and (2) excreting its waste. 

If you watch a newborn, you will see just how much effort they expend performing these two apparently simple tasks.

What I only realized recently is that in a broad sense we can be (and generally are, for most of our lives) spiritual newborns. Spiritually speaking our souls alternate between performing holy deeds like mitzwoth, hesed, prayer or learning, and removing the waste and damage done through less than spiritual endeavors, through teshuvah. 

It's not really such a long jump to relate mitzwot (and everything else we categorized along with them) as 'eating' because we know that in Gan Eden, the souls are clothed in the mitzwoth they performed in their lifetime; just as the food we eat becomes the flesh our souls wear in this world. Along the same lines, the connection between the expulsion of waste from the body and the expulsion of waste from the soul (teshuvah) is apparent.

The really interesting question for all of us to think about is: Newborns grow up, and move beyond eating and excreting to many far more interesting goals; what comes next spiritually?

Yes, just as these two basic functions (eating and excreting) still play a real role in our day to day adult existence, our spiritual lives will forever revolve around mitzwoth and teshuvah, but the spaces in between is where all the real depth takes place, where relationships are built, and life is given meaning.

I believe that HaShem put all the deepest secrets of life (the universe and everything) right in front of us. If we really stop and think about life and living, growth and growing, we'll see just how far our souls can grow.

the title of gabai

The man who looks after the Beit Knesset is often called the Gabai ((aka. Shamash) nowadays the term generally refers more to the person who creates order by determining who is called to the Torah and when) and this is the accepted simple meaning of the word, but its origins are complicated. Wikipedia (linked above) explains that the word comes from origins surrounding tzedakka. 

In the Zohar quoted in yesterday's (first day of parashath Terumah) Hok L'Yisrael, I found an interesting comment:

When HaShem [the Shechinah] arrives at the Beit Knesset in the morning, and no one has arrived yet, He gets enraged and demands His honor! On the other hand, if there is even one person in the synagogue, so He says (something like) "This one will be for me." And HaShem develops a special relationship with this person, apportioning him the title of Tzaddik. 

The aramaic word used there meaning "for me" or "to me" is none other than Gabai (גבאי) !

So, perhaps the one who looks after and opens the Beit Knesset is called the Gabai, because HaShem Himself comes and proclaims, this Tzaddik is "for me!" (Gabai)

[as a curious aside, I only recently discovered that my family is a scion of the Gabai family of Baghdad; my grandfather told us that we were of the Kabir clan back in Baghdad, and I recently found out that the [Al] Kabir clan/family was the name by which (at least parts of) the Gabai family was known. Which makes me very indirectly related to the Ben Ish Hai. But, I figured I'd mention this here, in the interests of full disclosure]

praying from the depths of your heart

Really pouring out your heart is a very difficult concept to relate to without a good analog. At first it seems like it's very simple to imagine -- but what we are actually imagining is something super-human and nothing we could be expected to do every... single... day. 

On the other hand when we find a good example we can all relate to, then suddenly pouring out your heart becomes possible, even easy, even fun: 

Take your pick, there's singing or dancing. Either one works to understand this idea.

We all know what it's like to sing half-heartedly, you execute the song as required, but with no feeling, it doesn't move you and it won't move your audience. On the other hand, I imagine everyone has, at one point in their lives or another, sung with so much energy that we inspired/touched/affected ourselves through our song. It's not so hard to do, just a matter of feeling like the song is expressing you. When you find the right song, and you're in the right mood, you belt it out, and it's effortless, you want to sing more and more and never stop.

When the song moves you, you sing, and your song moves you all the more. (The same is true with dancing.)

Anyways, we might have never been moved by prayer -- but I don't believe you've never been moved by song. If you've been moved by song, then you know what it feels like to be moved by prayer. You know what it feels like to pour all of your being into something.

Now you are ready to pray.

the postmodernist and the hassid

I only just realized that that is the correct translation of the title of Rebbe Nachman's story which is normally translated as: the Sophisticate and the Simpleton. [see it online here] [purchase audio book here] [purchase hardcopy here] (full disclosure: I in no way benefit from any purchases you do or don't make -- except for any merit I get in that I pointed out a source you will enjoy to learn from.)

