RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: SHELACH: LOW SELF ESTEEM

 

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: SHELACH: LOW SELF ESTEEM

 

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH RENEWAL: SHELACH: heart + eyes are body's spies

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUALITY: JOY: SHELACH: CALEB: JOSHUA: GRASSHOPPER EYES

Parasha Shelach: Numbers 13:01-15:41

Rabbi Arthur Segal

Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
facebook.com/RabbiArthurSegalJewishSpiritualRenewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

"You've Got Marty Feldman Eyes"

My apologies to songstress Kim Carnes and her hit "Bette Davis Eyes." I hope you remember the funny actor of blessed memory, Marty Feldman. He played Igor in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein. Marty had those bulging buggy eyes, which I will weave into this D'var Torah later on.

Parasha Shelach gets it name from the Hebrew words with which it begins. "Send forth (shelach) men, if you please, and let them spy out the land of Canaan." Moses assembles 12 men, one from each tribe, to spy on what is to eventually become Eretz Israel. Ten of the men return with a discouraging report. The other two, however, are very positive. This parasha relates how the people listen to the ten with the bad news. God punishes the Children of Israel with 39 more years in the desert in which time this weak generation will die out.

There are some very subtle wordings in this portion that need to be parsed in order to understand the deeper meaning. A first hint is given in the word following shelach. This word is "lecha." It literally means "for yourself." God gave Moses permission to send spies if Moses needed reassurance. The word used for the spies is "regelem." Regel is a foot and the word regelem literally means "walkers." The Hebrew word, "yeturu," is used to mean "to spy." It is from the root word "tur," which means, "to explore." It is used 12 times in this parasha alone, yet only ten times in the rest of the entire Torah. The regelem's orders are to look (u'reitem) at the land. One of the spies is Hosea bin Nun. He is later given the name Joshua by Moses by adding the letter Yud.

Note the Hebrew "bin" for "son of" instead of the usual "ben." Nachmanides of 13th century Spain said this is foreshadowing Joshua's role by calling him Binun (wise one), which is from the root word Binah, which means understanding. Joshua was one of the two positive spies. The Midrash says that Joshua's new Yud came from the Yud that God took from Sarai's name when he renamed her Sarah. Moses knew that Hosea would need God's help, Rashi says, in dealing with his fellow spies, so Moses renamed him with a name meaning, "may God save you."

Here is the scenario. Moses and the people have left Egypt a year ago. They just celebrated Passover a year after the first one when they were saved from Pharaoh and the angel of death who killed all the first born in Egypt. They are only miles from the land of Canaan. They have God on their side. God has promised them the land. They have seen God do miracles on a daily basis. Yet Moses decided that he needed to send out human spies to double-check on God. Even though God had promised Israel and Moses "a land flowing with milk and honey," Moses asks his spies to see if the land is "fertile or lean? Are there trees in it or not?" (Num. 13:20).

So what happened when the spies returned? Ten of them reported to Moses the people (Num. 13:25) that the land flows with milk and honey. They even brought back fruit samples. Then the Torah uses another word, "ahfaht." This word means "but." It is a qualifier. They negate the positive words about the land with this but.

The spies related stories of giants, fortresses, and a strong unconquerable people occupying the land. They saw many dead people and said the land "devours its inhabitants." (Num. 13:32). They concluded their report with, "We were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes." (Num. 13:33). Please note that they said in our eyes.

Caleb and Joshua are the two of the twelve spies that give good reports. But the other ten have rallied the people into a frenzy. There is actually a national hysteria. The Torah reports that the "entire assembly" (Num. 14:01) wished they had died in Egypt and wanted to appoint a new leader and return there (Num. 14:02-04). So of course God gets upset. He threatens the entire people with extermination (Num. 14:12). Moses pleads with God. The people's punishment is plea-bargained down to spending 40 years in the wilderness. The slave mentality of the older generation will die there and a new free generation will be allowed into the land. They decide on 40 years because the spies were away for 40 days.

