Got Torah?

Although we’ve been given the Torah, even now God still has it. He’s the only one who knows the Torah’s core depth, its roads to be walked and how to instill Torah-living into humankind.

How much of the Torah any of us receives is directly related to how much he is willing to sacrifice for it. No pain, no gain. Effort, strain, sacrifice, late nights and early mornings in study. Going the extra mile to attend a minyan and to attend to someone in need.

The more you give of your time, money and body, the more of the Torah you receive and the longer it stays with you. How much do you want the Torah? How much do you want it when it’s going to cost you something? Something precious?

Shavuot is a festival. Enjoying it to rejoice in it is a mitzvah, a way of coming close to God. Celebrate your choseness, that God thinks you’re capable enough, clever enough and responsible enough to dance through life holding His Torah.

agut yom tov!

Chag sameach!

Appetizer

Here’s a simple practice, that should be relatively easy to do. But as with anything worthwhile, it takes time time to establish its place in your life. So you have to take the time to do it, give it time to develop and not give up when you forget to do it. Just cone back to it and start it again.

Rebbe Nachman teaches that before you eat, put something into the pushka. Puskha is Yiddish for box, and colloquially it means specifically the charity box. The amount is not important; the giving is. My suggestion, because maybe you don’t have a pushka, is to make one. I mean, what could be a better recycling project than that? Maybe even make two or three pushkas, because maybe you want to spread the wealth.

And yes, you can do this practice by donating to a charity via Paypal or with a credit card, but there’s also an important element gained by putting physical coins and dollar bills into a pushka. The jingle-jangle of charity coins is a sacred sound (Likutey Moharan I, Lesson #22:5).

Which charity? That’s a tough call. You have to pray hard to be worthy to give to a worthy Jewish cause. In many ways, it’s a personal call. As a Breslover, I incline to Breslov-related charities/causes/institutions. I’m partial to orphans and widows, with the ordinary poor being next. As you pray, you have to search your heart and mind to get the solution.

And when the money adds up, which it will do after a while, remember to give it to whom you’ve been collecting for!

Closing the Door on an Era

I went to a funeral today (41st day of the Omer 5773 [6 May ’13]). The mother of good friends, really good friends. The deceased, Rose Stark, was a personal acquaintance of Dr. Mengele. She was a Holocaust survivor before it was popular to be one.

Rose lived with her daughter and son-in-law, MeeMee and Nachman here, in Jerusalem. (No, they are not Breslovers.) Allow me to digress. I feel sorry for my children’s generation, and for those just a little bit older. They rarely, if ever, met a European Jew, a pre-War-II Jew. Thank God, I grew up knowing a fair number of such Jews, many who had survived WWII, and some the camps. (My father, RIP, survived the war by being in the Russian Army and Siberia.) Those Jews, even the irreligious ones, were in many ways more Jewish than even chareidi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews of today. Their whole being and essence exuded Jewishness and screamed, “I am Jewish!” (And no, it wasn’t the garlic and herring for breakfast that did it.)

Anyway. Rose was special, as one would expect a Holocaust survivor to be. But she was special as one might not expect a Holocaust survivor to be. She wasn’t bitter. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t neurotic and she didn’t try to shield her children from life, from goyim, from Judaism or from God.

She was an authentic person, a Jew who believed in God even when she couldn’t find Him in Auschwitz (nor later, when she repatriated to Sweden.) She was a person with dignity who brought her love for Jews and Jewishness to the fore. She resolved any questions she had in private, and those of other people with gentle humor.

She did not give up after her first husband and first baby were murdered. She did not stop looking toward a better future, did not stop counting her blessings. The blessings kept coming and so did the better future. She turned out to be more of a warrior than any of the leaders of the Third Reich.

To me, what made her a success was her appreciation for what she had, her realization of how precious Jewish life is, simply by virtue of its existing.

A few months ago, Rose’s son-in-law Nachman mentioned to me a theory he has. The success, status and comfort of the Jewish people climbed steadily after World War II, but has declined lately. This, he says, is because the Holocaust survivors are dying. It has been in their merit they we have enjoyed what we have these last 65–70 years. I don’t know if he’s right, but it’s certainly something to think about.

Auf simchas. May we celebrate together joyous news. Amen.

When I Grow Up

I want to be Like Reb Yitzchok Dovid Grossman, the rabbi in the picture. He is one of the most authentic people I know. He is at home with any chassidic group, with any stream of Judaism, with any Jew, learned or not, observant or not. I don’t know him personally, but I’ve had the chance to observe him up close, once on a flight back from Uman-Rosh Hashanah, and once when he turned up at a shul in my neighborhood in Jerusalem a number of years back.

Patience, respect, a warm smile, dignity, no compromise on Torah values or observance, and a love for his fellow Jews—real people, with all their warts, not just in the abstract. The other day, my nephew e-mailed the photo below and I felt I had to let people know what a Jew can be. Rabbi Grossman is so humble he won’t mind having his picture on the Internet and he won’t mind if it’s not on the Internet.