For a long time I've maintained that Hassidut is the answer to Post Modernism, but for some reason I never clicked on the fact that this story embodies the answer itself.

Radical Torah Judaism

From my vantage point here in Jerusalem, I see the Jewish people and how much compassion they truly have, so much in some cases, that they are more worried about harming those who would harm us than they are about their own safety. In other cases, people (sometimes of even greater sensitivity) have been driven to call for harsh and bloody action out of desperation at the level of suffering of all those stuck helplessly in the middle of the confusion.

The state of Israel has lost direction, lost Jewish identity, they still claim to have it, but they aren't even sure what Jewish Identity is.

Jewish Identity is Torah. 

Rabi Akiva explained it in the Talmud, Jews without Torah are like fish without water. 

It's time that we had a Jewish response to the worldwide terror campaign that threatens to engulf us all.

This isn't a new idea, it's too simple for it to be a new idea. Let's just try and approach it with new fervor, new dedication, new devotion. 

It's time to combat "terror cells" with "Torah cells."

The terror infrastructure is a model of survivability, it's impossible to stop a grassroots movement that spreads anonymously through a large and growing population.

Find a friend, a chevruta, or a couple and start your own Torah cell. Learn regularly and with as much focus and fervor as you can muster. Create prayer cells, tehillim cells, mitzwah cells. Whatever you can wherever you can. Know that this is your mission.

The intent and focus of your learning: to connect to HaShem. 

Learn in order to do, to teach, and to uphold. So that whenever you do a mitzwah, it should be informed by that learning, you should connect through that learning, through that mitzwah, back to its source, HaShem. Mitzvot aren't rituals, they're actions.

Whenever you pray, let your learning inform your prayers, connect through the learning, the prayers back to the source, HaShem. Prayer isn't reciting words from a book, it's speaking to God.

1. Start a Torah cell today. Then spread the fire. Each cell member should start another cell, so that every person is a member of two cells, the cell they were invited to and the cell they create. 
2. Don't overdo it. Just two cells. Devote your time and energy to your learning in those two cells.
3. Create daily and weekly learning schedules, simple schedules you can stick to, and stick to them.
4. Anything you learn feel free to spread through blogs, email, wikis, twitter, pass the Torahs down and up the cells.
5. Let's unite and connect all of Am Yisrael in Torah.
6. Pass this on.

of sound and noise

It is possible to sit right next to someone you care about, carry on an entire  conversation with them, and never once stop thinking about what you are missing on TV right now.

It's as if you never spoke to them at all, you were never there, they don't even exist.

I'd hazard a guess that a lot of our daily interactions run fairly close to this scenario, whether it be TV we're thinking about, or anything else, even things of great importance.

If we truly love someone, they deserve our full attention, our time. This is such a hard lesson to absorb as a father and a husband. There's so much to do, but it's so much less important than the minutes or hours we spend with those who mean the most to us.

I wouldn't even be able to write this now, if my parents and grandparents hadn't embodied just this throughout my childhood.

The same is true about God.

Prayer is an opporunity to talk to HaShem.

HaShem is above time and space, He's got nowhere to go, He's listening.

We can pray three times a day every day, without our thoughts ever leaving the latest episode of Prison Break.  (Or House, the newest Harry Potter book,  the latest extrapolations of the foremost breakthroughs in modern medicine and cosmology, dinner, deadlines, music, traffic, anything at all other than God.)

Yeah, all this is pretty cliched, it's not new, someone probably pointed it out before---but were you listening then, or thinking about TV?

Either way, it's not the point I intended to make. My point is that this is just the very first step, the beginning of the road.

A Tzaddik isn't someone who invests energy and time in his prayers---that's what everyone is supposed to do!

And what's the next step? When I'm in traffic, cooking, cleaning, working, designing, developing, shopping, eating, building, creating, resting; I'm thinking about God. Everything I'm doing is establishing, growing, my relationship with Him.

It's not about becoming boring and one-dimensional, it's about uncovering deeper dimensions within the mundane. 

Everyone wants God to talk to them. 

Everyone.

But we all think God talks like He's on the telephone, or via SMS. How limited are we when we SMS, email, IM? Don't we sometimes want the closeness and warmth of a physical person looking at us? All those additional channels of stimulus add infinitely to that relationship.

