the churban is not on the outside-it is within us

and the rebuilding of the eternal bais hamikdosh is a building that is to take place within our our hearts

so yes,we cry because our hearts are flawed and broken

but we hope because we know of the joy we have to look foward to

the rejoicing that takes place as we build within ourselves and everlasting abode for Him to reside in...

that is the inner secret joy that we know is there--even now

the yerusholayim that we yearn for is right here-inside us

that is where everything starts and that is where it will come to a full circle

we start building

and Hashem starts building-alongside us,encouraging us to continue-because it is right here,inside us,where He wishes to dwell

radio transcript from www.meaningfullife.com

I always felt that there is a very strong link between "feeling down" and "acting out"-and in many cases when one is able to pull out of a dark depression and experience joy it is somewhat easier to deal with the addictive nature of our personalities

Toward a Meaningful Life with Simon Jacobson
Radio Show Transcript - August 8, 1999

Mike Feder: Hello everybody. This is Mike Feder and I’m here with Rabbi Simon Jacobson. Tonight we are going to talk about depression and mental illness.

First of all, let me mention before we plunge into the program, that last week we got some really great calls, and we want you to call in for tonight’s show. The number to call at WEVD is 212-244-1050.

Tonight’s topic is something I’ve wanted to talk about for a long time and it’s a topic that’s been all over the newspapers in the last week or two. There have been articles about it in the New York Times. Here’s one right in front of me from a week ago. It says, in effect, that according to statistics, over 19,000,000 Americans (that’s a lot of people) over the age of 18 are affected by depression, and for many it is considered to be a medical condition.

I read another article the other day that the number of suicides is up, especially among young people. It’s like a plague. So the question is, where do you think this comes from and what’s it all about? What is the cause and what is the meaning of such a huge problem like this?

Simon Jacobson: Well first of all, as an overall perspective, dealing with a topic of this nature is quite difficult because I don’t believe in discussing this academically or cerebrally, but when you put yourself in the shoes of people and their families who suffer, it is quite demoralizing and the negative experiences are quite powerful. In many ways, mental illness, depression, however you want to categorize it, is much worse than almost any other illness. It is not necessary more life threatening, which it can be, but because it so erodes a person’s confidence…

Feder: You suffer from despair…

Jacobson: It erodes the confidence of an individual, and exhibits a lack of control in the ability to function, the inability to follow what your mind tells you because your emotions simply take over. By extension, it also demoralizes families, because there’s nothing more demoralizing than lack of control.

And when it comes to the mind, which is a very complex organism, anything that affects it, whether it be a chemical imbalance, or depression, or whatever form you want to call mental illness, has directly impact on human dignity. Once human dignity is affected, you are confronted with a secondary problem, even more powerful than the original one, because there’s the shame, the resignation, the inability to make a move, the paralysis.

So I want to begin with a disclaimer that there needs to be sensitivity in addressing something of this nature, particularly when we’re talking to people who have either been affected by it or are families, relatives and friends of people who have been affected by it.

It’s also important to distinguish between clinical depression, where it becomes a medical condition to the extent that intervention is necessary outside of the human being, whether it’s pharmaceutical intervention, meaning you need drugs, or other types of intervention…

Feder: Shock treatment, hospitals…

Jacobson: To that extent, right. And even therapy to the point where you have a combination of all of the above, as opposed to a depression where people go "through the blues" or even severe forms of it, but it is more or less within the individual’s control.

But there is a thin line between the two, because one definitely leads into the next, and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between them because it could be a combination of many things. It could be things that are out of your control, but it could be things that are in your control.

I think a very wise and sensitive approach is that you never undermine the human dignity, and you do allow a person to use everything in their resources to achieve some type of strength and confidence, supplementing that with whatever may be necessary to get out of that particular situation or create a balance, an alignment, so the person can move forward.

In a show like this it’s important to distinguish between the two because they’re not in the same category.

Now, your questions are very legitimate ones. I was thinking when you were asking them, what was going on 100 or 200 years ago? Did they not have statistics? Did they not have a sophisticated understanding of mental illness so instead people were just written off as crazy or…

Feder: Locked away and not treated…

Jacobson: Exactly. People unable to function were just put in one big pot where everyone was non-functional, whereas today there’s more of an understanding that there are different levels of that, there are bouts, there are ups and down, and so on.

