A Lesson in Warmth

This e-mail is dedicated to my special cousin Danell, on the occasion of his Bar Mitzvah. Mazal Tov!!

~~~
On this coming Shabbat, the Hebrew date of the 18th of Elul,
we commemorate the birth date of the holy Baal Shem Tov, in 1698.
The Baal Shem Tov emerged following a very difficult time in Jewish History in Eastern Europe, primarily with the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-1657, that killed between 100-500,000 Jews!
Still reeling from these massacres, Jews felt colder toward Judaism, G-d, and life itself.
The Baal Shem Tov arrived - emphasizing joy, pure faith, and trust in Hashem. He revitalized the importance of loving every fellow Jew like yourself, and how much G-d Loves us & how dear he beholds every Jew: "Like an only child born to an elderly couple in their old age, except much more so!" (not exactly the classic image of a powerful king in the sky with lightning bolts :)

There is one story of the Baal Shem Tov that I've always loved, and which I think best shows 2 things he focused on so much: Serving G-d with joy & vitality, and learning from everything 1 sees.

Once, the Baal Shem Tov and his many students were journeying through a forest. As they entered a clearing, they saw a vast, frozen lake. That wouldn't have been too bad, except for the cross that was carved into it. "Rabbi!" Exclaimed his students, "You've always taught us that everything we see and experience is a lesson in life and in the service of G-d. But what in the world could be the purpose of G-d Showing us this!?"

The Baal Shem Tov paused for a moment, and then turned to his students. "Why are you able to see such an image?"
"Because the water is frozen," they answered.
"But if the water were to be warmed up, this image would not be able to exist, correct...?"
The students understood the message.
When one's relationship with G-d is a cold one, lacking joy and excitement, it can lead to the worst of things for a Jew.

We must always remember how lucky we are, the children of the King, who loves us and cherishes His Relationship with us, every moment of our lives. Like a young child whose every movement and motion is cherished by his parents, we must always remember how beloved we are, and how every effort we make to connect to our Father is beloved to Him.
We may fall down from time to time, but like a child beginning to learn how to walk, surely the child's father smiles the entire way, as long as the child is trying his best to stand up.

Shabbat Shalom!

-Daniel
Nice, France
--
May you be written & sealed for a good & sweet year!
Remember: Your next deed will change the world.So make it a good 1!

A Convert's Tale

With only 2 weeks left in Israel, I knew I had to take advantage of the Shabbats I had left. So off I went to the mystical city of Tzfat in the north.
After a great Shabbat experience flew by, I found myself sitting on the late Sat. Night bus headed back home to Jerusalem.
With my I-pod earphones in, I was ready for a quiet, relaxing long trip... But G-d Had some other plans in Mind.
Jumping on board and plopping onto the seat next to me was a fascinating guy named Shalev.
A musician, Shalev, a father of 12, had lived in Israel for the last 26 yrs. - 17 of them in the city of Hebron.
He had been a victim of 4 terrorist attacks, 1 of them where his car was riddled with 15 bullets and he miraculously emerged unscathed (minus a few cuts).
"G-d Must Really Have a plan for you!" I smiled.
With a twinkle in his eye, he then proceeded to tell me his life story.

Growing up as a Christian in New York, Shalev always was attracted to Judaism.
He really enjoyed the synagogue he visited for his friend's bar mitzvah. He even started learning Hebrew.
One day, he was speaking to his priest at church. "Why don't you ever get married?" he asked. He didn't receive an answer.
Intrigued, but with no encouragement, he slowly dropped his Jewish learning. As life went on, he forgot all about His Jewish faze.
One day in college, he met a Rabbi, and started asking him question after question, renewing his interest in Judaism. But one Q: really hit him hard.
"Do you Rabbis ever get married?" he asked. "Sure, why not?" Answered the Rabbi. "Perhaps it's considered sinful?"

The Rabbi looked at him and said: 'Marriage' in Hebrew, is called Kiddushin - sanctification. Being engaged with the physical world, the Rabbi explained,
is the entire purpose of creation. By elevating the physical world in the proper way, by using it out for the good, its purpose for existing is realized.
On nearly every holy day in Judaism, we sanctify the day over a cup of wine. In Hebrew, this is also called Kiddush.
We reveal the spiritual within the physical,
and we sanctify the spiritual with the physical.
The 2 unite, fused into 1.



Awed at the contrast between the 2 perspectives, Shalev slowly progressed in his Jewish learning and observance until eventually converting...

Now this isn't an attempt to disrespect other religions. Much beauty is to be found in all religions (well, since most came from ours, they
must have some, right? :) What inspired me about Shalev's account, is the highlighting of the beauty of what Judaism teaches us.
The material isn't to be shunned, but to be elevated. Not only that, but through elevating it we can achieve a higher level of G-dly Light than is found even amongst the angels.
But we must engage the world in order to elevate it, not to be lowered by it.
It's true that everything in our world is mixed with good and bad, and either can be highlighted. Every day is a challenge to highlight the good, the holy, in everything we see and come in contact with. As hard as it is, that is our mission as Jews. The Ba'al Shem Tov even taught that a person's desire for the physical, is in essence his soul's desire to extricate the spiritual sparks found in that physical thing.

May this fusion of physical & spiritual lead us to the world's ultimate fusion with spirituality, with the coming of Moshaich. We are taught that during the Messianic era, nothing will really change; only that the spiritual, G-dly core of every physical thing will be revealed as the underlying reality of the world which it truly is.