Yet HaShem, who is truly infinite, we expect a phone call. "Yo"

The deepest and most basic teaching of the Baal Shem Tov is that every element of our experience, every stimulus that fires a single neuron, is part of the totality of God's communication with us. 

It's not a phone call, it's an intensely overwhelming experience of the infinite that barely lets us maintain our sanity -- that's why we prefer TV over trying to really connect. That's why we prefer Boing Boing or Wikipedia to trying to visit every page on the web every day.

This is why relationships are so important. This is the secret of relationships. By relating to others, making space for others, being open to others, we create an awareness, a vessel, exactly that which we need to start to relate to and digest the words of God. (which are always being spoken)

beautiful women

Why are women generally more beautiful than men?

The Tzemach Tzedek explains in his Derech Mitzwotecha, while explaining the mitzwah of lighting the Hannukah Candles, that the mitzwah is meant to bring down a tremendous influx of light from Hochmah all the way to Malchut. He explains that while all the of the middot receive of this light, Malchut receives the most because it is the direct interface with the klippoth, the dark side, so it needs the excess light to drive away the darkness. [Since men represent yesod, and women malchut] Because women receive this greater surplus of light, they generally shine with more beauty.

encountering torah

There are many statements made in the context of Chazal (Our teachers) that catch one off guard. Often our first reaction is to ascribe these statements or foreign understandings to superstitions or cultural beliefs of their era.

This is a major mistake in Torah learning. In fact it is a major mistake in any and all learning. The first rule in learning must always be to assess the internal consistancy of any teaching. If the teaching agrees with its own understandings and premises then it passes the first and most crucial test. This test is a real challenge in the learning process because it is often easier to assume poor internal consistency than it is to thoroughly explore all the possible ramifications of what is said such that there might be found a consistent underlying framework.

Once we have established the internal veracity of any teaching, then it is our responsibility to find an analog within our own understanding which would render the idea in a contemporary context. If we fail here we must assume it is due to our own limited mental flexibility.

We must of course thoroughly test this modern analog to see that it doesn't add or remove too much from the premise of the teaching. Once we have a modern analog sufficiently close to the original teaching, we can rest assured that the teaching is itself applicable in our day and age just as we originally thought.

Since we have seen the teaching is applicable we can then assume that perhaps it is our grasp of reality that is flawed. And we can approach the teaching with the assumption that it is objective truth. (Or at the very least, it is more objective (or more accurate) than our own reference frame)

[With God's help, in a future post I will explore this learn style with examples.]

21st century brain

רצון מתחיל מכתר ונקלט במוחין, שם מתחיל הממוש. קודם הנקודה של חכמה, אז הגידול בבינה, ורק אחר כך מגיעה לביטוי במידות. ובסוף הרצון יוצא לפועל דרך מלכות. ככה ניתן לאיש ישראלי ללמד את מידותיו ושכליו ולאמנם לבטות את כל רצונו לשם שמים. כל עוד שלא הצליח לגמרי לשלוט על רצוניו, היצר הרע הינו גלגלי עזר שדועג לדברים הכי בסיסיים כדי לאפשר להתפתחות היצר טוב לטווח הערוך שזה מתרת כל איש ישראלי

There have been a number of psychological studies that look at how we make decisions first, and only afterwards try to rationalize them, sometimes with really pitiful attempts at rationalization.

According to the Kabbalistic view of the world, as seen most readily and easily through Hassidut, this finding is entirely expected.

In the flow of influence through the sefiroth, everything starts with an initial desire. The desire is then clothed in Hochmah, Wisdom, and only after that in Binah, Reason. In other words there are two entire categorical stages that every action goes through before Reason even enters the picture.

(I say categorical stages, because each stage breaks down into infinite substages.)

Basically, years and years ago we knew that it isn't just the uneducated or uncultured who make rash decisions. Rather, it was a false rationalist perspective that has influenced modern society to believe that Man operates from a rational, logical, frame of mind.

The catch is, as the Baal HaTanya explains, that mind was given the ability to rule over our desires, (this is part of why the desire is clothed in Wisdom and then Reason) and so it is within our capabilities to overcome any action, even reflexes. Provided, of course, that we have mastered ourselves.

This is the work of a Jew, to move from an automatic lifestyle to a conscious chosen lifestyle.