Open Gates

The fifth week of Sefirat HaOmer, the Omer Count, started Tuesday night. This entire week, through next Tuesday afternoon (30 April) the Gates of Heaven are open. It is an et ratzon, a time of favor. Your every prayer is viewed more favorably, and is more likely to be accepted. This is not only an opportunity. It is a responsibility.

Prayer is a tool, praying is a skill. Praying is not an isolated activity, unattached and unaffected by what you think and do the rest of the day. All that “stuff” is going to affect how much and what sort of energy you will bring to praying, and what—and whom—you will pray for.

Reb Noson’s Prayers

A few introductory words to this post. Reb Noson was Rebbe Nachman’s primary disciple. He wrote prayers based on Rebbe Nachman’s teachings, and later compiled them into Likutey Tefilot (An Anthology of Prayers).

Hisbodedus (aka hitbodedut) is talking to God in your own words about whatever you want to talk about. Some call it a “conversation” with God. The emphasis with which Rebbe Nachman recommended this practice cannot be overstated.

I’ve heard a lot of praises about Reb Noson’s Likutey Tefilot. Yet, I’ve never actually used them. Whenever I have merited to do hisbodedus, I have had what I would call an ego block that doesn’t allow me to go use Reb Noson’s prayers. Are there some words of encouragement or ideas that you could give me to help give me that boost and convince me to give them more of a try? I guess I always imagined that if it’s not my words, then how can I use them in conversation with God?

Well, first thing to do is ask your ego to sit down on the bench and rest for awhile. Let’s remember that we are latecomers to avodat Hashem (serious, dedicated Jewish practice). Reb Noson, on the other hand, was thoroughly immersed in Torah and prayer since birth, and was a student not only of Rebbe Nachman’s teachings, but of Rebbe Nachman the person. When he “prays” a teaching, he’s also teaching us. He’s teaching us some of the more subtle points of the lesson. He’s teaching us how to pray.

In all areas of life, beginners learn from watching and imitating experts. Prayer is no different. “Watching” how Reb Noson prays teaches us how we can pray, how we can be better Jews and what it means to be a Breslover Chassid.

That’s one. Also, Reb Noson gave us the Likutey Tefilot. When we say Tehillim (Psalms), we don’t think, “Hey, these are someone else’s words. They’re not going to help me.” When we say Tehillim, they become our words, our prayers. Similarly, Reb Noson’s words and prayers become ours.

Hope this helped.

Saving Money

Q. I wanted to know what the frum [i.e., ultra-Orthodox] world and the Breslov world thinks about putting away money in savings/401K plans.

I remember reading in Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom (aka Sichot HaRan) #247, that the more money one has, the further his wealth is from him, with money in the bank being among the furthest away. I thought, money in an “untouchable” bank would be considered even more removed. What do followers of Rebbe Nachman take as an approach to long-term savings and the like?

Good question.

Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom #247 is part of Rabbeinu zal’s overall message to diminish one’s money-lust. That is, somewhere along the line, most folk start to develop an idea like, “The more money I have, the stronger/worthier/real I am. Therefore, the pursuit of wealth is a worthwhile endeavor and goal.” That’s a big mistake and a waste of life. (Rebbe Nachman does say a person should work for his livelihood, but in service of God [e.g., to give charity], not in service of self or other people.)

If you look at the entire passage there, you’ll see that Rebbe Nachman is contrasting acquiring wealth with acquiring Torah. The more material wealth one has, the less direct his connection with it. On the contrary, the more Torah wisdom (not mere knowledge) one acquires, the more it is an actual part of him.

401Ks etc. are a [a] a matter of trust (how much a person trusts in God) and [b] how does the world work in our day and age. For most of us, our level of trust is such that we work for a living. A retirement fund is, to a degree, “working for your old age,” a future paycheck. Since this is a normal way of doing things for people with a normal degree of trust, it’s alright. It’s also smart.

By the way: Trust in God includes, “God gave me seikhel (intelligence). That means He wants me to use it. Having money for my old age, when I can no longer work, seems to be a good idea.”

Hoped this helped.

In God We Trust

Rebbe Nachman’s maternal great-grandfather, the holy Reb Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, had a profound trust in God. His trust was so great that he before going to sleep at night, he would make sure that he had given away all the cash in his house.

One night, he couldn’t fall asleep. He sensed that there was still some money in his possession even though he had distributed everything that had been on his table.

He mentioned this to his wife. She answered, “I put some away so that I could buy food in the morning at the market.” He told her that they had to immediately give the money to charity, and trust that God would take care of them the next day, just as He always had in the past.

Rebbe Nachman commented that yes, the Baal Shem Tov’s level of trust in God was extraordinary. “But my level of trust in God is even greater, so I am able to keep money in the house.” (See Chayei Moharan/Tzaddik #499.)

148 West

NEVER EVER DESPAIR!

Category Archives: Practice