chl wrote on 06 Sep 2009 15:23:

Dearest chaver,
What specifically are you referring to? Why don't you share an example?

bs"d

super busy now, but adressed issue in other posts. will try to post more later b"n.

bs"d

Noorah BAmram wrote on 06 Sep 2009 15:14:


This is what i agree with. I used to partially be a halacha-distorter myself. It took many years for me to find the right "mentor(s)". I am still paying the price now for making my own chumras... but at some point i was really bitter and resentful. It didn't help that i was partially surrounded by people who also did that... also i "turned" rebbeim into super-humans and was disappointed when they failed to live up to that... all of that i wrote once about in two or three posts (i think on Trying's thread).

I wish i had more time to write about all of this...

TrYing,Noora,chl

Thank you for your comments.

I learn alot from the ideas or suggestions you make 

Chazal say that a Rebbe should be to the eyes of his talmid as a Malach-an angel.

I still need to do research on how this is meant and how to apply it.

because no matter how holy a Rebbe is you cannot take away a basic humanness,that yes he is holy,but still a human being with certain traits that all human beings share.

True Gedolim admit to their basic humanity

And to view a Godol,and certainly one who is not a Godol Hador,but an outstanding Yid with beautiful middos and a talmid chochom,to view them as superhuman or as a "superman" can be very very counterproductive.you must love them and respect them and give them the benefit of the doubt-but it is wrong to remove from them the fact that they are human and have a certain limited capacity because of this.

To realize that even the greatest tzaddik is still a basar v'dom-a human being-is not loshon horah at all 

It actually can help.because on those rare occasions that these high Yidin slip,your expectation of them will not come crashing down on you-oh look,he was a fraud all along.

Not true.He is a special Yid,a great one,but a human one,who made a mistake and is going to fix it.

My next post will address certain points about our universal humanness 

Dear friends,

In this book “Broken Open” by Elizabeth Lesser there is a lot of wisdom.

There are negative aspects that cannot be learned from this author but nevertheless this is an extraordinary book

She brings a concept called “Open Secrets” taken from a poet called Rumi who lived in Istanbul in the thirteenth century.

It’s also basic human nature.

The simple idea for us to know that though it is true that there are situations where you must keep your problems and struggles to yourself, there are also time where problems ought be to shared with one another. This will help both parties involved. You will then realize that a lot of the issues you have are universal problems shared by a very large amount of people, even many friends of yours, even some of your teachers .If the purpose of sharing this is to help one another, then this is not an issue of negative speech or speaking bad about yourself or your friend. Sharing these problems and being open about it is actually one of the greatest chassodim, a great great kindness. you are saving another Yid from a lot of inner turmoil.

You swallow your pride. you really do not want to talk about these problems you have .it’s not even his or her business. But you see the suffering of this Yid and you know in heart you could help by sharing your experience and giving advice. or even if you don’t have advice, the opening up and sharing the pain and struggle will help this Yid feel better. so you force yourself to open up to this painful aspect of your life. Why? because you can help another Yid.

I will quote

“you meet an old acquaintance and she asks “how are you” you say “fine!” she asks “how are the kids? ”you say “oh, they are great ”the job?” just fine. I’ve been there five years now”

Then you ask that person, ”How are you? ”,She says “Fine” you ask ”your new house?”, ”I love it” “the new town?” “we are all settling in”

It’s a perfectly innocent exchange of innocent banter; each one of us has a similar kind every day. But it is not an accurate presentation of our actual lives. We don’t want to say that one of our kids are failing in school, or that our work often feels very meaningless, or that the move to the new town may have been a colossal mistake.

It’s almost as if we are embarrassed by our most human traits.

We tell ourselves that we don’t have time to go into the gory details with everyone we meet ;we don’t know each other well enough ;we don’t want to appear sad or confused or weak or self absorbed  Better to keep under wraps our neurotic and nutty sides(not to mention our dark urges and more shameful desires)Why wallow publicly in the underbelly of our day-to-day stuff?...

…When we hide the secret underbelly from each other,then both people go away wondering, How come she has it all together? How come her marriage/job/town/family works so well?