In this view it seems to me that the evil urge is not inherently evil, more "automatic" than evil. Basically the evil urge is "training wheels." Until you can control and direct your own life the yetzer hara (evil urge) keeps you moving in a more or less healthy direction. You provide for yourself, reproduce, etc. Once you have begun to master your own life, then you replace your automatic nature, with a new conscious nature.

This isn't new thinking, these are things that are taken for granted in all of the old thinking. We just lost track of them over time.

The difference here and now, as in most modern thought, is that what in reality needs to be earned, is taken for granted as a right, rather than a responsibility to achieve.

Just as children don't have rights, instead we have responsibilities to educate them. They were provided as an example under our nose that we may recognize we have a responsibility to educate ourselves as well, to earn what we would have as rights.

I believe all of this knowledge was lost to us as our teachers became younger and younger. Only the wisdom of people who have lived (and succeeded to live) full lives can really value basic necesities like a work ethic.

Being young myself, I can only quote Pirkei Avoth, (Rav Meir I believe) "you may find a new barrel bearing old wine, and an old barrel without even young wine in it."

if you can't join em, beat em [2/2]

Coming back to the metaphor of eating and what we can learn from it, I think it would be wise to review Rebbe Nachman's lesson we learned a while back titled "let's eat in." (see: http://awaxingwellspring.blogspot.com/2008/02/lets-eat-in.html)

We see that in addition to the act of consuming food, it is easy for us to be consumed by something else, a feeling, an idea, an experience. When we say 'consumed by' we mean it literally. We are absorbed into that experience and become a part of its nature.

Here to what we learned in part 1 applies. When we are part of an experience we are either being absorbed, consumed, and changed by it, or we are consuming and changing it. It's eat or be eaten.

Sometimes when the experience is positive and good for us, we want to be 'eaten.' It refines and purifies us, as Rebbe Nachman teaches. These kind of experiences, visiting the Holy Land, visiting a Tzaddik, learning Torah, strengthening our Emunah, (our pure faith) we want them to consume us, we want to be remade into the material of the Tzaddik, the Land of Israel, the Torah, or Emunah.

Other times, we don't want experiences that might be negative or harmful to consume us. We don't want to become part of that bad experience. Again we can find analogs in the physical world: Unfortunately people subjected to abuse often become abusive themselves. These people have been devoured by the experience, their nature has become part of the nature of abuse. (This applies even to minor verbal abuse)

Basically, every encounter we have with anything outside ourselves has the ability to influence and change us. This is the basic tenet of the psychology called behaviorism. However, it is ALWAYS within our control to choose to influence that experience, rather than be influenced by it. Note the emphasis on the word 'choose.' We can always choose what we want, but our success is not assured. Life is effort, life is work, and sometimes (though it seems unfortunate) we have more to learn and gain from the loss than we do from the victory.

What is important to be aware of is that every loss (just like every win) is an opportunity to once again be affected and consumed, or to affect and consume.

This is at the root of Teshuvah. Teshuvah is the act of turning the experience from one that consumed us into one that we consume and change into a different, higher, and more refined nature.

This is also why I've stated in the past that Teshuvah applies to mitzwoth as well as aveiroth (sins) because we can choose in the here and now to allow that past experience of a mitzwah to consume us and affect us more fully. (Just as we can do the opposite with a negative past experience.)

The one caveat here is to understand that just as in Kashrut, there are some things that no matter how we may try, they will always consume us, because they aren't palatable. And for this reason, they are always forebidden; So too, sins (aveiroth) are actions/experiences that HaShem informs us from the start: they will certainly consume you and bring you down.

Neutral experiences can be brought to great holiness, in fact, that is a major part of our job here in this world. But non-neutral negative experiences (read: sins) cannot be brought to holiness through their performance. Only after the fact, if we slipped, then Teshuvah allows us, through super-human effort, to fix, consume, and change even these negative acts.

We need to strengthen these muscles. We need to recognize that every experience is an opportunity to come closer to HaShem, to experience HaShem more fully. Whether it is through deepening the experience by letting it overwhelm us, or it is by taking control of and modifying that experience.

All of these insights you can internalize through focusing on eating and what it does to you, and what you do to the food.

