For if he would truly believe, he would realize that "In the light of the King's countenance there is life," [Prov. 16;15], and "Strength and joy are in His place," [Chronicles 16:27], so that he indeed lacks nothing. ''
"Happy is the man that trusts in God," reads Psalm 84:13. "Raise a shout to the Lord, all the earth, break into joyous songs of praise!" reads Psalm 98:4. "I will walk quickly in the way of Your teaching, because You have given me a free heart," reads Psalm 119:32.
Over and over in this book you have been shown that by doing God's most simple will, your life will lose its angst, fears, worries, anxieties, resentments, grudges, hates and jealousies. You will no longer covet. You will be rid of your character defects, selfishness, self-centeredness, self-seeking, low self-esteem, self-pity and confusion. Your life will no longer lack meaning and you will no longer be at odds with others. You will be integrated.
You have seen in your own handwriting that you held the key to the bondage of ego. You have freed yourself from it by following a few simple steps, set down for us by the sages thousands of years ago. I have only been your guide, your sherpa, your rabbi. You have done the work with God's invaluable aid. You are free to live a life of joy and happiness and you know what true shalom means.
When you understand God's love for you and begin to allow yourself to experience His love, your life changes for the better. You now reciprocate by loving God, as the V'ahavtah asks. You do this, not with blind faith, but by using the greatest gift God has given you. This gift is your intellect. Your life will grow spiritually.
Psychologists say that the average person has 60,000 thoughts per day. If you categorized your thoughts before taking the path laid out in this text, what would a typical 24 hours look like? What had you been thinking about? Were your thoughts about problems, pain, un-forgiveness, worry, work issues, hatred, wayward children, marital issues, sickness, resentment, and frustration? What do you think about now?
Those same psychologists also say that of the 60,000 thoughts the average person thinks in a day, more than 80 percent are negative! What were your thoughts before doing the work outlined in this book? As you have learned, you need to think positively and you achieve such by seeing God's abundance, and blessing Him many times every day. It is the love of God, which leads us to the love of our fellows, which sustains us and keeps us joyous and happy.
The Kabbalists teach that the Hebrew word for love, "Ahav," consists of the letters Aleph, Hei, and Beit. These letters, Kabbalistically, show us how to love. Aleph is the first letter of the alphabet. This represents that you need to love God first before you can truly love your fellows. It is easy to love people whom you like without God's aid. However, God's help is needed to love someone that you don't like.
Hei is the second letter and stands for the Five Books of Moses. This is Torah, which God gave us to lead a happy life. It is also is the first letter of Hesed (also Chesed), which means "kindness." The Talmud teaches that Torah begins and ends with kindness. God clothed Adam and Eve and God buried Moses. The kinder you are to your fellows, the more you show your love for God. Conversely the crueler you are to your fellows, even by holding a grudge, you separate yourself from God.
The last letter of Ahav is beit. This letter stands for house (bayet, or beth) and is also the first letter in the Torah, Beresheit. Being the second letter, it reminds us of a duo. We are not alone. God is always with us. And further, our purpose in life is to help repair the world, tikkun olam, as His junior partner.
Our feelings are symptoms of the way we think. A big problem with that is most people think that they are unloved. They think that God doesn't really love them. Before beginning our Spiritual Renewal journey, some of us were these people. Some also used to believe that they were unlovable. Our emotions were based upon our thoughts or preconceived ideas and this affected our actions. People tend to treat others according to the way they feel when not spiritually connected, Rabbi D. Rendelman opines.
What this means is that when people treat others rudely, it's because they are not feeling loved! They are disconnected from God and are thus spiritually deficient, but they do not realize it. When one acts rudely to someone, it is proof that one is not focused. One is not thinking mindfully with God throughout one's day. Teshuvah need to be made. This person need to immediately take a time out, get into prayer and meditation and get refocused. If you feel loved by God and grateful to Him for your cup overflowing, you will treat all people with God's love.