So it’s very hard to make a comparison to previous generations because we don’t have statistics, things weren’t measured the same way then.

Feder: I’ll tell you, I think you’re right about not being able to make a comparison between 100 years ago and now, but you know, these statistics from 20 or 30 years ago, there’s an exponentially tremendous leap in the number of people who are depressed or even visibly depressed. Something is happening.

Jacobson: Oh yes, of course. I made that statement not in any way to diminish or to minimize the fact that there are statistics, high rates of suicide, etc. Obviously, without being oversimplistic, the thing you can point at, whenever you find an erosion of self-confidence, whenever you find a higher rate of suicide, especially by young people who at birth did not show any visible mental handicaps, and the statistics that you cited earlier, it’s very glaring how it’s so much connected to the general view of ourselves in society today.

And this is a theme we’ve been touching on consistently, which is, how significant and meaningful is your life? So even if it’s, you mention 19,000,000 people, and even if it’s just a small percentage of teenagers that actually will commit suicide, G-d forbid, or think about it, that doesn’t mean that those who don’t think about it do have that self-confidence. It just means that for some it hasn’t reached that extreme. Some people can be in denial of their own insignificance.

But we live in a society where there’s a very deep undermining (not intentional by any person or individual), it’s just a vicious cycle, of real self-worth. For example, take a look at the media. Billions and trillions of dollars go into mass media, where essentially the message that we project to people is that value lies in superficial externals. Whether it be television, radio, the internet, newspapers, they are all essentially trying to sell people a product. Advertising has become highly sophisticated in its psychological approach. A friend I know tells me he was once a therapist and decided to change careers and go into advertising. I asked him, "How is it going?" And he said he was doing the same thing except he’s being paid ten times as much. He said here he’s manipulating minds and emotions, and there he was trying to understand the mind and heart in order to help bring some healing.

Feder: You call that the same thing? I’m glad I never saw him as a shrink!

Jacobson: The same thing meaning he’s using his expertise in understanding the workings of the mind... And people do respond to subliminal messages, etc. But essentially it comes down to this: youth is worshipped, money is worshipped, status, looks, beauty, and from this what message do you get about your value? The message is that your value is based on how much you achieve or what rung of the ladder you’ve climbed in status or how much buying power you have, how young you look.

Feder: What shape you’re in.

Jacobson: You even see the obsession with cosmetic surgery and how much that has grown in leaps and bounds, how much has been invested. Now, per se, that may not be a problem, but when it’s imbalanced, and it’s only that, and there isn’t any cultivation of human spirit or that your value doesn’t go far beyond the externals, the transient, then it’s inevitable—in a culture that worships youth, when a person grows a little older and there’s a point where you cannot hide that age any longer—how could they not go into some type of depression?

Now, the fact that one needs to age to recognize this reality just means that it took a little while for that awareness to emerge. But even while the person has everything that it takes, and they have the looks and money and all of that, nevertheless the bottom line is that in their subconscious, the message is that your value is based on those externals. When the internal compass or internal voice that is most important to nurture and nourish—the spirit and soul—is completely ignored, there has to be a deep hunger and thirst that has to express itself in a form of undermining of one’s own confidence and self-esteem and dignity

Feder: But your personal worth is virtually non-existent.

Jacobson: Now, I want to qualify that statement as well. By no means am I trying to say that the cause of depression and the cause of clinical depression is a result of our culture or of the media or of this undermining.

What I am saying is that this type of environment doesn’t help. And I would say that in some cases it is the beginning of the roots of the problem. Sometimes the roots go back to the home. Remember, this isn’t just an issue of the media, it’s also what our parents tell us, because our parents are also influenced by the media, and they’re also influenced by the mass culture and mass mentality. So essentially a child is told that if you don’t do this, you’re not special. The type of message that a mother and father should be telling a child, that you are unconditionally indispensable and valuable no matter what you do—I don’t mean no matter what in a bad way—I mean even if your looks are not perfect, even if your money is not perfect, even if your status isn’t up there, all those are externals, and you are valuable because you have a spirit, because G-d put you here, because you have something to contribute. But that message is not given to us as children, so the fact that a child grows up intact, I would say, is just despite the odds.

