The Weight

On a bitingly cold , snowy Midwest winter night, the two boys braved the storm and moved slowly and steadily towards their final destination.  After so many years on the road alone, the thought of the Boys Orphanage that awaited them, warmed the boys as they progressed.

Reaching their final destination, they were greeted by the kind-hearted director.  He asked, " Boys, how did you get here?"  The older one answered, " We walked."  The director asked the older boy, "How did he (the younger boy) walk the whole way?  The boy answered, "I carried him on my back"  The director wondered, "Isn't he heavy?"  The older boy explained, " Sir, He's not heavy.....He's my brother."

Sometimes we are the ones who have to do the carrying, and sometimes we need to be carried.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Leading us through the Wilderness

Man often has the inability to perceive the source of goodness in life.  As children, we aren't mature enough to appreciate what went on behind the scenes to bring us through life, relatively unscathed and functional.  Only when we are given the opportunity to raise families do we realize how many things occur behind the scenes that children are just unaware of. Nor should they be made aware lest they become burdened with an unhealthy sense of guilt at a young age.  My children don't go to sleep worrying that there will be no sandwich in their backpacks the following morning, they know it will be there.  Parents take care of children.

צדיקי אמת see every jewish person as a child.  They are doing things for us behind the scenes that we aren't even ready to grasp.  Certain צדיקים, such as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, were always packing lunch for their children.  While the history books record the events of history, the story of mankind is being driven by a mechanism much greater and deeper than we can ever understand.
 נשא את ראש בני ישראל . 




Israeli Diplomat's Teary Moment from COLlive.com on Vimeo.

כי קרן אור פניו

ויאמינו בה ובמשה עבדו 

Box of Rain

אם בחקתי תלכו

 We are all seeking the experience that can be best put as "Being in the right moment, in the right place, at the right time."  There is a magical element to time that is manifested when certain cosmic forces collide.
This is the concept of ע"שן .  Olam- space, Shanah- Time, and Nefesh- Lifeforce.  Everything that we do, has a parallel on these three levels.  Shabbos in time is Eretz Yisrael in space which is Torah study in action, as it says that a talmid chacham is the aspect of Shabbos.  So when we connect to the actions of shabbos we are bringing place person and time together.  This is the meaning of ונתתי גשמיכם בעתם , and I will send the rains at their time.  Hashem says that the reward will be that you will end up where you need to be, with what you need, when you need it.  What do we need to do in order to manifest this blessing?

אם בחקתי תלכו. If your life is turning into an existence of חקיקה, where everything is set in stone, and time seems to just be passing you by with all of the things that might have been, God is telling us, "תלכו".  Just start walking again.

אם בחקתי תלכו means to be עמל in torah.  עמל is the word מל and ע .  Eradicate the ע that negative force of the 70 nations that tells you that you have no place in this world.  The voice of the70 nations that makes you give up on your dreams of truly being able to draw out into action, how we really feel about Hashem.  This is what it means to be Amel B'torah. Shabbos=Eretz Yisral=Torah.  Shabbos, Eretz Yisrael, and Torah is the cosmic collision of perfected place, time, and lifeforce.

Becoming a הולך means to embrace יש לי כל whose acronym is ילך .  The klipah of the 70 nations takes us away from realizing what we really have, and leaves us with the emptiness of never being satisfied, and ultimately entering into despair and a state of חקיקה. 

May we all be blessed to walk directly out of any darkness that surrounds us, and recieve the blessing of understanding, and internalizing, that we are always in the right place, at the right time

Twenty Years from now you will be more dissapointed by the things that you didn't do, than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

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ובכן צדיקים יראו וישמחו

Cold Rain and Snow

אשר קרך בדרך

 

 

The entire goal of Amalek is to turn this world into a gehenom of שלג , a  a cold purgatory where we just move through life without feeling anything or enjoying anything deeply.  Sometimes, the freeze is so deep, we can't even tell it's happening. 

The terrible thing about hell
is that when you're there you can't even tell
as you move through this life you love so
you could be there and not even know

But you say so what I'm doing just fine
the irony is that it's all in your mind
and that's why hell is so vicious and cruel
but you'll just go on an oblivious fool 

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May we be blessed to experience the warmth of Hashem's benevolence and melt away all of the Ice that has snuffed out our fire

Into the Mystic

 

 

אלה שרקדו נחשבו למשוגעים בעיני אלה שלא לשמוע את המוזיקה

The dancers looked insane in the eyes of those who couldn't hear the music.

 

These words were Graffiti'd on the back of a seat of the number 21 bus in Jerusalem.  Sometimes you get a reminder why you live in Israel.

 

Vayikra is about hearing the voice calling out to you from the small aleph.  The one divine spark within each Jew that calls out to each person.  There are many whose entire pursuit in life is to try to hear the voice calling out.  

To try to hear the sweet music of the soul.  Those who have never heard the sound of the neshama, the music of the mystical, can't understand why certain people are dancing while others are not.

When I would talk to people about Phish shows and jam music, occassionally I would encounter the "haters"who just didn't get what all of the fuss was about.  They stood on the side lines and mocked the dancing that they saw.  It was always clear to me, that they just didn't hear the music.  

If you don't hear the music, the dancing looks like insanity.

All year, I am in pain because I just can't hear the music.  So I tell myself, " Well the music isn't really that good anyway."  Being deep, real and honest, is hard.  We all struggle to become those things.  But we shouldn't fall into the trap of convincing ourselves that those things aren't real.

May we be blessed this Purim, to allow ourselves to be free,משוחרר , to open up and dance to the music our our own small א.  The blessing on the megilla, is to hear the one voice of the megilla being read.  To listen to the megilla, the revelation of our individual אסתר of that which is concealed within us.