WHATS WRONG WITH ME!!”

We feel vaguely diminished from this ordinary interaction, and from hundreds of similar interactions we have from month to month and year to year. When we don’t share the secret ache in our heart-the normal bewilderment of being human-it turns into something else.

Our pain and fear and longing in the absence of company, becomes alienation and envy and competition.

The irony of hiding the dark side of our humanness is that our secret is not a secret at all.

How can it be that we are all safeguarding the same story?

It’s almost a joke-a laughable admission that each of us has a shadow self, a bumbling bad-tempered twin BIG SURPRISE!! Just like you, I can be a jerk sometimes. I do unkind cowardly things, harbor unmerciful thoughts, and mope around when I should be doing something constructive. Just like you, I wonder if life has meaning, I worry and fret over things I can’t control; I often feel overcome with a longing I can’t even name. For all my strengths and gifts, I also am a vulnerable and insecure person, in need of connection and reassurance.

This is the secret I try to keep from you , and you from me, and in doing so we do each other a great disservice.

Over here I must make one point. There are times where you must keep to yourself the wrongdoings in your past. there is a possuk in tehilim that stresses this. Praised is the person who covers up their sins.

But sometimes it is not the sins that you are covering up

It is the mere fact that you have typical human problems like the next guy

And even when you are talking about sins, you hide it when there is no constructive purpose for it’s announcement to the  world

But when you know in your heart that  you can help another Yid with a problem --that is a different matter entirely.

She ends off the chapter saying this.

If you are interested in opening the door to the heavens, start with the door to your own secret self. See what happens when you offer to another a glimpse of who you really are. Start slowly. Without getting dramatic, share the simple dignity of yourself in each moment…Face your embarrassment at being human ,and you will uncover a deep well of passion and compassion….

When your heart is undefended, you make it safe for whomever you meet to put down his burden of hiding, and then you can both walk through the open door.

My friend, this is one of the reasons we are here

There is a Yid burden in hiding with his or her shame and suffering, thinking that they are the worst human being on this earth .

We have to show them that this is not so, and we must lead this Yid out that open door into the huge one single room-that one huge single succah in which all of us Yidin belong.

We all belong under the same roof, protected by Hashem’s warmth and light, and by the warmth of the chesed and ahavah  that we should have towards each other..

No Yid should be outside in the dark.

bs"d

Amen.

That is a very beautiful piece. Thanks for sharing it!

Yechida does it again! Beautiful!

Thank you both chl & Battleworn

your zchus allows me to find these things

over 98.5% of what is here are contributions of what I have heard over the years.

May Hashem always help me find the right things to say

By the same book and author mentioned above, we have a similar concept, in a chapter called “Bozos on the Bus”

Now it’s true that we have free will and must try to do our best.

But certain things are beyond our control. There are many things we have to accept and let Hashem take care for us.

So this clown- activist called Wavy Gravy tells us this great piece  of wisdom, deep words disguised in a clown’s style of speech.

We’re all bozos on the bus,
So we might as well sit back
And enjoy the ride

Must make a little time to read up  on this guy.

Yechida has this tendency to have interest in unusual, unconventional people. Most of the time this was a great blessing.(Sometimes I got myself into a pickle).

Anyway, when someone asked Wavy Gravy why he became a clown he said the following profound idea

“You don’t hear a bunch of bullies get together and say’ Hey,lets go kill a few clowns’”

These days I’m not so sure.

Anyway this is what the author Elizabeth Lesser writes.

None of us are models of perfect behavior: We have all betrayed and been betrayed; we’ve been known to be egotistical ,unreliable, lethargic, and stingy….In other words ,we’re all bozos on the bus

This in my opinion is cause for celebration.I f we’re all bozos, then for G-d’s sake, we can put down the burden of pretense and get on with being bozos….

Every single person on this bus called Earth hurts ;it’s when we have shame about our failings that hurt turns into suffering.

In our shame, we feel outcast, as if there is another bus somewhere, rolling along a smooth road. Its passengers are all thin, healthy, happy, well dressed, and well liked people who belong to harmonious families, hold jobs that don’t bore or aggravate them, and never do mean things or goofy things like forget where they parked their car, lose their wallet or say something totally inappropriate.