Understand that if you are not feeling the love of God, your emotions will stop His ahavah from filling your life. If you stop, pray, meditate, think, bless, do a mid-day chesbon ha nefesh katon and reconnect with God's ahavah, your emotions will reflect His ahavah. Your actions will follow your thinking.
People see God through your ahavah. We are to know and experience the ahavah of God and keep His love before us at all times. Once your mind is conformed to God's ahavah then you will be able to show God's love to others.
"Love your fellow as yourself" is an extension of, "And you shall love the Lord your God." (Deut. 6:5). Loving your fellows is loving God, for one's fellow contains within himself a "part of God above" (Job 31:2). By loving one's fellow, the innermost part of him, one loves God (Rabbi
Now that you know the Jewish Spiritual Renewal steps, you understand that it is an ongoing process of spiritual growth, study, becoming better at prayer and meditation and getting closer and closer to God. You will never be perfect as you were not made like saints or angels. You should therefore not expect the world to treat you as such.
"Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is like expecting the bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian," stated Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. "The virtue of angels is that they cannot deteriorate; their flaw is that they cannot improve. Humanity's flaw is that we can deteriorate; but our virtue is that we can improve," says an old Chasidic proverb.
As a spiritual Jew you will always be improving and stumbling. You may take five steps forward and two back, then four steps forward. You are moving forward spiritually, as long as you do your daily chesbon ha nefesh katon, the small daily accounting of your soul. Rabbi Elimelech of Lezinsk said, "A person is born only for the purpose of perfecting his nature." The Midrash says, "There is no real joy except joy of wisdom...if there is wisdom in a person, this person studies mussar (spiritual self improvement). If the person has no wisdom in him, he is not able to learn mussar." (Yalkut Mishlay 909).
The Talmud Bavli (Tractate Bava Basra 10b) tells us that this is an "upside-down world" in which "rich, arrogant, powerful people are considered important." Things are not much different in our world today than in
You have read this book and have done the work. One may decide, however, to turn one's back on these teachings and re-enter the rat race. One may still try to win the admiration of the rich, the arrogant and the powerful. God will still bless this person despite the individual's turning his back to God. However, egotistical people will abandon anyone whose stock portfolio drops and cannot make the $50,000 yearly donation to their favorite charity. However, God's Gates of Renewal are always open.
A well-known story is told of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (1810
These words hit Rabbi Salanter hard. He realized that these words were the secret to human growth. As long as the candle burns...as long as I am still alive…I can repair myself as a human being. Even someone older and set-in-their-ways can always work to improve as long as one still has the gift of life. Your primary purpose in life is to grow spiritually at all times.
"It is harder to change one bad character trait than to learn the complete Talmud. It is just as great a distance from knowing something to not knowing something as is the distance from knowing something in your head alone to internalizing it into your heart...As long as one is still alive, one can still work on perfecting himself." said Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. When your heart is connected with your mind, you have become integrated and you will know true shalom, shlema, wholeness and Oneness with God.
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Parasha Ki Tavo: Deuteronomy 26:01-29:08
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'He's Making His List, He's Checking it Twice, He's Gonna Find Out Who's Naughty or Nice..."
This parasha gives us the rules of the tithing of the first fruits, and the famous blessings and the infamous curses.
Just before the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan and enter the Land of Israel, Moses read them a series of 12 commandments. The Israelites were commanded to write "this Torah" (Deut. 27:04) on stones covered in plaster. It is clear that it was to be this particular teaching (the Hebrew word Torah means instruction), and not the entire Chumash, which would have been impossible to fit onto two stones. The sages in Talmud Bavli Tractate Sotah 32A say that the entire Chumash was inscribed on these two stones. Rashi adds that it was done in the 70 known languages of the time as well. Rabbi Saadiah Gaon (Saadiah the Genius of the ninth-century C.E. Babylon) says the stones had only the 613 commandments and not the text of the Torah. Other scholars, quoting Josephus (first century C.E. Jewish-Roman historian), say it clearly means the stones had only these 12 commandments from this parasha.
