How do we approach Life?

If you want to build a ship,
don't drum up people to collect wood
and don't assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Yud Eikev- Yaakov Avinu

Yaacov Avinu is a simple Yid. He is a Jew that is connected to his heel.

The heel is anava, bitul. Anava is about realizing that there is good in another person and you dont have to be the best at everything. Only when you become eikv, Vehaya eiekev- then Tishmeun- only then will you be able to hear what people are saying.

Listen to your heel- the part of your body thats always hidden- your secret place that holds the mystery of how a yid feels about hashem, that noone else knows or understands. Listen to your heel. remember your secrets, how deep your connection to hashem is, even though all year its hidden, eikev tishmeun, it's time to listen. In a world where everone is in everyone else's business, shidduchim fall apart because people are nosy. facebook, sms, myspace, but theres no private space anymore, at the end of time all thats left is the heel. you dont feel the heel until theres something wrong. it's time to listen, to tap into to a place where no one but you and hashem have access to. This is why eretz yisrael is the reward in the parsha, b/c eretz yisrael is haaretz asher ar'recka, the place where you become revealed to yourself.

Its hard to look at our daily live and see that we really are serving hashem most of the day, b/c we dont feel it, so we think the relationship has evaporated.
V'haya Eikev- when your relationship with hashem becomes like a heel, desensitized with no feeling, Tishmeun- listen closely for the whispers that hashem is speaking to you into your life. davka when theres no sound.

Vhaya- is a lashon of simcha- sifrrei chassidus ask, what is the simcha here, of klal yisrael listening? The answer is a gevalt, Eikev is a reference to Ikvasa Demishicha, the last generation before moshiach in which we are living. Vhaya- the simcha is, Eikev- during the last generation before moshiach, when the darkness is so thick you can touch it, emes is hidden, and we are bombarded with filth and confusion every second,( what we struggle to not look at in one day, is more than people 70 years ago dealt with in a lifetime). In such a generation, Tishmeun- there will still be yidden who want to listen to hashem. Not Taasun- will do everything neccesarily, but tishmeun- will want to do everything.

Yaacov Avinu's strength allows us to remember what it is that we Truly want. Let's never forget it.

Inside Jokes

Yitzchak is Davening in the field. Rivka sees him and immidiately covers herself up. The Torah says Yitzchak was coming towards Rivkah. In the middle of Tefilas Mincha? Not "Frum"!!! If he's davening how can he be walking towards her?

What's really happening here?

Of all of the Avos, Yitzchak is the most enigmatic. He doesn't speak much, and represents a concept of quiet strength and holiness. Yitzchak is the Pillar of Truth that keeps us tied to Eretz Yisrael, as he was forbidden to leave. Yitzchak's relationship with Hashem isn't really detailed in the Torah as much as his Avraham Avinu or Yaacov Avinu's.

Yitzchak Avinu's essense is from "ותצחק שרה בקרבה". It is from this place of inner laughter. Like an inside joke between close frends. A hidden laughter that isn't for everyone. Like the way the Chosson and Kallah look at eachother at the Badekin, before she is covered over. The covering of the Kallah's face is a statement to the world that what these two share together, is unknowable by anyone else, and that only they can see the "covered" parts of eachother.

Yitzchak has a life of private jokes with Hashem. His blindness wasn't a physical blindness. It was a state of not seeing the revealed things in this world, only the hidden secrets.

This is how Yitzchak served Hashem. He could be in the deepest state of Dveykus and connection to Hashem, and it might appear to others as if he was taking a casual stroll in the fields. Everything was hidden. So was the Love between Yitzchak and Rivkah. They connected on the level of secrets. Their connection transcended anything external, therefore they married at an age when no children could be produced. This meant that they were connected to eachother's "secrets" not to the productive capability of the other.

Looking at her soulmate, Rivkah covers herself up as a matter of keeping the secrets between husband and wife. She is the only one connecting to Yitzchak's secrets and covers herself to conceal their deep connections. This is why Rivka was able to bring back the Holiness of Sarah Immeinu into the Tent of Yitzchak. Sarah Immeinu gave rise to the "Inside Laughter" which was Yitzchak's essense. Rivka Immeinu entered into that world of "secrets" together with Yitzchak and brought back the Neiros, Challah, and Cloud cover into the Tent.

This is how Yitzchak knows that it's really Yaacov under the garments of Eisav in Parshas Toldos. It says "הן ריח בני כריח השדה". (my son smells of the field). The Ozerover Rebbe teaches that Yitzchak's prayers in the field, when he first met Rivkah, The davening that was an expression of his inner secrets with Hashem, was actually a prayer for Yaacov Avinu. He Davened that he should have a child who also had secrets with Hashem. With Eisav, everything was "בפיו" (revealed). Yaacov was hidden in Shem V'Ever.

Therefore when Yaacov walks into his father, "wrapped" in Eisav's clothing, his essense hidden, Yitzchak smells the smell of the "prayer of the Field" "the prayer for secrets" from the fact that Yaacov has come in a way that concealed his true identity, by way of secrets.

My we all be blessed to recieve the brachos in secret, and share them with the people that really understand who we are.

May it be a shabbos of "inside laughter" and a restoration of the Lights in all of our tents.

Whispering Again

Cheshvan is an empty month so to speak. coming on the heels of Tishrei which is chock full of "spiritual activity" Cheshvan seems bare.

וירא אליו ה' there is no record of any dialogue, just a revalation. What is spoke here between Hashem and Avraham?

Everyone has 2 levels that they serve Hashem on. Public Service and Secret Service. Public service is what other people are able to see about your life, your relationship with hashem. Some people walk around with their eyes rolled to the back of their heads and want you to SEE how "spiritual" they are. People who are only public service people often need to tell someone their secrets. But how much do we really know about another person.

Secret Service is the level of looking clearly into someones life and realizing that there are so many hidden things that only they know.

Who can tell you what you share with Hashem?

Avraham Avinu's tent was open on all sides for people to see inside. But could anyone really know the depth of the love that Avraham and Sarah shared, the entirety of Avraham;s relationship with Hashem?

We often look into the open tent of others whether via facebook, twitter and think that the more "outside" stuff we know, the closer we become.

In truth these are only things that distract us from who the peson in front of us is.

יThis is why there is no dialogue in the beggining of the parsha. Hashem becomes revealed form within Avraham, from the place of the secrets that they share that no one else can understand. This is the meaning of looking for tzaddikim in Sdom. It means being convinced that there are people with secrets there and you just have to look harder.

to believe in Hashem means to have secrets with him that no one knows, and to be able to see that other people have secrets as well. -

סוד ה ליראיו

Mar Cheshvan is derived from the term מרחשת (Marcheshes) which means to whisper. What are we whispering?

Chassidus teaches that we are whispering all of the things that we were yelling on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Then, we were davening and doing public tshuva, at the top of our lungs. During Mar Chashvan, we still are expressing all of those things, but only loud enough so Hashem is the only one who can hear it.

no matter where you find yourself right now, where you were last night, this shabbos, try to hear yourself whispering to Hashem. Remember your secrets. Remember that you are still telling Hashem " I love you." but now it's just for you and him.

Back in the Saddle

With the help of heaven I hope to be getting more involved in this blog. I am going to post some older ideas that I shared over the past few months. The concepts are still applicable.
I hope to be adding things as time goes on.