Because the truth is, everything is stacked up against that child, so then it’s like any type of combustion. There are many causes that lead to a fire, but when you create a situation where there’s a lot of pressure from many different angles, then any spark can be the catalyst, and there comes a point where you can’t really distinguish what really led this person into a state of such depression and even mental illness.

Now I am distinguishing between someone who’s born with, or has developed, a chemical imbalance that really just happens (there are reasons for everything I’m sure) but you can’t really point your finger at a non-nurturing home, it could be a person who has a spiritual center and still has gone to such a state. That’s why I want to make sure that it’s not a black and white generalization. I’m just making a comment that I have no doubt that if people had that self-esteem and that celebration of spirit, there’s no doubt that it would help in many situations, and I would say even in a clinical one, it cannot hurt to have that type of message.

You know, when you hear the stories about an autistic child, where it’s clearly a medical condition and not a psychological one (it’s psychological to a certain extent, but I mean to say that it’s not a result of human error)—it’s a genetic issue, and you hear the story of how mothers dedicated their lives to love that child, to do everything possible, and you hear that miracles have happened in how a child can perform: the optimism, the dignity.

And then of course the other extreme is that parents are so ashamed that they hide the child in a basement or they lock them away, or they ignore the issue and say that it’s not my child. The message that is being told to the spirit of that child is quite powerful. And I don’t buy it when people just say that the child is unaware, because the spirit is always aware.

And we’ll discuss that, because I’d like to discuss the issue of what exactly, from a spiritual or cosmic dimension, is depression and mental illness.

Feder: Okay, so now you’ve been talking about definitions and causes. But before we move on, let’s take a call from Pinchas.

Caller: Rabbi Jacobson, this is one of your friends from Boro Park. I just wanted to ask you a question. I happen to deal with people who have this problem of depression, not clinical depression. I would like to ask you, what would you recommend as therapy for these people. When you see the person, what would you say to the person just to remove the first pain of the depression?

Jacobson: Thank you for the question. If you don’t mind, we will get to some answers a little later in the show, but since we’re doing this in order, it’s wiser to try to put it into perspective. So we’ll take the questions, some I’ll try to answer immediately, and others I’ll answer throughout the show. But I will say this, which is a springboard to our next thought, but as the Baal Shem Tov says, for every question there’s an answer, and for every answer there’s another question. So all questions will be answered, and all answers will have new questions!

Feder: Well, that could make you feel a little depressed!

Jacobson: Well, look at it as climbing a ladder. But the caller did just address something that is important to recognize that on the radio here it’s very hard to make any generalizations. When you’re dealing with a topic like this, it’s critical to look at it on a case by case basis. In every situation case by case is necessary, but here even more so because there are so many intricate elements and details and nuances and subtleties: family dynamics, the position of that person at work, do they have a spouse, what else is going on in their life. So it’s critical to know what is going on with all that before just suggesting what to do.

But I will make some suggestions in response to this caller, but before we do that, I’d like to address the actual issue in a—I don’t want to call it mystical —but let’s call it a more spiritual perspective.

In a sense, you can ask the question, why would G-d allow for such a dichotomy between mind and heart, between human emotions and intellect, to take place—an imbalance of this nature, where a person can lose control of his or her own life.

Of course, this touches on the issue of why G-d allows any good people to suffer, and in general, human suffering as a whole, because this is clearly in that same category. But I was thinking about an interesting thing: you know I didn’t even realize it when we determined to do this topic, that in the Jewish calendar now we’re in a period of time that you can say is the cosmic healing from a cosmic state of depression.

Now let me explain what I mean. In the Jewish calendar, we are now in the Seven Weeks of Consolation, which follow the Three Weeks of Lamentation or grief or the three weeks of pain and suffering, (concluding with Tisha B’Av, the three weeks) and the seven weeks that follow are in a sense a consolation which conclude with Rosh Hashanah.

Now just for the record, the Three Weeks are essentially the period of time in which the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem took place close to 2,000 years ago; both the First Temple and the Second Temple, the first one destroyed by the Babylonians, and the second one by the Romans, of which the only thing that remains is the outer wall, or Western Wall. It is commemorated on the calendar with the beginning of the Three Weeks being a fast day of mourning and grieving—that’s when they breached the wall—and concluding with Tisha B’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, which is the day when the actual building was burned down, both in the First and Second Temples, interestingly enough, 490 years apart.