Before I review these twelve commandments, let me review briefly the curses and the blessings. The blessings are given first and the curses follow. The curses are the opposite of the blessings. If there is a blessing to have rain and good crops, there is a curse to have drought and no food. There are 68 verses of blessings and curses. The curses do not paint a pretty picture. If you have watched any World War Two Holocaust movies, these curses come close to describing the horrors of that Shoah. The traditional view is that if you follow the commandments, you will be blessed, and if you do not, you will be cursed. Traditionally, God is the blesser or the curser.
Let us review these 12 commandments. These were mitzvoth (commandments) that were important enough to be written on stones. They were so important, that the entire nation was divided into two. Each half ascended one of two mountains. The Levites yelled these commandments with everyone screaming, "Amen!" (Deut. 27:11-14). Here are these twelve commandments paraphrased:
1. No idols.
2. No degrading your parents.
3. No moving of another's real estate boundary marker.
4. No leading a blind man astray.
5. No perverting justice of the widow, orphan or stranger.
6. No incest with your father's wife.
7. No sex with animals.
8. No incest with your sister.
9. No incest with your mother-in-law.
10. No striking another secretly.
11. No bribe taking.
12. No ignoring "this instruction."
Let's categorize them. Mitzvoth 6,7,8 and 9 are clearly laws against incest and bestiality. Mitzvoth 5 and 11 are telling us to have fair and honest court systems. Number 2 is similar to honoring one's parents but does not give the positive command of honoring, just the negative command of not degrading. Number One is not telling us to believe in God, or the God of the Jews, but just not to make or worship idols. Commandments 3 and 4 are mitzvoth not to steal, but also to have fair business practices. We have learned that a person coming into a shop or even a professional's office is "blind" and can be easily mislead. The idea of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is not a Jewish idea. Number 10 is both an admonition not to hit, but also not to murder. It is also a warning not to do loshan hara (evil speech) or gossip, as these acts can kill one's reputation. The 12th commandment is telling us to pay attention to these eleven commandments, so there are really only eleven commandments folded into six categories. Do these six categories sound familiar?
In the chapter on Noah, which we studied and will study again the Shabbat of October 9, 2010, we read about the seven Noahide laws. These are the seven laws that all peoples must follow to be considered righteous. They are: no idols, no blaspheming God, establishing courts of justice, no murder, no adultery or incest, no robbing, and no eating meat cut from a living animal. The Deuteronomy categories have the law about not degrading your parents added, but have the laws against blaspheming God and eating live animal flesh deleted. If we assume that we can combine the rules against blasphemy and idol worship, and if we further assume that the eating of live limbs from animals stopped after Noah's time, negating the need for such a law, we are really left with the Noahide laws. Von Rad in his text, Deuteronomium, calls these twelve laws the Shechem Dodecalogue and says they are the oldest list of prohibitions in the Torah.
The Levites are not shouting about kosher dietary rules from the mountaintops. They are not exhorting about the laws of sacrifice. They are not even yelling about Shabbat or other Jewish holidays. They are admonishing the nation of Israel to be righteous in their dealing with their fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. Any nation that treated each other in a way opposite these six categories' rules would fail within time. God would not be the agent of the curses. Man himself would be his own agent.
Traditionally the entire Torah portion is chanted on Shabbat and seven different people are called to the Torah to either chant the Hebrew, or make a blessing and allow the Rabbi to chant for them. The honor of being called up to the bimah (pulpit) is called an alliyah (from the Hebrew word meaning "to go up"). However it was considered a dishonor to be called for an alliyah to chant these curses from this Torah portion. Sometimes the sexton of the synagogue would be paid to do this duty. Instead of being called up to the Torah by his name, as is the custom, he would be called to the bimah as "he who wishes." When these curses are read, they are read quickly and in hushed tones.
In some congregations, the community's worst sinner would be called up to take this alliyah. One cannot refuse this calling to the Torah. The story is told of a gabbai (the one in charge of giving out bimah honors) who was a tailor in an eastern European town. He did not get along with a competing tailor whom he suspected of using cheaper materials, stealing his business, and working on the Sabbath. In those days, everyone in town, except the very ill, showed up for Shabbat services. So the gabbai-tailor called his competitor to the bimah to take the alliyah of the reading of the curses. This was a major insult to the second tailor whose entire family and clients were in the synagogue. A shouting match ensued which turned into a fistfight on the bimah. Our negative actions can bring about our own curses.