(maybe I should have called it, if you can't join em, eat em.)

basics: chazal

[i'm going to do a short series called 'basics' on ideas that others have found novel, but i've always taken for granted. just some brief discussions about the basics of judaism]

We call the many generations of Torah scholars who came before us collectively Chazal, it's an acronym that is short for "Our sages, may their memory be a blessing."

People within the Jewish world, especially Israelis who have grown up their whole lives in religious environments, have asked me how it is that the secular public can treat Chazal and their collected works so lightly?

It doesn't surprise me. If you grow up in a world where your most revered academic scholars are men and women with impressive knowledge, but equally impressive egos, you naturally assume the ancient (and even present day) Torah scholars are the same.

The only way for someone to correct their perspective of Chazal is to meet one of the true Talmidei Hachamim alive today. Only through seeing a living example of something completely other than what we are used to, can we begin to understand who Chazal were.

When you speak and interact face to face with someone who has no regard for themselves whatsoever, someone who has so totally destroyed his ego, so as to exhibit true concern for his or her fellow person, only then can you begin to glimpse Chazal.

May we all merit to meet true tzaddikim and hachamim in the flesh, so that our eyes may be opened to worlds we never knew existed.

starting your day

mostly we relate to prayer as a ritual we do in the morning. when we have a busy day, we might rush through it, to get the ritual out of the way sooner.

in reality, prayer is the most intensive and most important accomplishment of our day. our prayers not only set the tone of what we will accomplish the rest of the day, but open up all manner of opportunities to make the day productive and meaningful.

as we see with any job, the harder we work initially, the more it pays off. so too with prayer, if we start our day with an intense foundation of tefillah, then every little action we take throughout the day will have tremendous spiritual and material repercussions.

something to think about the next time we are rushing through our prayers in order that we might start our day.

a new day

Often a company will repackage its products, in order to refresh them and renew people's interest, perhaps grab some further attention.

There are basically two different ways people, customers, can respond to this: The first is to be the educated consumer and scoff at a simple repackaging, as if it is beneath you to fall for their marketing.

The second approach is to be delighted at the product, and reexperience it anew. Revisit this product as something new and different, waiting to be surprised by what
it might entail.

In our modern society, this second approach is looked down upon as the ignorant, simple or childish approach.

People who look down on the second approach are missing a major point. When people taste or use the newly packaged product and expect something special, they will better appreciate whatever the product has to offer. Those who look down will only see the negative aspects of the product.

All of life is exactly the same. When we look at the world and think this new day is simply a repackaging of yesterday, we can either be excited to discover what's new, or, well, the other option is sadly too familiar to have to go into detail.

This is but a small aspect of the deep lesson Rebbe Nachman called the Sophisticate and the Simpleton.

knowing where and when

It's an interesting social phenomenon, but when someone is aware of someone else's schedule it marks a level of intimacy and relationship. There is a social value placed on knowing what your friends are up to and where they happen to be. It's not the kind of thing one is normally aware of, but if you pay attention, one feels a little bit of ego when we can share the locale or the status of an important or popular person at a particular time, especially when this knowledge reveals your close relationship with the person in question. (You have to really pay attention to notice this effect, but its very real.)

This explains one of the praises of Bnei Yisrael that Bilam shares: (Balak 23:24)  כָּעֵת, יֵאָמֵר לְיַעֲקֹב וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵל, מַה-פָּעַל, אֵל. Which the Holy Ishbitzer translates [loosely--english paraphrasal is mine] as: At every moment they will come to Israel to ask them what is God's doing right now? He explains that every soul of Bnei Yisrael has the potential to know HaShem's will at every single moment. This is an expression of our unique and exclusive relationship with HaShem.

But, I think there's a very un-esoteric application of this same relationship principle: It is very important for a marital relationship for the husband to make his whereabouts and plans known to his wife. In this way you express your unique and exclusive relationship, she knows where you are and what you are up to. If other people are looking for you, they know they can ask her. There is a special social status that is attached to that knowledge, just as our ability to explain HaShem's will exposes to all the nations our unique status.

(In terms of the marital relationship this goes both ways, I just described it from the angle more familiar to myself. It also happens a lot that one hears spouses annoyed or complaining (if often half joking) that they don't know where their other half went off to. So there is plenty of anecdotal evidence.)

not sure what it is you're craving?

