Don't think about it, write about it. And not on the keyboard, but with your own hand. And not to anybody else, only to you. That is the only way it works for me and others who I know, so why not give it a try?

Dov, can you please clarify?

Thank you,

BA

Don’t waste time
Agonizing over
Your place in life

Bloom where
You are planted

Let God take care
Of the rest

Blossom
Where you are

And God will
Bring you

To where you need to be.

i really like your 'own' stuff yechida
please keep them coming
(i like the articles too but what you write is really special)

Thank you Zemiros

So you have given up
On God?

Know, that He has not
Given up
On you

Stray as you may
Uprooted as you may feel
Lost as you
May seem

God loves unconditionally
Even when sins and mistakes
Cloud the air
It is still only
The external manifestation
Of that which needs correction

This does not mean
That He has abandoned you
Or that He doesn’t care
About every single aspect
Of your life

For the internal core
Is a constant
That did not change
And will never change

He is with you
At all times
And wants us
To connect with Him
So as to heal
And live again
With inner peace and joy

Time itself
Encourages you
To use it
Wisely

Time is given to you
To fulfill
Your mission in life

Our Creator
Has given us
Time
To be a friend in life
To help each other

And not to “hurt” Time
As the sayings goes
“Chaval Al Hazman”

Time is also a creation
As we are living
Within it
And together
We sing
Our unique “Shirah”
To our Creator

A great teacher
Inspires
His student
To discover
Within himself
A deep fountain
Of unique gifts
That he will
One day
Share with the world

A true teacher
Need not produce
Carbon copies of himself

It’s not needful
For his legacy
To promote himself
And what he has achieved
For his own name

For him
His souls yearns
To be an enhancer
Drawing out
The great potential
Of each and every
One of his students

He sees the extraordinary
Within the mundane

The spark of inspiration
Hidden in the depths
Of externally perceived dullness

He sees the gifts of
His students
More so,
They are the gifts
They do not see yet themselves

He points out
Directly or indirectly
So as to awaken his student
Of the greatness within

The student’s soul
Very different
From his teachers

A real teacher
Embraces the differences
Encourages its own journey
And gifts the student
To activate
All the tools
He will need in life

It’s not just his mind
This teacher is sharing
It’s his very soul
That he is opening up
To his student
Sharing his inner life
That will be passed along
Generation to generation
To the end of time.

Feedback on the concepts of these series of notes are greatly appreciated-either via PM or at taryaga@gmail.com)

Light Notes # 4-“True Inner Worth ”-(Adar 1-5771)-VaYakeil

Dear Friends,

The Aron had a very unusual makeup,

3 separate boxes, three distinct layers

Gold on the outside, Gold on the inside-from there we learn out that the inside of a person should reflect the outside. “Tocho KeBaro” , “Inside like the outside” , consistent, external purity  reflecting an inner one. Gold outside, Gold inside,

Yet,

there is wood in the middle.

What is that about?

One profound answer is as follows:

Gold on the outside reflects a great dignity and pride of being a Yid. There true beautiful external manifestation of a Ben and Bas Yisroel.

But one should not because haughty due to this gift

And so, right underneath is wood. Simple. Breakable. Humble. That is a place of growth that comes from true humility. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t talk down to anyone. Don’t let the Gold poison your thinking. The wood right underneath the gold surface is telling us not to lose our heads in our golden state. So remember the simple wood. Treat every human being as if they are better and more noble than you….

And yet, right underneath the wood, there is another inner layer of gold.

It is dangerous to feel too low, too “humble”

For that type of humbleness will hold back a person from striving to become the special person he can be.

So the deepest and most inner part of him is precious gold

That no matter what, the purity of his neshamah shines

You are intrinsically good. Undamaged. That is the deepest level.

Pure Gold

This lesson is very important when someone tries to bash you. Or when you are a victim of Onoas Devorim. Or when you do not see what is good in yourself.It is then when it is very difficult to find the pure Gold within yourself.