As we have learned in this D'var Torah, one of the six major categories of heinous crimes is "striking a man in secret." Our sages interpret this as doing lashon ha ra, as well as murder. Lashon ha ra is not only gossiping untruths about another, it is even uttering negative truths about another. But the rules of lashon ha ra as defined by Rabbi Israel Kagan of 20th-century Europe, known as the Chofeitz Chaim, are more detailed. It is a sin for person A to approach person B with a negative comment about person C. It is an equal sin for person B to allow person A to continue the conversation. Person B's obligation, under the man-to-man laws which modern Judaism has not abrogated, is to advise person A to talk to person C directly. If person B received a letter from person A about person C, he should return the letter with this advice and without further comment. Under no circumstance should person B go and tell person C that person A has complaints about him, and worse yet, person B should never say to person C that an unnamed person has complaints about him. This type of behavior tends to divide people and not bring them together.
As Jews, we have an obligation to compromise, communicate, and get along. We have to be polite, assertive and honest with one another. Saying that it is a Southern way to smile at someone and then talk behind their back is not a valid excuse. If we are to be the people of Shalom (peace) and be a light unto the other nations to help bring about world peace, how can we show that we can achieve Shalom Olam (world peace) when we cannot accomplish Shalom Bayat (peace in the house)? We cannot expect our individual congregants to grasp this concept if they were not taught it. However, even the most liberal of the Jewish movements' guidelines for officers of a Holy Congregation do teach these ethics. If our leaders, or even rabbis and their rebbetzins (wives, or now even husbantzins) engage in lashon ha ra, how can we expect our congregants not to follow suit?
The Mishna teaches, "whoever occupies himself with the study of Torah for its own sake merits many things. He is called a friend and a beloved. He loves God and he loves God's created beings. He brings joy to God and he brings joy to God's created beings. The Torah garbs him in humility...it keeps him far from sin and closer to meritorious deeds. The Torah (not man) bestows upon him royalty, authority, and judgment. He becomes a fountain that flows with ever-increasing strength. He becomes modest, patient, and forgiving of insult." We are told that in Torah, we were "given good teachings" (Proverbs 4:2). We are told in the same verse "not to forsake them." As we have learned in this series, there is so much more to Torah than laws of ritual minutia. It really can be a way of life. Yet those who study it in modern temple are sometimes considered odd and out of place.
Some congregants actually feel threatened by Torah or Talmud study in their temples or threaten by those who know more than they do. Those who do not study Torah regularly, including board members in some of our modern temples, are missing out on beautiful instructions that will help them lead and guide ethically and fairly.
To those who see Torah study as a threat to their way of prayer, or their interpretation of Judaism, I say that it is not. If anything, Torah study shows that all are beloved of God. Even the Talmud, which our traditional brothers and sisters think is the word of God, says that abbreviated prayer in your own language with spiritual concentrated attention is better than a complete Hebrew prayer service with no understanding. Modern Judaism is about choice. And just as we abhor those in other movements who call modern Jews "not real Jews," we would abhor anyone in our own Temple calling Jews who choose not to attend class or services "lesser Jews." We would abhor anyone calling Torah study attendees "too Jewish." Frankly, it becomes anti-Semitic, and I do not use this term lightly, for secular Jews, to snub liberal Jews in their midst who have found God via Jewish Spiritual Renewal.
Liberal Judaism is open and welcoming like Abraham's tent. There is no litmus test in spiritual Judaism. There is no halakah (Jewish law codes) to follow. We are all equal. And whether we say "Shabbat Shalom" or "Good Shabbos," whether we wear Kipot (skull caps) or not, or whether we like the Friday night services with Hebrew melodies or the Saturday morning service with classical hymns, we are all beloved by God. We need to be beloved by each other as well. This is our blessing.
Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
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