Now, that’s the historical element. But on a mystical dimension, or you could say on a deeper level, why do Jews still grieve almost 2,000 years later? Because the Temple represented much more than just a building, it represented the Divine presence in this world. It represented a window between heaven and earth, between spirit and matter, between our purpose of existence and our existence. And in a sense, with the destruction of the Temple, a certain window was closed.

Feder: Cutting us off from G-d.

Jacobson: From G-d, and in a way, from our own quintessential selves, and our own purpose of existence. So in a way you can say all pain, all tragedy, all suffering, is a symptom and a result, because if a person is in touch with their higher calling, and what (I’ll use simple English) you do is connected with what you are, if you can solve it at that root level, most problems will be solved automatically.

It’s when you lose touch with yourself, in a sense you wander away from your own calling, you don’t know why you’re here. You don’t have any real driving force to wake up in the morning.

Feder: So maybe you might add that if you’re separated from a Divine order, or a sense of the Divine order…

Jacobson: Right. Being connected or anchored to something that’s absolute. Then you’re not just swept away by the vicissitudes and the ups and downs of material life, you know, today my boss was in a good mood so I’m in a good mood, tomorrow my client is obnoxious so that blows my day.

In other words you’re holding onto a tree that’s anchored with deep roots into absolutes of certain standards, of certain values, a certain center or core. Then, when life shakes you up, twigs and branches may break off the tree, but the tree remains stout and firm.

The Three Weeks is thr name of this period of the year. Why "three"? Three refers to the three intellectual faculties that are cut off from the emotions. In Kabbalistic thought, the cosmic picture, or the human psyche is divided into two categories of three and seven. I don’t want to get too complicated, but it is a form of dichotomy, or a cut-off, a disalignment, out of sync between your mind and your heart.

And the Seven Weeks of Consolation, in a sense, is realigning the heart once again with the mind, where you do have a form of reconciliation where those three weeks which would be considered a form of depression, a form of not exactly mental illness, but it’s a cut-off…

Feder: A splitting off…

Jacobson: Between two parts is realigned and reconnected into one seamless whole.

Feder: Do these seven weeks end with the High Holidays, reuniting with the Divine presence?

Jacobson: That’s the objective, of course; that there’s a consolation and a healing that follows this split.

Now, by no means is this a justification, nor is it an explanation for human depression. But I did want to place it in a more subtle form, in microcosm,

Feder: As above so below…

Jacobson: Yes. Something like that. That it does exist. And remember, when a human being created in the Divine image suffers from any type of mental illness or depression, it’s not just an anomaly, but it does have roots in the dichotomy of existence itself.

As soon as G-d’s presence is hidden from us, as soon as we can be split between who you are and what you do, that immediately is, in a sense, a split that can lead to more severe forms of mental imbalance.

Feder: Taking the great circle root here, everything you’ve said is necessary to be said, but is there any possible answer to the listener’s call before?

Jacobson: Oh, this was not just an introduction to the caller’s question, I think I’d like to dedicate an answer to that further in the show: suggestions of what can be done…

Feder: More hands-on.

Okay let’s split off for a moment from the conversation. You are listening to Rabbi Simon Jacobson, and this is Toward a Meaningful Life with Simon Jacobson. My name is Mike Feder and we’re here every Sunday night from 6-7pm and you’re listening to WEVD, 1050AM in New York City.

This show is an outgrowth of the Meaningful Life Center in Brooklyn, and this show is also based very much on Rabbi Jacobson’s book called Toward a Meaningful Life, in which almost every subject that you hear discussed on the air here is discussed in the book.

We really want to thank everyone who has emailed us or written or called us. Here are some of the ways you can get in touch with us, and we want to hear from you. The most important thing is the telephone number: 1-800-3MEANING or 1-800-363-2646. You can also email us at wisdomreb@meaningfullife.com. You can always write to us at The Meaningful Life Center, 788 Eastern Parkway, Suite 303, Brooklyn, NY 11225.

I’d like to also tell you that we have a new website where you can download transcripts of this program, and previous and future programs. It’s www.meaningfullife.com.