We long to be on that bus with other normal people

But we are on the bus that says BOZO on the front, and we worry that we may be the only passenger on board. This is an illusion that so many of us labor under-that we’re all alone in our weirdness and uncertainty; that we may be the most lost person on the highway.
Of course we don’t always feel like this.  Sometimes  a wave of self forgiveness washes over us, and suddenly we are connected to our fellow humans; suddenly we belong.

Now just to interrupt and say  again that we can’t always be like this. we must strive and work to become better. But no matter what you will reach a point in life that you know. ”This is in Hashem’s hands completely.”—that’s when you sit back and relax

To conclude the chapter:

When we see clearly that every single human being, regardless of fame or fortune or aga or brains or beauty, shares the same ordinary foibles ,a strange thing happens. we begin to cheer up, to loosen up ( ie Bardichev brings out the Woodford thing-what is that?)and we become buoyant as those people we imagined on the other bus.

As we rumble along the potholed road, lost as ever, through the valleys and over the hills, we find ourselves among friends. We sit back and enjoy the ride.

We Yidin know that we are not “lost as ever” on this bozo bus. It’s leading us in the right path, to where we belong.

We sit back and let Hashem do all the driving

Dear friends,

2 powerful points from the Sfas Emes Nitzovim (Tav,Reish,Mem)

1-Every Yid has a portion in the Torah

.(and though not written here, it is brought down in seforim that the zivvug, the true wife of a man contributes to his Torah especially his Oral Torah – this is a mystical concept)

As it says (in Shemone Esrai of Shabbos and Yom Tov) “please give us our portion of your Torah)

“THIS PORTION OF TORAH THAT IS RELATED TO HIM SPECIFICALLY, NO OTHER PERSON CAN OPEN EXCEPT FOR HIM”

(V’oso Nekuda Hashaichus Eilav Ain Yochoil Acher Liftoach Elah Hu )

And we can add to this,  that since every Yid is connected to his portion of his Torah, then it is clear that every Yid is irreplaceable. NO ONE ELSE CAN DO WHAT YOU SPECIFICALLY CAN DO. Hashem tells us we are not like spare tires, big deal, throw out one and get another. Hashem does not look at us this way.

He needs us all

2-he brings a vort from the Baal Shem Tov. On “Min Hameitzar Karasi Yah”
  The calling has to be from within the meitzar,the straits,the narrow painful path  itself  ,and not to run away from the mietzar

“Ki Tzarich Lehyos Hakriah Mitoch Hameitzar V”Lo Livroach Min Hameitzar”

Perhaps that is why we blow the Shofar from it’s narrow side.

Our Cry and our Calling to Hashem starts from there.

And if we do this we will yet see the expansiveness of the other end of the Shofar where our cries come out and brings healing to us and to the world.

“Anani Bamerchav Yah”

May we all merit to see the day that we are no longer in a state of “meitzar”

bs"d

Amen! Beautiful, thank you for sharing!

A letter to my single  brothers and sisters, whom I am blessed to carry with me wherever I am.


My single dear brothers and sisters (may you all have true simcha with your true zivvug when Hashem sends you this greatest gift)

I am married now but I was single once.

And I will never forget it.

I want to tell you why I am writing this .

It’s because of a big mistake that I made.

I am generally a compassionate person but it wasn’t enough.

I fell short.

I used to observe people that injured their legs ,on crutches and always wished them a Refuah Shlaimah but in my mind I thought no big deal, it will heal in a few weeks or a few months. Boruch Hashem it will heal, it is not an incurable disease, so my compassion was of a limited sort. Save my real Rachmonus for something much more serious. like a broken head, not a broken  leg.

I thought that I was a good person. but maybe not so good. Because a  Yid should not wait for a severe blow to his fellow Yid to cause him to feel the distress of his brother and sister. The Alter from Kelm discusses this. I learnt it. I tried to internalize it But not enough.