And what can help is to keep this Hassidic story in mind. I saw this in a book called “Sacred Therapy” and the next two paragraphs are a direct quote from the book 

Once , while on the road, Rabbi Isaac of Vorki and his teacher Rabbi david of Lelov stopped in an unfamiliar town. Suddenly a woman approached Reb David and began to beat him, having mistaken him for her estranged husband, who had abandoned her and her children several years earlier. While screaming and hitting Reb David, the woman suddenly realized that the man she was beating was not her husband but a famous Hasidic rebbe who happened to look a bit like her husband. Completely mortified, she immediately began to beg the rebbe’s forgiveness, apologizing profusely  for her terrible mistake. Instead of getting angry, Rabbi David responded with words of comfort, saying: ”It’s Ok, don’t worry; it wasn’t me you were hitting.” The woman was completely baffled, but she went away feeling as though a heavy burden was lifted from her soul.

When Rabbi David said “it wasn’t me you were hitting”, he was, in fact, teaching the woman a very deep lesson. When we are hurt by another person’s actions, our pain is often amplified by the fact that we tend to take personally what was done to us. We experience the pain as though it were intentionally directed at us and as though we must have deserved it. ”It wasn’t me you were hitting”, was the wise rabbi’s way of saying he was not identified with the “me” that had been the target of the woman’s outrageous, insulting behavior. As an evolved spiritual being, Rabbi David was not primarily identified with his ego, so he felt no need to defend his honor and his pride. When he said “it wasn’t Me you were hitting”, perhaps he was also teaching the woman that she need not take her husband’s abandonment of her so personally (It was his action ,not hers),If she would realize this, perhaps she would be released from her rage and be able to heal the damage that her husband’s actions had inflicted on her self-esteem.

What her husband did to her was cruel. We can’t blame her anger, Who can blame her for being hurt deeply. We cannot be judgemental of her bitterness.

But she can learn can learn that her inner core can never be broken. Even if she was not blameless , and there were reasons why her husband deserted her, some serious character flaws, she must still know that she has pure gold within her, independent of her own mistakes, no matter what life has brought to her.

The wood undercurrent can break, and that can hurt terribly. but the pure gold within,the deep essence of what is you cannot be hurt. That stays intact, that is pure, that inner gold, that will never be lost no matter what.

Thank-you Reb Yechida, that was beautiful. That story was very special to me and may Hashem help us put the idea of it into action in at least some small way.

so beautiful!
thanks Yechida

Thank you Dov & Zemiros


Record in your hearts
And in writing
The precious details
Of wise elders
That wise elders
That will soon
Depart from
This world

There are many vital lessons
Bringing light to your life
And in your heart
Even as many years pass by
And these unique souls
Have moved on
To a better place

The simple words
Of a stranger
Who then vanishes
From your life
Don’t forget it
Record it
For you never know
The special gifts
That sometimes
Come
From unexpected places

Angelic Pleasure (saw this beautiful story on line-Rev Elimelech's yartzeit is Friday)

The saintly Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk once recovered from a life-threatening illness. When his recovery was complete, his closest disciples mustered their courage to ask him what he had seen while hovering between life and death.

The Rebbe said that he would tell one thing he learned:

As I walked in the Garden of Eden, I saw among the most honored souls a familiar face. He looked very much like Mottel the Bookbinder. To be sure, Mottel was a G-d-fearing Jew, an honest, hard-working bookbinder, but he was otherwise an undistinguished ordinary Jew, not even much of a Torah scholar.

"Is it truly you, Reb Mottel?" I asked the soul as I approached him.

"Yes, it is I," called out Reb Mottel happily.

"But how did you get to this exalted place?" I asked Reb Mottel quite innocently.

"When I was brought before the Heavenly Court, I was asked the usual questions. I had to admit that, regrettably, I had studied very little Torah. I didn't have much of a head for it. Besides, we were very poor, so I had to find a way of earning money to help my parents support the family. I was apprenticed, at an early age, to a bookbinder, I explained to the Court...

"They began the weighing of my mitzvot (commandments) and sins. On the right side of the scale, angels began putting all my good deeds. Then they pushed the scale down to make it weightier, saying this was for the joy and sincerity with which I performed the mitzvot. "But then other angels came forward and began to load my sins and misdeeds on the left scale. I watched with horror as my sins were added up. Most of the sins were truly not serious, and they happened because of my ignorance. But, though they were small, they were adding up dangerously, till they tipped the scale.

"As I stood there before the Heavenly Court, trembling and ashamed, an angel suddenly appeared with a worn-out siddur (prayer book) in his hand. Behind him was a line of wagons loaded with sacks.