I would like to point out that the authors of the Torah blamed the previous parasha's insurrection on the "mixed multitude riff raff" that followed the Israelites. But here the Talmud takes the words of the Torah (entire assembly) and says it was just two men, Dason and Aviram, who wanted to dump Moses and return to Egypt (Talmud Bavli Tractate Nedarim 64B). We will read more about these two men in the next parasha.

As we can see, this mission was doomed to failure before it began. Moses would have been better off not sending spies at all. God told Moses he could send spies if he needed to do this for himself. Moses, of all people, should have trusted God with blind faith. The 19th century Rabbi Zvi Kalisher writes that Moses sent spies hoping they would come back with a report about the strength of the Canaanites, so that when Israel conquered them, they would realize another miracle of God. Rashi, in discussing Deut. 1:21-23, says that the people forced Moses to send spies. If he did not do so, they would have thought he has hiding something. It is like one asking to test drive a donkey before buying it and being told no. If one is told yes, please even take the donkey up a big hill and down a deep valley, one gets confidence in his purchase and may not even want to test the animal at this point.

When the spies walked the land, they saw many funeral processions. They assumed that this was a violent land. The Midrash says that God sent a small plague into Canaan to distract the inhabitants so that the spies could travel unnoticed. The spies, however, interpreted the events the way they wished to perceive them. The spies saw the people living in walled cities. Rashi said this is a sign of weakness of faith. If people dwell in open cities, they think of themselves as strong. Rashi says the spies misinterpreted this fact. The spies also brought back big grape clusters, giant pomegranates and huge figs. They did this not to show how wonderful the land was, but how freakish it was.

Rabbi Elya Bloch of the 20th century wrote that when one's intentions are bad, nothing can persuade him of the truth. Eight spies carried the giant grapes, one carried the pomegranates and one carried the figs. Caleb and Joshua, a Midrash teaches, did not carry back these fruits, as they knew they would be used to demonstrate negativity.

On another interesting note, the Talmudic rabbis say that the Torah says there are three ways to acquire land: payment, deed or chazakah. Chazakah means performing an action that demonstrates ownership, such as harvesting fruits. The rabbis state that when Moses asks the spies to bring back fruits (Num. 13:20) he was asking them to legally, according to Jewish law, establish ownership of the land. The question as to why the negative spies, who did not believe they could conquer the land, harvested fruits, and the two positive spies, who thought they could conquer the land, did not harvest fruits is left unasked and unanswered. The Talmud Bavli in Tractate Sotah 35A discusses whether the spies actually overheard giants call them grasshoppers. The rabbis say that the spies said the Canaanites said, "There are people-ants crawling around in the fields." The rabbis may be missing a good lesson of psychology here. It is not really important what the Canaanites thought. What we need to focus on is how the spies thought of themselves. They obviously were in a trap of spiritual self-devaluation. They not only lacked faith in God, they lacked self-esteem. They saw themselves as grasshoppers. They had Marty Feldman's bug eyes.

Rabbi Yaakov Kamensky of 20th century New York City wrote, "If you hold yourself to be a shmateh (rag), others will hold you to be a shmateh as well." If one thinks he will have no chance, he will have no chance. Should our modern psychiatrists call a self-esteem problem the grasshopper syndrome?

In her poem, Shelach, poetess Chana Andler wrote:

Twelve spies went out

To view the Promised Land.

Only two returned.

The rest were lost along the way,

Prey to doubt and indecision,

The certainty

That they were little men,

Too small to face the future

God might ask.

Their bones were left

Behind in the desert

To bleach away their fear.

A stern reminder

Of the consequences

Of little faith.

How often do we

Play out this drama,

Measuring what can be

By what has been before?

We see the front

That others wear,

The illusion of perfection,

And judge ourselves

Inadequate to the task,

Incapable of achieving

Such heights of glory.

They are giants

To our children's eyes,

Puffed with virtues

We cannot possess.

But what in truth

Was ever asked of us

That we could not survive

Were we only

To hold our ground

And let the Spirit

Carry us along?

It's folly to gauge our strength

Against the gods and monsters

We create to undermine our dreams.