Not enough at all

So last winter I go down 3 back steps in the ice, I  slip on the last step and break my ankle, a very severe break, the doctor said that it was the worst possible break you could have with the ankle, only held by skin, not connected at all- Pins, screws and a metal plate. a needle to the spine for the surgery (did not want to be put asleep. it was Friday and I wanted to be alert for Shabbos)  and I developed what they called a severe spinal migraine headache that lasted a whole week. couldn’t move. the pain in my head was so intense that I almost forgot the pain in the foot. lights had to be shut. had to daven by heart. was unable to think. couldn’t stand even with a walker for more than 20 seconds without getting dizzy, Therapy, Therapy, Therapy, relying on family members for basic tasks, using the showerhead of the kitchen sink to take a shower, driven to work every day, a monumental task getting from point A to point B, crawling up stairs, crawling down stairs, constant pain, the day after I get discharged from therapy I fall again this time the knee, but Boruch Hashem that healed in 4 weeks.

I was on the receiving end of a lot of chesed from a lot of Yidin those hard months and I will never forget it.

And Boruch Hashem I have a “serviceable” ankle that if you are crazy like me you will take your family on  a winding steep and high hiking trail with a weak ankle. When most of my family climbed down a steep hill, I crawled 

Why am I telling you this?

To tell you that I will never look at a Yid on crutches the same way ever again.

Yes, it will heal ,but now he is in pain, and the least I could do is daven for him and wish him well.

This is one of the lessons I learned.

One of the reasons Hashem broke my ankle.

I didn’t think this then but now I say that it was one of the best things that happened to me.  for many reasons.  one of them being the added sensitivity to a Yid in  pain.

Any type of pain.

I still screw up sometimes.

But I’m much better than before.

So as a married person with a special wife (still can’t figure out what she saw in me) and special children (still can’t figure out why they like me),I cannot and will not forget what it was like to be single, for myself and for my friends and for all the people around me, its challenges, and its special gifts, and the years of the teenager and of the early twenties, filled with many high points and terrible low points, what a lot of us know as the abyss the black hole, the rollercoaster that goes on and on and on and never stops, the intense emotions, the confusing feelings, the complex relationship with parents and close relatives and teachers  and co workers and employers and the Rebbeim and even close friends that may be more moody than you are,  the yearning to embrace another human being but the terrible fear of doing so. the thinking of that kind loving wife that would listen as you tell her what is in your heart, the wife or husband you won’t see for many years or think you will never have. The intense need to speak of what is bothering you, what is worrying you and it is stuck in your heart and it hurts so much and the words cannot come out so they are in exile, locked up in the depth of your heart and causing a damage that will take a very long time to repair.

I will not get into the debate of what is harder in regards to  this powerful urge that is within us, that at times seems too complex and very difficult for us. The fact that single people do not have such an outlet is a great challenge. This cannot be denied. But you must know that married people are telling you the truth when they say that if you don’t work at maintaining your kedusha as much as possible this outlet will not solve your problems. When I was single I also thought that you get married, you have what Chazal say “Pas Besaloh” and you live happily ever after. Problems of this nature completely solved. This is FALSE. You must constantly fight to be an Ehrlicha Yid, day in and day out.

But having no outlet in this regard is tough very tough for many people. especially for those with high and sensitive neshomos. those that feel lonely even amongst tons of friends, those that need to talk and can’t, those that need a hug and can’t receive one, even from the same gender, those that desperately need to talk to a slightly older mentor figure but couldn’t find one. or didn’t understand that they needed one

A pat on the back from a counseler in camp can go a long way

A smile and hug from a beloved teacher or rebbi or friend can sustain you for years and years until Hashem sends your zivvug to help you along. 

.and to say that this is no big deal for a single person, put your nose in the blatt gemorah, and forget about it, is actually very cruel because many who learn and learn and daven and daven still struggle and struggle. These young boys need a helping hand and a warm smile and a listening ear more then than they need the blatt gemorah. the learning will come after this young boy knows that everything will turn out Ok because his Rebbi told him so. Life is difficult now for you now, let me help you. You say that you have this anger in you that you can barely control, tell me about it. You are girl doing chessed and keeping busy all day, you are a bochur who loves learning ,loves davening, loves Hashem, loves Shabbos, loves singing zmiros, loves harmony and unity among friends but also wants what is very human to want and is ashamed of that want, which is wrong now but will be right later. very very confusing for an Ehrliche girl or boy. where does this desire come from? A bad place or a good place? Why feel so intensely all these powerful conflicting emotions? How do I deal with it?