יש בעולם הזה רצון עצום למשוך ולהאריך תענוג. כידוע תענוג בעולם הזה מתחלף בשניה ולפרקים נמשכת עד כמה דקות ספורות.. ואפילו להנאות יותר לתווך ארוך כל מגמתם של הנהנים הוא להאריך ולהמשיך את ההנאה או התענוג הזה כמה שאפשר. הגבול והאוייב של כל אילו הלוחמים הוא הזמן. הזמן עובר והאש מתלקחת ואוכלת עד שאין מה לאכול. וזה כולו ענין עולם הזה. כל עוד שלא נגמר התיקון כל יום ויום משפיע ועובר לבד. בעת התיקון כל הימים יהיו כאחד נמשכים עד בלי די.לכן קוראים לעולם הבא יום שכולו ארוך ויום שכולו שבת - כולו תענוג בלי סוף. בזה רואים שכל העולם כולו שואף לעולם הבא.

The nature of HaShem's world is utterly beautiful in a way that surprises constantly in the thorough and subtle depth of its perfection. Time passes because each day vies for its own spotlight, its own moment. Each day a different day gets to shine. This is the nature of this limited world, in which each person is born thinking he is more important than every other person. This is the broken nature of the world which is in need of a fixing. It is in such a world that each person struggles not only to attain pleasure and enjoyment, but to prolong it as much as possible until they need to return to seek it out anew. Thankfully, HaShem created this world largely so that the fix would come of itself: As people age and have children and then grandchildren, they recognize their insignificance in the face of all those who came before and all those who come after them.

In the world to come, the time when this tikkun (fixing) is complete. All the days will shine simultaneously and there will no longer be passage of time in the same sense as that of this world we are used to. This is why the world to come is called the day that is completely long, and the day that is completely Shabbath. In otherwords, it is an endless day of enjoyment.

We can see from this definition how it is that in searching for ways to elongate and lengthen pleasure and enjoyment, people are really longing for the world to come. When we recognize this it must have a profound effect upon us, bringing us to the truth of what our role is in this world, and how it brings us to the true goal of the next world.

What happens in vegas stays in vegas

This common catch phrase of the modern day, "What happens in vegas stays in vegas," has a lot to teach us. I was thinking about it's analog (lehavdil) in Shabbath. About how one might say, and I have a tendency to lean that way, that what happens on Shabbath stays in Shabbath. Meaning Shabbath is completely divorced from the rest of reality and whenever I return there, I've forgotten everything else, it's my safe sanctuary from whatever else might be going on in the world.

But that isn't really what Shabbath is about, and that really isn't the way Shabbath works. In fact, our Shabbath experience is directly impacted by our preparation during the week. Likewise, our week hinges on our experience of the Shabbath that preceded it. In fact, there's a teaching of the Maor Eynayim (see: two is really just one) that explains that if we were to prepare for and keep one Shabbath properly, then all the following Shabbatoth would always work out nicely. This is a result of how much of an effect Shabbath has on the following week, and how much of an effect that week has on the following Shabbath. Once you get the ball rolling, Shabbath just gets better and better. 

This is the fundamental difference between a kli, a vessel, in kabbalah, and a klipah, a shell. A kli also means a tool, it contains in order to achieve some end beyond itself. An example might be a reservoir that stores water for an entire city, so that the city can draw off the water little by little as needed. A klipah, a shell or husk, receives but never gives back, it serves no purpose other than to receive. In biology we might describe a kli as a symbiote, while a klipah would represent a parasite.

When the Kabbalah discusses a mosquito it is viewed as the lowest of creations, because "it takes but does not give." The only creature below a mosquito is a human who chooses voluntarily to take and not to give. Otherwise, when a person is generous, choosing to receive from HaShem in order to pass on the goodness to all those in need, a human is the highest of all creations, even higher than the angels.

So, reexamining the motto, "What happens in vegas stays in vegas," we can see that the inherent values of vegas are those of receiving and keeping, without any interest in giving at all. Let's make sure all of our mitzwoth aren't vegas-style mitzwoth. May we learn in order to teach and to do, rather than just to know. May we act in order to reveal HaShem's light in the world rather than to receive reward.