To judge our soul's potential

By the small amount

We can perceive.

Twelve spies went out

To view the Promised Land,

But only two returned.

May we find our way out

And back again,

Untouched

By what we think

We see.

Rashi writes, "The heart and the eyes are the spies of the body, that is, they lead a person to transgress: the eyes see, the heart covets, and the body transgresses." Or, as King Solomon is credited with writing in Ecclesiastes 2:14, "The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness." Self-image is how we see ourselves. It is also how we think others see us. Self-esteem is our internal feeling and evaluation of ourselves based on our perceived self-image. Once we get some negative statements in our head that we may have learned in our childhood, we do not physically need to hear them again. The tapes become hardwired in our minds. Again and again those negative statements unconsciously repeat. It is like having a constant heckler in your mind. Psychologists say that one needs about 20 positive statements about ourselves to offset a negative personal statement.

The best way of offsetting negative self-talk is to remind yourself that you have the internal resources to handle whatever challenges life gives you. When one feels powerless and sees others as giants, one will develop low self-esteem. Instead of dealing with situations directly and assertively, one will use passive-aggressive behaviors. The spies did this. Instead of reporting directly to their boss, Moses, they went directly to the people with their bad report.

When one has good self-esteem combined with a faith in God, one acts assertively and with kindness. One is not passive, or aggressive, or acts passive-aggressively. One does not blame others for their problems but takes responsibility for them. There is no room for apathy or pessimism, and one's life has vision, focus, commitment and self-control. One trusts one's self and has a realistic trust of others. One has the confidence to choose friends who are safe and who will not injure or exploit. One learns to be self-nurturing and not looking for others to be parents. One is autonomous and has a strong sense of identity. And one relates closely and intimately with others and yet knows when to limit closeness.

Positive self-esteem allows one to own up to one's failures, fears and weaknesses. It is not a cocksure attitude that one cannot do wrong. Conversely, good self-esteem would enable one to be able to admit wrongdoing, apologize and do teshuvah. Self-esteem requires continual monitoring and feeding one's head with good statements. The rabbis tell of one of their elders describing his inner struggle. He said, "Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights with the good dog all the time." When he was asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, "The one I feed the most."

We are all regelem. We are all walking and journeying through life. All of us will have a journey that is not balanced or straight. King David writes in Psalm 73:02, "My feet nearly faltered, my steps were almost washed away!" The Rabbi Judah the Prince (ha Nasi), the redactor of the Mishna circa 200 C.E., in Pirkei Avot (2:01) reminds us that the right way to walk is one that is in a way that brings honor. If we try to keep to this path in whatever situation we find ourselves, no matter how hard that may seem at the time, our esteem for ourselves will always be high.

The Torah recognizes this. It actually developed a physical "string around the finger" to remind us to think positive thoughts. This idea was commanded to us after the sin of the spies. I am referring to the mitzvah of Tzitzit.

Tzitzit are fringes. It is from the root word that means to peer at something intently. In Numbers 15:39 we are told to wear them on our four-cornered garments so we "will not go astray (saturu) after your hearts and eyes." The 12 men were asked to spy (latur). The root words are the same. We are asked to see the tzitzit (u'reitem oso), and the spies were sent to see the land (u'reitem et ha Aretz).

There is an interesting twist to the mitzvah of wearing tzitzit. It is optional! Numbers 15:38 commands us to put tzitzit on the four corners of a four-cornered garment. There is no rule commanding us to wear a four-cornered garment. Traditional Jews have taken it upon themselves to wear a four-cornered garment so that they can fulfill the mitzvah of wearing tzitzit. Although wearing tzitzit is optional, there are 12 chapters in the Shulchan Aruch, the Set Table of Jewish law, on the rules of tzitzit.

The sending of the spies and the wearing of tzitzit were both optional to us. How we look at things and the conclusions we draw from our spying eyes has been always left up to us as individuals. We are capable of seeing very far, writes Rabbi Frand, but only if we open up our eyes and be honest enough to see things as they really are.