This is why camp is so special and why so many teenagers loved it, and even those who didn’t later realize that a lot of the experience was a great gift to them.

Single people, to stay healthy, must have an healthy outlet, a positive healing way to release the sometimes severe tension in them.

many times this outlet is a neutral thing but very often it can be a great positive force

I still remember this outlet called colorwar, as young staff members, how as tense as it could get, the working together with a hard deadline brought out the greatest talent from within, to compose songs, to create harmony, to play music in a band, to make woodwork ,to draw a painting or scenery for a play, to create a beautiful speech ,to write a comedy play and a halacha play,and a serious moving one called a grand play, to act in them, to practice all this, to play sports with fierce competition, to sing beautiful songs created by talented young people who did not even know they had this in them, and the working together as a team and the strong bonds that are sometimes created because of all this hard work and from giving it all you got.

Visitors from the outside who come in to camp during colorwar could not comprehend this intensity of what was going on .But I saw this as a great thing because it allowed for young people to connect and work together and accomplish things that surprised the older staff. I’ve heard the head counselor tell many of them ”I had no idea that you had this in you” 

In my case, though I loved to learn, I needed other types of things to keep me going. reading good books of many different subjects, playing a musical instrument, singing,  listening to music, understanding the background music  and harmony, creating stories and songs in my head (no poems to my dismay),and when I learned Torah it was always the unusual and unconventional aspects of Torah that interested me the most ,to always look at what was beneath the surface, the great light within.

Young people, especially boys and girls of Klal Yisroel have so much wonderful gems buried within them-and they don’t even know it.

I saw it once.

Probably the most profound and most moving 45 minutes of my life.

It was Erev Tisha Baav in camp.I do not remember the exact year. It was around when I was 15 or 16 or so. I was a young staff member, and we had just finished the Seudah Hamafsekes. one or two boys in this corner ,one or  two boys in that corner, to avoid bentching with a zimun.

You couldn’t eat anymore, and Maariv and Eicha would not start for about an hour

I do not think this was announced but I cannot say this for sure.

I do not remember an announcement.

Most of the bunks were in this huge oval like shape that has a huge field of grass in the middle of it. Slowely about 50 boys sit on the ground ,then 60,then 70,soon it’s about 100.no set formation. not by bunk. older one next to younger one. ten year old sitting next to an 18 year old. the sun has set but there is still light and as the minutes passed by it gets darker.100 boys, younger, older, staff members,  all start singing together these slow hearffelt niggunim, some of which were sung by the cantata(this is a mix of a long story interrupted by songs in the middle-story told and songs sung the  most beautiful way) the night before. ”Al Aila Ani Bocheeya,Eynee,Eynee Yordu Mayim” “Shema Koleinu….Vkabeil berachamim uverotzon es tefiloseinu” “vl’Yerusholayim Ircha Berachamin Toshuv” (devaikus), Reb Shlomo’s “Haneshomo Luch,V’haguf Pa’aloch” and “Eylecha Hahem Ekrah” and “Mimkomcha” and Lev Tahor (devaikus).

I will never ever forget this. No one spoke for 45 minutes. Only sang these songs. softly and beautifully. some were crying, many were swaying back and forth with their eyes closed. some were looking at the sky as it darkened.

Those were extreme rare moments where you see pure neshomah.

We all have this in us.

But it rarely comes out.

Hashem wants it desparately to come out

He yearns for this.