Have a Shabbat Shalom and a fantastic Kiddush!

-Daniel
--
May you be written & sealed for a good & sweet year!

The King is in the Field

Hi everyone!
I hope you had a great week and have an even better weekend!
Yesterday, August the 11th, marked the 1st day of the last Hebrew month of the Jewish year - Elul.
Elul is the month that precedes Tishrei - with the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot.
The Jewish Mystics liken Rosh Hashanah to a time when the people come to crown the King in His palace.


But in the month of Elul, the King comes to the field to visit His People. In a spiritual sense, G-d Reveals Himself to our souls and Draws us closer.
He Gives us a special opportunity & ability to connect to Him in this month, to get in touch with our Judaism and Spirituality much more smoothly.
This experience of re-connecting is known as 'Teshuva.' Improperly translated as repentance, it really means to "return."
But to return to our soul and its mission means to change from our daily patterns, and who wants to change?

Many, myself included, suffer from what psychologists define as a "victim mentality."
Let's take a pauper for example: Sadly there are times when a person feels the need to resort to begging for his livelihood. At first ashamed, one who begs can oftentimes pass a certain point where it isn't hard anymore for him to beg. It even becomes hard to stop! To extract himself from his new mentality. My friend once saw a guy in Brooklyn who always begged in his neighborhood -
driving a nice volvo that same day!
Someone explained to him that the guy was now comfortable with it.

We may not be paupers (thank G-d), but we can still be suffering from a victim mentality in our personal lives.
We're stuck, we're in a rut. So many things we do, we do b/c it's become a part of our routine, our mentality. It's become who we are.
I can slip to such a point that I think this is me!
Teshuva means returning to your real self.
But we all know how hard it is to realize how far one has fallen, and even harder to extract oneself from this new mentality.
Comes the month of Elul - a special, opportune time to take the things you thought were you, but really aren't,
and get in touch with who you really are. Not the worldly mentality we have become accustomed to,
but rather the internal, Divine mentality our souls naturally possess.
The King is Ready - All we have to do is go out to greet Him.

Shabbat Shalom!

Daniel
--
May you be written & sealed for a good & sweet year!

Beyond Freud

Freud, Adler, Frankl.
3 Jews that revolutionized psychotherapy and the way we look at the human being and what drives him.
But what differentiated them?
Unfortunately, there isn't enough room here to do justice to each man's theories.
But let's take a quick glance, 1st into the outlook of Sigmund Freud:
Everything we do is out of a desire for pleasure, or alternatively out of a fear of pain.
Alfred Adler: By incorporating Nietzsche's Will to Power, Adler emphasized that every person desires to be heard; to succeed and reach the top. Power. Success.
Viktor Frankl: Founding "logo-therapy," Frankl, using evidence from his experiences in the concentration camps (see his bestselling book Man's Search for Meaning),
expounded his belief that it is the striving to find a meaning in one's life that is the primary, most powerful motivating and driving force in a human's life.
So here we have the will to pleasure, power, and meaning. What did Frankl see that Freud and Adler didn't?

To be happy, said Frankl, one MUST transcend his/herself, instead of focusing solely on one's self-centered needs.
(Adler emphasized "self-actualization" - to make sure everything is good for you 1st. For ex. give your child EVERYTHING: Good schooling, $, languages, music, leads to happiness).
But, argued Frankl, there will always be a flaw, someone that has more than me. No! A person's happiest time in life is when he forgot himself, even for just a moment,
and helped someone else, showed kindness to a spouse, contributed to a greater cause than just self. To leave one's constraints and go beyond self.
There's a book entitled "Generation Me" that shows through statistics that this generation is more self-centered than any before it.
But shouldn't emphasizing "me" lead to joy?
Maybe for the body; but not for the soul...


Which leads us to Jewish Mysticism.
We are taught that each of us possesses 2 souls: an animal soul, and a G-dly soul.
Freud and Adler peered deep into the human soul and found, essentially, dirt.
Desire, lust, power, selfishness, arrogance, ego.
And they were right.
They peered into the animal soul, and that's what they found.
But they failed to look a bit deeper. Beyond the animal soul and into the G-dly Aspect we all possess - the Divine Soul.
A soul which desires kindness, purpose, selflessness; a pursuit of truth and meaning.
Freud wasn't wrong; he just didn't peer deep enough.

What lies at the core of our being, as Frankl discovered in the hell of a concentration camp, is a desire for meaning. That's what keeps us going, that's what drives us.
Not the pursuit of, but rather the transcendence of - the mundane.
It was interesting to see Basketball star Amare Stoudemire, straight off one of the biggest deals in NBA history, searching for meaning here in Israel (see here if you think I'm lying).

Whether he's Jewish or not is still unclear, but regardless, here's a man who could, and has, attained most material fantasies & stardom any person could ever dream of, and yet is running off looking into the Torah & Mitzvot for meaning in his life.
This search for meaning is a trend seen by many of the world's "stars" and it signifies a human desire for something beyond the "self" - a truth and a deeper meaning to life.
The pursuit of pleasure alone cannot bring joy. It only encapsulates a minute part of our daily lives. And negativity is ALWAYS easier to remember. Rather, do for another, live a purpose filled life and happiness will come, for happiness is not attained, but is rather a by-product of purposeful living.

Shabbat Shalom!

-Daniel

P.S. To read a fascinating story regarding Frankl which I highly recommend, click here