Rabbi Gunther Plaut translates the last half of the verse of Numbers 15:39 as "so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge." The Art Scroll TaNaK translates it as "not explore after your heart and after your eyes after which you stray." The Kings James Bible reads, "that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring." While I can usually find mistranslation in the King James Version, it has in this case the best rendering of this passage. The Hebrew word "zonem" is from the Hebrew word for harlot, zonah.

Prostitutes are paid, or so I am told, to tell men what they want to hear. We must not prostitute our eyes into lying to ourselves to inflate our egos and let us be in denial about situations. Nor should we allow them to deflate our egos so that our self-esteem is lowered. We do not want to live our lives unfulfilled and waste 40 years of it wandering through a desert of irrational fears.

An honest prostitute is the heroine of this Haftarah from Joshua 2:1-24. Joshua sends out two spies 39 years after he was one of the original 12 spies. The two seek refuge in the "bait eshah zonah ushema Rahchav" (the house of women of a harlot named Rahab). She hides and saves the two spies from the King of Jericho's soldiers. They promised her that when the Israelites invade Jericho she and her family would be spared. She hangs a red thread from her window to mark her home.

Unlike the ten spies 39 years before, Rahab had faith in God's plan for the Israelites. She had heard tales of the Israelites' God helping to defeat their enemies. She knew about the Jews at Mt. Sinai, as well as hearing about their escape from Egypt. She had the same data, actually second hand data, that the original 10 defeatist spies had, yet she concluded that the Israelites would conquer her land of Canaan and she sided with them.

Joshua kept his spies' word and after the battle of Jericho gave Rahab choice land as a reward. A Midrash relates that Rahab married Salmon and gave birth to Boaz. Boaz married Ruth. Rahab was to become the great-great-grandmother of King David. Our first great king had maternal lineage of both harlotry and idolatry. Ruth was a convert with a soul full of faith and loving kindness. Rahab was a "hooker with a heart of gold" and the faith to match. The Talmud says she was one of the four most beautiful women in the Bible.

Thirty-nine years after the original spies went out, Joshua was to lead the now-matured Israelites with a positive attitude into Canaan. His two spies said, "Truly the Lord has delivered into our hands all the land; and moreover all the inhabitants of the land do melt away before us." Thirty-nine years of desert therapy cured us of our Grasshopper Syndrome. We lost our Marty Feldman-like bug eyes.

Shabbat Shalom:

Rabbi Arthur Segal

Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
facebook.com/RabbiArthurSegalJewishSpiritualRenewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

If visiting SC's Low Country, contact us for a Shabbat meal, in our home by the sea, our beth yam.

Maker of Shalom (Oseh Shalom) help make us deserving of Shalom beyond all human comprehension!

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Rabbi Arthur Segal www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org
Jewish Renewal www.jewishrenewal.info
Jewish Spiritual Renewal http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com
Jewish Spirituality
Eco Judaism
facebook.com/RabbiArthurSegalJewishSpiritualRenewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: SHALOM IS BLESSINGS' PIPELINE TO US: DEREK ERETZ

 

 

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: SHALOM IS BLESSINGS' PIPELINE TO US: DEREK ERETZ

 

 Jewish  Spiritual  Renewal:

  

  Derek  Eretz Zuta + Rabbah:

  

 Shabbat  6/16/12 

 

 (aka  Derech  Eretz, Derekh Eretz )

  

 

  

Shalom  my dear Chaverim, Talmidim, v' Rabbanim, friends, students and fellow rabbis: 

  

An oneg, joy-filled, Shabbat this coming weekend to all. 

 

We continue with our exploration into the Talmudic Tractates of Derek Eretz Zuta and Rabbah. (aka Derech Eretz Zuta, aka Derech Eretz Rabbah.  As was mentioned, zuta is Aramaic for 'small', and rabbah is 'large').

  

Remember that Derek Eretz is not about Jewish ritual. It is  about how we are to treat one another and what traits of character, middot, we  are to try to develop. The lessons are universal and ecumenical. The  development of character traits and Jewish spiritual renewal  transformation is called  Mussar.