Now, I’ve got all kinds of questions, but is there anything you’d like to talk about first?

Jacobson: Yes. There’s a reason I connected the physical depression to the spiritual depression, not to console us, but in a way it is a form of consolation because we have to realize that certain realities of life are such, that we live in a world where there’s always a state of depression, because the only place where there would not be any type of depression or sadness is in a perfect world, in a paradise world, a utopia.

But as soon as a human being is created, there are two voices or two forces or two energies—the evil inclination and the good inclination—as soon as a human being has the ability to be hypocritical, to lie, to be deceitful, you immediately have a situation where the reality is split into two at least.

Now, by no means does this mean that this causes depression, but recognizing this split is recognizing the root or the environment in which we live in. And knowing that teaches us how precarious and how fragile life is. You don’t have to wait for depression to hit to realize that there’s a problem. The problem exists even before one actually suffers from depression.

Feder: So the ground is fertile.

Jacobson: Very fertile. And particularly, as I mentioned earlier, we can have a society that values certain things, which has nothing to do with your true value. You, Mike, or myself or our listeners can be valued for something that has really nothing to do with you. It could be completely circumstantial. You inherited a million dollars so suddenly you’re valued. Or you have something that somebody wants. And that, in a sense, is what’s called in Chassidic terminology living in a false world, a world that lies, a world that is able to lie.

Feder: So you could be just as depressed by being valued for the wrong thing as being not valued for the right thing.

Jacobson: Right. Knowing that this is a cosmic problem, not just an individual anomaly, we’re all affected by it. That’s why Tisha B’Av is not just for people who are depressed, it’s for all of us. It is a wake up call to all people, including those who don’t know that they perhaps should feel that there’s a dichotomy in our lives.

What it does is, it puts things in a certain perspective that allows a person to figure out what to do about it. Where do we go from here?

And again, we must distinguish between clinical (once it gets to a point where it’s medical) or for some other reason that clearly need intervention that’s beyond what I’m going to describe here.

Feder: We have a call from Carol. You’re on the air. Go ahead.

Caller: Hi. I’d like to ask how the principle of Tisha B’Av and the Three Weeks and the Seven Weeks that you mentioned applies to non-Jews who don’t observe those per se as Jews do?

Jacobson: The response to that is based on a Midrash. The Midrash says, interestingly, that the Holy Temple is not just for the Jews. It says that had the non-Jews known what the Holy Temple accomplishes for them, the blessings that it bestows upon them, the fact that it’s a channel for G-dliness—not just for the Jews but for the entire world—they would have surrounded it and protected it and not allowed it to be destroyed.

As a matter of fact, in one of the prophecies it says that the Holy Temple is a house for prayer, a place that is like a channel between the Divine and the entire world.

So though it’s clearly a Jewish Temple in that sense (but there’s an element in Judaism and in the Torah that is universal), the G-dly presence in this world clearly brings blessings to all of us, because everyone is created in the Divine image. And when there’s less of a dichotomy between heaven and earth, it’s a universal blessing, not just a Jewish issue.

But the Midrash is what I cite, particularly for this questioner.

Feder: But you know, there are relevant holidays like this in every religion where there is loss, suffering and mourning, and then there is redemption and healing.

Jacobson: So the message of healing and redemption is universal. Now to go back to where we’re at (we were talking about intervention), clearly, in a large topic like this, in a situation where it’s been determined that a person is not in control of his or her own selves, like a "demon" that’s taken over (I just use the word "demon" as a metaphor), professional help may be necessary and should be pursued, particularly if the person is a danger to themselves.

Feder: It they can cause injury to themselves or others.

Jacobson: Right. So clearly then you can’t just sit down and say, "let’s talk," but I always believe that unless there’s an immediate danger, with respect to human dignity you always want to give the person the option of doing something about it before something has to be done.

Feder: Can you explain that more clearly?

Jacobson: In other words, if you see someone who’s behaving in a destructive way, the first option you’d like to say is, "Take responsibility for your life and take your life in your hands." The reason we like to do that is not because we want to avoid more serious intervention, we want to respect an individual's dignity.

Feder: So this is before just laying a treatment on a person.