He needs your talent, your inner simcha ,your powerful love, your words of heartfelt prayer to Him, your tears of a broken heart that He will mend and heal, your special qualities that will make this world a better place, he needs you to love the wife He will give you, he needs you to cherish that husband that He will send to care for you. Keep it in you until they come. And when they come you will know what to do to allow that neshomah to shine. You will use what Hashem put in you to let this neshomah shine and to be what they are supposed to. And you will use all the gifts you have the physical gift, the emotional gift, the spiritual gift-because they are all one

Until then, keep these gifts safe. And find a healthy outlet for the expression of these gifts until the time comes that you can use them directly.

and you all will.


My point is to tell you that without these outlets to take the place of the overwhelming one that we all know about, I would have been in much worse shape. It was hard enough as it was. I’m scared to think what would have been without my music and songs and ideas and books and shiurim and  writing and natural curiosity of the nature of all that is around us and in us.

So how could I not care about what my single brothers and sisters are going through??

I cannot stop thinking about you, and the tough time you are going through just to be a good Yid, just to be a decent human being that is loyal to Hashem.

You are in this war, the War of all Wars, and you being here is a sign of great courage.

Because you all know that many of your friends should be here on this site and they are not, because they do not have the courage to face themselves

You have courage. you see yourself as you are and you are deeply committed to fight this fight for Hashem.

It’s much harder now than it ever was. and many of you will not be understood by your parents and teachers. in most cases this is not their fault, but that does not take away the pain and loneliness that comes along with just being who you are. you have to develop that inner strength of yours, you have it in you and it has to come out, you have to realize that Hashem made you the way you are and you have to accept yourself for who you are, both the faults and the good points.

It is your absolute obligation to see the good points in you. if you are a person who does not look away from your flaws and your ugliness, then you must also not look away from the beauty that it within you, and if you say I do not see anything good in me then you know Mr Yetzer Horah (YH) has begun his blitzkrieg on your neshomah , he will destroy you with this terrible lie, this largest cover up that will lead you into the life of turmoil and he will wreak havoc and devastation on you till you become a mere shell of yourself And then he will tell you that he was right all along. you are a nothing, an absolute disgrace, and since you believe this ,you can do whatever ugly thing there is and escape into it, and into oblivion-because in that place, as sick as it is, there is no pain. atleast not this moment. But it will hit you like a ton of bricks in a few moments, and you will find yourself in a terrifying nightmare that never ends .

You force yourself to see the good in you-this is not arrogance. This is truth. Hashem wants you to bring this out and He tells you that you can do it. He loves you, and He loves what is in you, He knows the darkness and ugliness and He understands what you are dealing with. He wants you to try hard and fight this darkness and redirect it.

Take the concept of 9-11 and do the exact opposite.

These animals took the fuel, the energy, the planes ,our power, our energy ,our planes—and killed us with it.

So you take those terrible urges and impulses and you use those very things to murder the Yetzer Horah.

That deadly knife that he wants to kill you with.

You grab that knife out of his hands and you stab him through the heart and kill him.

That deadly knife that you thought would kill you actually saved you.

You thank Hashrem every day for that deadly knife that gave you life.

You want kill me with those ugly urges I have.

I will use these very urges to kill you.

I will use it to become close to Hashem.

I will use these urges to love Hashem even more, and love His precious Yidin even more.

Rav Tzadok HaKohen living in the late 1800’s somehow understood what a single unmarried young boy and girl has to deal with to be a faithful and good Yid in 2009.

He writes that those strong desires, when transformed, is your greatest blessing

The greatest tefillos, that reach the Throne of Glory, came from that sexual drive that was and is within you, that you did not give in to, that you brought up to Hashem instead. And a Yid many miles away was supposed to contract cancer ,or get killed in a car crash leaving a widow and 7 orphans and didn’t contract this cancer, did not die in this crash because of what you did.

You have saved a life.

You saved an entire family from endless grief and terrible devastation

And you are not allowed to destroy this drive within you. It was given to you as a gift .Now,as a single person, you must use it in a very indirect way, this is very difficult, but it is very very beloved by Hashem because you are giving up the most powerful thing in you and you are telling Him “I love you more than anything, I am giving it to You”

Do you have any idea how much Hashem loves you because of this?

In this last, twisted, sick world where everything is open and accessible to you and you hold back, I will take these powerful emotions and this intense energy and give it to You. I will pray to You, sing to You , help my brother, help my sister with this very energy that could have killed you.