  

For  those new to the class Baruch ha Ba! Welcome!

 

You can access   last week's  class at 

Rabbi Arthur Segal: RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: DEREK ERETZ: MESSIAH'S NAME=PEACE

or

http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com/2012/05/rabbi-arthur-segal-jewish-spiritual_8193.html

 

From  here you will find links to preceding classes in this series. So, together we continue:

  

 TALMUD  BAVLI

  

 TRACTATE 

  

 DEREk ERETZ  ZUTA

  

 (aka  Derech  Eretz, Derekh Eretz)

  

Today we will continue with CHAPTER 10 of Talmud  Bavli Tractate Derek Eretz Zuta Verses  10: 13-16: 

 

CHAPTER X  

10:13: R. Jose the Galilean said: When the Messiah shall come to Israel, he will begin with peace, as it is written [Is. lii. 7]: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger of good tidings, that publishes  peace, that announces  tidings of happiness, that publishes salvation, that says unto Zion, Your God reigns ."

10:14: He also said: Great is peace, because even wars are waged for the sake of peace, as it is written [Deut. xx. 10]: "When you come  nigh unto a city to make war against it, then summon it with the word of peace."

10:15: R. Joshua said: In the future the Holy One, blessed be He, will uphold the righteous with peace, as it is written [Is. xxvi. 3]: "The confiding mind will You keep in perfect peace; because he trusts in You."

10:16: Again he said: Great is peace, because it accompanies the living as well as the dead--the living, as it is written [Ex. iv. 18]: "And Jethro said to Moses, Go to peace"; the dead, as it is written [Gen. xv. 15]: "But thou shalt come to thy fathers in peace."

Let us begin with: ''10:13: R. Jose the Galilean said: When the Messiah shall come to Israel, he will begin with peace, as it is written [Is. lii. 7]: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger of good tidings, that publishes peace, that announces tidings of happiness, that publishes salvation, that says unto Zion, Thy God reigns."

There is Jewish philosophy that the time before the Messiah's coming will be hell on earth. And there are some Talmudic references of how he will come.

He will not arrive on the Sabbath, since that would require people to violate the Sabbath in welcoming him [ Talmud Bavli Pesachim 13a]. The prophet, Elijah who ushers in the messianic age will arrive no later in the week than Thursday, leaving room for the Messiah to arrive by Friday. Elijah will announce the arrival of the Messiah from Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel [Talmud Yerushalmi Pesachim 3:6].

The sages believe the Messiah would arrive suddenly on the eve of Passover, the first redemption, which serves as a model of the final redemption [Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Pischa 14].

"In the footsteps of the Messiah, arrogance  will increase; prices will rise; grapes will be abundant but wine will be costly; the government will turn into heresy; and there will be no reproach. The meeting place of scholars will become a whore house; the Galilee will be destroyed; the highland will lie desolate; the border people will wander from city to city and none will show them compassion; the wisdom of authors will be putrid; sin‑fearing people will be detested; truth will be missing; young men will humiliate the elderly; the elderly will stand while the young sit; sons will revile their fathers; daughters will strike their mothers, brides will strike their mothers‑in‑law; and a man's enemies will take over his house. The face of the generation is like the face of a dog! Sons have no shame in front of their fathers; and on whom can one depend? Only upon our Father in heaven [Talmud Bavli Tractate Sotah 9:15]."

The sages write of God's war against Gog and Magog.  A rabbinic statement which was written during Emperor Hadrian's pogroms (132‑35 CE), offers the frightening assessment that the Messiah will arrive in a period when  Torah learning disappears, poverty increases,  religious despair deepens, Jews collaborate with their enemies

"The son of David will not arrive until informers are everywhere. Another view: Until there are few students left. Another view: Until the last coin is gone from the pocket. Another view: Until the peo­ple despair of redemption…as if there is no support or help for Israel [Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 97a].

For the Messiah to be effective, he must arrive bringing peace. If he did not, being human, he would not survive the world as described above.