Jacobson: Right. I’m just stating, for example, let’s say you have a child, or a friend, G-d forbid, or someone who simply seems to be becoming more and more isolated, locking themselves up, and you notice it and it’s important to keep your eyes open, so the first thing you don’t want to do is panic and run to a psychiatrist in a hospital. The first thing is to have a conversation. Can you communicate and see what’s going on?

Often, when it comes to the point where a person can’t communicate or they are self-destructive, you can’t just wait and sit around. But I’m talking about a situation where you see signs and it may take years for something to really become debilitating to the point of being unable to communicate with him and try to reinforce his self-confidence to do something about it, because, as I said earlier, probably the single most secondary problem after the initial depression itself, is a lack of confidence. It starts eroding your own will. You start seeing yourself in a very shameful light, you want to lock yourself up, you don’t want anyone to see you in that way, so what happens is you lose your will power, and once you lose your will power…

Feder: It just builds on itself…

Jacobson: Exactly. So the immune system doesn’t want to fight, in a sense…

Feder: The psychic immune system.

Jacobson: And it is critical to encourage a person and give him that power. And how does one do that? So here, we always talk about G-d and soul and spirit, when it comes to this issue, frankly, including G-d in the solution is critical, because ultimately the only argument that you can tell someone when they really feel down and say "my life isn’t really worth it, I don’t want to go on, or, it’s just a mess," and they give all rational reasons, and they’ll explain why…

Feder: A divorce, a separation, a death…

Jacobson: The only way to hold onto some type of, what’s called "bitochen," or trust, faith, hope, is to rise above your own self, above the mortal, above the mundane, and reach to something that is more eternal.

Feder: But the eternal could be something that is right around you, it doesn’t have to be some abstract, prayerful dedication, it can be the world right around you, the joy of the world, or anything…

Jacobson: Well, I’d like to put it this way. It’s the recognition that you’re here in this world for a purpose, and you’re needed. You can’t just make a statement that you’re not needed anymore because I don’t feel good about myself. In a subtle way, that’s a form of arrogance, because you are needed. And life is fraught with challenges. A challenge does not mean that you should suddenly make a decision that it’s over with for me. Or I can’t handle it.

No, G-d gave you a vote of confidence that you can handle every challenge in your life. And again, I’m talking about the situation where you can still communicate with a person in this way. I would even argue that this should be said to someone who’s suffering from clinical depression. Not because you expect that these words alone will heal them; they may need medication, they may need other intervention, but these words will definitely complement that. That when they do finally create a chemical balance or whatever it is that they need, these words are very important, because this is what will maintain a person. It’s a message, it’s almost a mantra.

Feder: Let me bring it down to specifics here. Let’s say I call you and wake you up at 2 in the morning, and I’m so distraught I feel like I can’t live with myself, or live at all anymore. And you say, out of the goodness of your heart, okay, come over and I’ll talk to you.

So I come over to your house, and I sit in a room with you and I say, "I feel like I don’t want to exist anymore. I feel like I’m going to kill myself and remove myself from this earth, and the reason is that I feel so worthless and so loathsome, that I don’t even deserve to be alive."

How can you just say to a person, you know, you really do deserve to be alive? In other words, simple words like that… the person wouldn’t be coming to you in the first place if they really already could accept that, do you know what I’m saying? Or maybe I’m asking the impossible.

Jacobson: No, you’re not asking the impossible. I think we discussed this when we talked about suicide on a previous show.

There’s something that a heart does for another heart that defies words. If in this case, let’s not say you, someone came over to me, to my home, at 2:00 in the morning and I would sit with them and allow my heart to be with them. And hearts tend to melt into each other and have that power that gives strength.

It’s not about words. It’s not about philosophy. At that point, philosophy doesn’t work.

Feder: Or intellect.

Jacobson: Right. It’s not about intellect. It’s about that there’s someone there who cares, who says, "You know, you may feel terrible about yourself, but I must tell you, you have value," and even if they only hear 1% and 99% is clouded and completely impossible for them to hear, but if you try to get drops of water into a person whose mouth is clenched, most of it may pour on the floor, but if one drop gets in, that can save his life.

So it’s almost like giving that life-affirming message. And remember, if a person reaches out to you, it means they do trust you somewhat.