"'I am the angel in charge of stray pages from holy books. I go to every Jewish home, every shul and every Jewish school. I look to see the condition of the holy books. Whenever I see a worn out book, with crumpled pages and loose covers it gives me tremendous pleasure, for this is a sign that the books are in constant use. But when I see that some of these books are tattered beyond repair, I am troubled, for every holy book has a holy soul, and every page has a soul, which must be treated with care and respect.

"'In the course of my travels I met this man who is now here on trial. Ever since he was a child, Mottel loved his little siddur and would often caress and kiss it before closing it.

"'When it came time for Mottel to be apprenticed, he told his father that there was nothing he would like more than to be a bookbinder.

"'I have never seen a book-binder like Mottel,' continued the angel in my defense. 'He never got any pages mixed up, never missed a stitch, and always used the best materials. From time to time, he would go to the shuls in his town and collect holy books that cried out for attention. He took them home and worked late into the night to restore them, bind them and give them new life. He never charged for this and never even told anyone about it.

"'I respectfully request that the Heavenly Court permit me to unload all the sacks of worn-out holy books to which Mottel the Bookbinder has given a second life, and put them on the scale with all his other mitzvot and good deeds.

"The Heavenly Court agreed. Long before the wagons were half unloaded, the scale with the mitzvot clearly outweighed the other side.

"Believe me, dear Rebbe," Mottel concluded, "I was as astonished as you were at what happened before my eyes at seeing me in this place of honor."

"I wanted to ask Mottel a few more questions," explained Rebbe Elimelech, "but at just that moment I began to recover. Reb Mottel's story speaks for itself. But let us also remember," Reb Elimelech enjoined his disciples, "that G-d never fails to give credit and reward for any good deed, even for such a seemingly trivial act as smoothing out a crumpled corner of a well worn page in a holy book.

Even the
Smallest
Words and deeds
Can influence
Another human being
To
Transform a life

So never be
Discouraged
Nor discount
Any single little effort
On your part
To help another

For though you may not see
The tangible result
The affect can be profound
Life-changing
Without you
Ever being aware of it

Weekly Parasha Insights by Rabbi Eli Mansour



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Description: Parashat Vayakhel- "They Left From Moshe's Presence"





Parashat Vayakhel begins by telling of the assembly that Moshe Rabbenu held after the incident of the golden calf.  At this assembly, Moshe relayed God's command to observe Shabbat, and the command to build the Mishkan.  The Torah writes that when Moshe finished speaking, "Va'yetz'u Kol Adat Beneh Yisrael Mi'lifneh Moshe" ("The entire congregation of Beneh Yisrael left from Moshe's presence" - 35:20).



A number of Rabbis addressed the question of why the Torah found it necessary to emphasize that the people left "Mi'lifneh Moshe" - from Moshe's presence.  Quite obviously, they had been in front of Moshe hearing him speak.  The Torah could have simply informed us that they left to bring materials for the Mishkan.  Curiously, though, the Torah made a point of stressing the fact that they left from Moshe's presence.



Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian (England-Israel, 1876-1970) explained that even after the people took leave of Moshe, it was evident that they had been in Moshe's presence.  Often, the way a person walks is an indication of where he had just been.  A person who staggers as he walks through the street is very likely coming from a bar.  Somebody coming from a gym might walk with a certain vigor and gusto.  The Torah emphasizes that Beneh Yisrael left "Mi'lifneh Moshe" to express the fact that their conduct after leaving Moshe reflected that they had just been in Moshe's presence.  The experience of being near Moshe and listening to his teachings had an impact upon them.  The people did not just leave and resume their ordinary routine.  They left inspired and uplifted, profoundly impacted by the experience of being in Moshe's presence.



When we leave the synagogue or a Torah class, we cannot be the exact same people we had been beforehand.  The experience must impact the way we behave in all areas of life.  Our conduct when we are not in the synagogue or learning Torah must reflect the fact that we had spent time praying and studying.  It is our responsibility to ensure that when people see us leaving the synagogue, they admire our conduct, and realize that involvement in Judaism has a meaningful, positive effect upon a person's character.  When we take leave of the synagogue or Bet Midrash, it must be "Mi'lifneh Moshe," evident that we were influenced and uplifted by the experience.



Torah life is not only about our conduct in the synagogue - it is about our conduct everywhere, and in every aspect of our lives.  The way we act in any situation must be a reflection of the Torah we study and Misvot we perform.  It cannot be "business as usual" after we leave the synagogue. The experience must change us, inspire us, and impact upon who we are and what we do in every area of life