You are not allowed to destroy this drive within you.

Hashem put it in you

Now, use it indirectly, as discussed above and in seforim. and in the right time you will use it directly.

Nurture this gift that is in you.

Daven to Hashem always.

He will show you how He wants you to use this great gift.

And He will show you how great you truly are.

He knew this all along.

It just took a little longer for you to figure it out.

It was a pleasure to talk to you

Thank you for listening.

With the greatest love and respect,

Yechida

thank you, yechida. i'm really overwhelmed by such an outpouring of care. I've been focusing so much on this addiction that it's taking over everything- like everything else is a side point. but doing that makes it so much worse. it makes me feel like a sinner, like a damaged vessel. thank you for the reminder that i am good and that i have talents that Hashem gave me to use and be happy with. Have a great shabbos. this post meant so much to me!

:'( can't talk  :'(

Dear friends,

As I mentioned once  before (when I wrote about Reb Shmuel Birnbaum ztl and the concept of Tafkid)  , I belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

I’m just a simple Yid that looks for truth wherever it is.

And though I am not a Lubavitcher Chossid, (I only saw the Rebbe twice or three times but I have 3 personal stories in regards to the Rebbe that absolutely amazing and had a profound effect on me),I studied Chabad Chassidus in some depth.(as well as listened to many shiurim by Reb Yoel Kahn ,the 2 Jacobsohn brothers,etc etc)

Anyhow, there is an English written book of shiurim given by a woman called Nechoma Greisman zl who passed away at the age of 39.

A beautiful book.

At the end she explains small parts of the Hayom Yom which was the calendar of the Previous Rebbe (Rav Yosef Yitzchak) and this was the entry for 24 Cheshvon

“In material matters, one should look at someone whose situation is lower than one’s own, and thank Hashem for His kindness. In spiritual matters,, one should look at someone who is above his own level, and plead with Hashem to give him the proper understanding in order to learn from that person ,and the power and strength to rise higher.

(before I quote her, remember that when you look at someone higher than your level, that should not make you feel like a ant. or a skunk. or a humpback whale. That is not the point. but that’s a separate discussion for another day)

She explains this in a wonderful way. this is word by word what is written there

The things we absorb in childhood unfortunately continue with us, unless we make  efforts to change them. One thing that is universal among children, is that they compare themselves to other children, and are always jealous of what others have that they don’t. Your’e always looking at what somebody else has that you want. First it’s a doll, then it’s a dress, then it’s a husband,  then it’s a baby carriage, then it’s a vacation.

The only difference between men and woman is the type of toy.

Our world is divided into two realms-physical and spiritual .Hayom Yom  tells us that in each of these worlds we have to look in different directions. As far as gashmius, the material world, is concerned, we have to look down. Not ”Who has more dresses than us,or who has a nicer dress” but “Who has LESS than us? ”We can train ourselves to look at things this way. Instead of what I don’t have ,look at all the people who don’t even have what I have. Boruch Hashem that I got to where I am-and that simple change of direction makes all the difference in ones life and peace of mind.

In spiritual things,the natural tendency of a person is to look down at other people and think of himself as superior. hat’s the nature of people. We’re built to be arrogant. So Chassidus comes along and says ”You may be right; you may be kind, but there are many people better than you And instead of going around in life patting yourself on the back, take a look UP, at all the people that achieved MORE than you(again, yechida adds, do this to the extent that it breaks your arrogance, don’t break yourself in this process  ,just learn from it some humility and vital lessons of a good quality within another person).There are people who have worked on themselves harder than you. and who has achieved more than you in spiritual matters.

The idea of Ahavas Yisroel is to see how another Jew is superior to you, not the opposite

When you see a person , Hashem showed you that person because there is something you can learn from them.

Who in this world can’t be a role model?

It could be this person isn’t smarter than me ,but look at how much tolerance she has for other people, or patience for others?

Everybody has some superior quality, and if you spend your life THAT way ,looking for the way which another person is superior to you, you will progress spiritually.