The verse teaches us how low humankind can sink, without true peace and justice, and without humans praying daily for God to keep their yetzer ha ra, their inclination to do what is not right, at bay.

Let us continue with:''10:14: He also said: Great is peace, because even wars are waged for the sake of peace, as it is written [Deut. xx. 10]: "When you come nigh unto a city to make war against it, then summon it with the word of peace."

The Torah teaches us if we have to make war, we must, before attacking, offer a just peace plan. This is not a plan to subjugate another people. This peace plan must be fair and offer true peace between two peoples. We cannot cut down their fruit bearing trees, nor can we attack on all 4 sides. One side must be left open for them to escape and live.

So even in war making, the object is to eventually live with our enemies in peace.

In the middle ages Rabbi Judah ha Levi wrote a book about the Khazar King who wanted to pick a religion for his people. He summoned a rabbi, an imam, and a priest to teach him about their religions. To the rabbi he asked: "You have many wonderful laws of kindness and peace, even to the point of making war peacefully. But you are a landless people. When you get back your land, will you be able to abide by your own laws?" And the rabbi answered "You have found our Achilles' heal.''

Our rabbis were so against war and so pro peace, that they took the Torah commandment of ''blotting out the name of Amalek,'' and put a new twist on it. Hebraically the commandment means to kill all Amalekites  . When King Saul spared the Amalek king and some prized cattle, the Judge Samuel was ordered by the Hebraic God to finish the task. Saul lost his crown, leading the way to establishing the Davidic dynasty.

Our rabbis, knowing that Haman was an Agagite a son of Amalek, had Jews blot out the name of Haman the Amalek with noisemakers on Purim and no longer with swords. They taught that Jews should spend their time ridding themselves of the Amalek inside of us (yetzer ha ra), before trying to rid the world of those who live by their yetzer ha ra.

The Torah (Deut. 21:10) reads, "Kee saytzay la milchomo al oyvecho - when you go out to war against your enemies." Hebrew, depending on whether one is addressing one person or more than one has separate singular and plural forms of expressing "you." In this verse Moses is talking to the Hebrew people. Moses should use the plural "saytzu" (you go out) as if he were speaking to many, but the Torah uses the singular "saytzay" (you go out) as if Moses were talking to only one person. The sages explain that the Torah is saying that the basic war in life is the individual's war against his number one enemy, the yetzer ha ra within. 

 The yetzer ha ra strives to keep each person's Jewish Spirituality down by keeping his ego alive. The yetzer ha ra has the individual do his own will. This leads one to negative actions due to character defects. This leads one farther away from God, mitzvoth, from inner peace and peace with others.

Again, peace both inner and outer, is the major goal of Judaism.

 Let us know look at: ''10:15: R. Joshua said: In the future the Holy One, blessed be He, will uphold the righteous with peace, as it is written [Is. xxvi. 3]: "The confiding mind will You keep in perfect peace; because he trusts in You."

The Talmud Bavli Bava Batra 10b teaches that this world is an "upside down place'' where some righteous people can get little in wealth and a lot of grief, and where some dishonest people can get the big homes and seem to live a life of ease. The sages promise God will correct this injustice in the world to come. This is why our verse says "in the future.''

It also says "future" because when we confide in God as our loving parent through daily prayer, meditation and an inventory of our soul...our day's actions (chesbon ha nefesh), we grow spiritually. The more spiritual we are, the more we are apt to get along with others. And getting along with others is important to earning a livelihood and living in peace.

As we have studied, true inner peace comes from trusting, believing and having 100% faith in God. Pirkei Avot 3:6 teaches that when we pick up the yoke of God, all other human and societal yokes fall from our shoulders. That is peace.

 Let us conclude today with: ''10:16: Again he said: Great is peace, because it accompanies the living as well as the dead--the living, as it is written [Ex.  iv. 18]: "And Jethro said to Moses, Go to peace"; the dead, as it is written [Gen. xv. 15]: "But you shall come to your fathers in peace."