May whatever we do with our lives make profound (as opposed to profane) waves in all our environs.

updated: If we stop to think about this a second more. The motto could be applied nicely to this world. What happens in this world, (olam ha'zeh) stays in this world. Whenever we do anything that has no bearing beyond the immediate now in olam ha'zeh, then that whole action stays in this world [forever.] When we focus our actions on transcending this world, [moving beyond ourselves] then our actions are always outside it, beyond it, and reach to the next world, the world to come, olam ha'ba.

bowing before the lord

I used to think of the TV as having the redeeming quality that it teaches us about bitul. When you sit opposite the television, it's almost as if you and everything and everyone else around you ceases to exist. I thought, wow, this is great, it's kind of like (lehavdil) the neshamoth in Gan Eden sitting nullified in the light of the Shechinah, blissing out.

Thinking about it a little more recently, there are a number of places (even quoted recently here) that describe the nature of bowing down. The symbolism behind a bow is a gesture of nullifying oneself before someone (or something) else. Within the halachoth of avodah zara there is a prohibition against worshipping avodah zara in the manner in which it is worshipped. There is a second general prohibition forbidding one from bowing down before ANY avodah zara, even if that is not the way in which it is worshipped.

With this new lens I reexamined television and money as well. When we negate ourselves, even a little in the name of television, or the pursuit of money, we tread on dangerous ground. It is not bowing down outright, but it might be more extreme than actually bowing down.. because we are being moser nefesh. We are lessening our self-importance in favor of this thing, be it TV or money.

I know it may sound a little ludicrous, but stop to think that when we lessen our self-importance even the smallest bit in the pursuit of Torah or a mitzwah, it is considered being moser nefesh, giving our lives for Torah and mitzwoth, giving our lives in the name of HaShem. So, when we are giving [of] our lives to be sitting mindless in front of TV or in order to earn more money, we have to examine what it is we are doing. Are we bowing down to some external power, looking to money or TV for immediate gratification [read: salvation]? Or are we pursuing HaShem, making ourselves holy with all that is permitted to us? [קדש את עצמך במותר לך]

the not so hidden truth

Rebbe Nachman (Likkutei Moharan I:133) brings down the words of the Baal Shem Tov:

אוי ואבוי כי העולם מלא מאורות וסודות נפלאים ונוראים והיד הקטנה עומדת בפני העינים ומעכבת מלראות אורות גדולים

"Oy Vavoy, but the world is full of wonderous and awesome lights and secrets, and the little hand covers the eyes, preventing them from seeing these great luminaries."

The Hayom Yom brings down an amazing and related point:

There is not the vaguest shadow of doubt that, wherever our feet tread, it is all in order to cleanse and purify the world with words of Torah and tefilla (prayer). We, all of Israel, are emissaries of G-d, each of us as Divine Providence has decreed for us. None of us is free from this sacred task placed on our shoulders.

Rav Morgenstern in Dei Hochmah L'Nafshech (B'Shalach) explains why this is accessible to us:

This process begins with contemplation of the fact that all is Elokus,
which we have already explained is an aspect of Shema Yisrael, the sefirah of
Chochmah. Every Jewish soul is rooted in Chochmah, which is associated with
the Name Havayah when it is fully articulated with yuds so that it equals 72. [- יוד
20 = הי-ויו-הי + 15+ 22+ 15 = 72] Since each Jewish soul is rooted in this Name,
this means that everyone naturally is closest to contemplating Elokus. Since this
is a form of avodah that comes naturally to the Jewish soul, it is the basis of all
avodah, as the Emek Hamelech writes.

What most interests me is the fact that nothing can exist without a spark of kedushah, or holiness. More than that, I believe the Mei Shiloah states that even our most destructive desire is still a desire for the spark of holiness in this destructive act.

To me that means that every brilliant advertising campaign, every catchy tune, every sports car, every designer gown, in short everything that is popular, is popular only because of the holiness, the fallen spark that is trapped within it. It is probably dangerous to look for such things, just as the Baal HaTanya explains that it is dangerous to involve yourself with your own foreign thoughts.

However, if you have an idea, a tune, anything stuck in your head, you can find the innate holiness within it, bring it out and thank HaShem for it. (And then move on back to more apparently holy matters.)