As we discussed in Chapter Ten, for people who are alive we wish them to go 'to' peace. We want them not to just go 'in' peace, but to grow spiritually 'to' peace. For those that are deceased, growth stops, and hence to go 'in' peace is suffice.

We hear so many people say at funerals, "He is finally in peace." So peace is something that we know is good and is desired. Judaism does not believe that peace can only come when we are dead. We strongly believe that if we put our petty wills and yetzer ha ra aside, we can have peace now. We can all be "back to the Garden,'' without dying, as the nine people who went to heaven without dying achieved. (Talmud Derek Eretz 6:1)

"Shalom is the only pipeline through which blessing comes down to earth from Heaven." (Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah). All of our defects and resentments will keep us from true Shalom. We learned in this text that one of God's name in the Talmud is "Shalom." We learned that all of God's and Torah's "ways are sweet and all of its paths are peace" (Proverbs 3:17). We learned we must rid ourselves of defects and resentments. We learned we must continue to do so daily. Allowing ourselves to stay attached to our defects, leaves us not in Shalom, but at war within and with the universe and others in it.

"Great is peace between husband and wife."(Talmud Bavli Tractate Chullin 141a). Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel in Talmud Tractate Avot De Rebi Noson 28:3, says: "A person who brings peace into his house is considered by God as if he brought peace on the entire Jewish people." We all know what living in a house with no shalom bayat (peace in the house) is like. None of us could leave that home and go to work and be as kind and gentle as we would like. So developing the character trait of Shalom is the ultimate in living happy, joyous and free with Jewish Spiritual Renewal.

This is why the study of the Tractates of Derek Eretz Zuta and Rabbah are so important to us.

We must never lose sight of the fact that God created all of us to be happy, joyous and free. He wants us to live in Shalom. We have the power to "get back to the Garden" every day of our lives, if only we choose to do so.

These middot, character traits, of living in shalom, and dealing with our yetzer ha ra, are discussed  throughout the majority of chapters in  ''The  Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern  Jew'' ' (http://www.jewishspiritualrenewal.net/ )  as well as in most chapters of ''A  Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud''  (http://www.jewishspiritualrenewal.net/

index.html#Compendium2 ) .

  

What are your ideas about these character traits?  How has learning Talmud's Derek Eretz helped you in your interpersonal relationships? How has understanding the spiritual and ethical teachings of Judaism helped you live a more joyous life? 

  

Next class, Baruch ha Shem, we will continue with  and conclude Derek Eretz Zuta, Chapter Ten as well as conclude this Tractate. For those who have never studied and completed an entire Tractate of Talmud, it is time for a siyum (completion) and a seudat mitzvah feast. At the end of every volume of the Talmud a special ''hadran'' (we will return) prayer is printed with a set order of prayers and a special kaddish , Kaddish D'itchadita, in honor of the completion of that volume, which Judaism considers to be an important achievement and a milestone worth celebrating. "We will return" is our hope that we will study this text again. As an aside, in modern Israeli Hebrew hadran means 'encore.'

 

Thank you for joining me.

 

For those who want a d'var Torah on Parasha Shelach  from '''A  Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and  Talmud'' please click on  Rabbi Arthur Segal: RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH RENEWAL: SHELACH: heart + eyes are body's spies  or http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com/2011/06/rabbi-arthur-segal-jewish-renewal_8509.html

  

 

 

Amazon.com: The Path and Wisdom for Living at Peace with Others, A Modern Commentary on Talmud Tractates Derek Eretz Zuta and R

or http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00757JMIM

Shabbat Shalom:

Rabbi Arthur Segal_

 www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org_ (http://www.jewishspiritualrenewal.org/ ) 

Jewish Renewal_ 

www.jewishrenewal.info(http://www.jewishrenewal.info/ ) 

Jewish Spiritual Renewal

Jewish Spirituality

Eco Judaism

Hilton Head Island, SC,  Bluffton, SC, Savannah,  GA

 

If visiting SC's Low Country, contact us for a Shabbat meal, in our home by the sea, our beth yam.

 

Maker  of Shalom (Oseh Shalom) help make us deserving of Shalom beyond all human comprehension!!