Feder: By the very fact that they reached out.

Jacobson: Right. So you have to call upon that, and again, this may not be sufficient. If a person is really in a difficult place and you’re their friend, I might say, come, let’s go to the hospital, or let’s go to a doctor, let’s go to a psychiatrist. But if it’s not at that point, there are words that if they come from the heart, they can be affirming, and especially if it’s a friend and you give him or her a kick in the pants as well. You know, you can say "Cut this out."

It doesn’t mean that that’s going to work, but it sends some sort of psychological shock treatment where you shake someone up and you try to awaken some type of confidence in themselves.

Feder: Ah, now, a bit of the answer to the question in the beginning.

Jacobson: So I use G-d here, not in the context of some type of religious escape as some see it, but I see it really as the vital element that "you are here for a purpose, you’re indispensable. For you to make a statement that it’s not worth it, or that it’s too difficult, or it’s overwhelming—I have no purpose to my existence—you are essentially challenging G-d’s vote of confidence of putting you on this earth."

And a human being has to have the humility to realize that he did not create himself. You have been put here. And you can choose what to do with your life, but you cannot make the choice whether you should be here or not.

Feder: So in a way there’s a certain grandiosity. You’re almost usurping, from what you’re saying, G-d’s…

Jacobson: It’s almost like inverted arrogance. Instead of saying…

Feder: You created yourself, so you can do whatever you want with yourself…

Jacobson: Including self-destruction. In other word, arrogance can take the shape of, I’m pompous, I have an ego, but arrogance can also be that I’m worthless. So the question is, who are you to say that you’re worthless?

Feder: What makes you so special to think you’re so worthless, right?

Jacobson: Exactly. Now I’m not saying this argument will touch a person who’s in that dark place, but that’s why we do a show like this, because this message should be taught to our children, not once their depressed, G-d forbid, but now, when things are going well. Every morning a child should be taught this message, that they’re important, because ultimately one day, should they ever need to reach into a deeper arsenal of resources, that message will resonate.

If you wait until the storm strikes, you can’t start suddenly building roots for a tree.

Feder: I think it’s like something you once said. It’s like clay: once it hardens or gets baked in the oven of the world, good luck, right?

Jacobson: That’s why I intentionally connected it to the cosmic picture, to understand the universe in this way. This particular show is not just for people who are actually suffering. The problem there is the hardest situation to do something about it, because you’re already in it.

Which leads me to another point I’d like to make. And that is, the issue of reaching out to others. What happens is this: the shame and the demoralization and the humiliation involved when a person is not in control of their own emotions, and they know that it doesn’t make sense, it’s just that they’re so anxious or depressed, causes the person to islotae himself. It is therefore critical to reach out.

Allow me to cite a passage in the Talmud. The Talmud says two opinions on a verse in the Bible, "If a person has worries, yasichena." So the Talmud asks, what does this word yasichena mean? And it has two interpretations. One is that yasichena comes from the word "verbalize it, communicate it, go speak to someone."

Feder: So if a person is worried, they should talk about it.

Jacobson: Right. I’m talking about real worry, anxiety that can lead to more serious states.

The second interpretation that the Talmud brings is yasiach from the words hesech hadaas, from the words "distract yourself." Push it away from your mind and think about something else.

The question is asked: these two interpretations seemingly contradict each other— communicating and verbalizing is actually focusing in on the problem, while distracting yourself is pushing it away and not addressing it.

Feder: But they really are the same thing. I mean, while you’re talking, you’re not brooding about it at least.

Jacobson: Okay. Fine. It’s a rhetorical question, and I think the point is this. That when you communicate with someone, you release yourself of it. It’s no longer your own lonely problem. Because as they say, when it comes to real abuse, the silence is worse than the abuse. The loneliness of silence, the darkness, the shadows of sitting alone, when no one is there who understands or who is with you, in a way feeds into the depression because it just justifies your position, "You see, I have no value. No one is here for me."

Feder: I asked the question and there’s no one to answer me.

Jacobson: Right. So the reaching out to someone and being able to communicate it, first of all, introduces fresh light, fresh energy, where, as the Talmud puts it elsewhere, a person in fetters can’t free him or herself. If you’re in a pit and there’s no rope, you can’t pull yourself out of the pit.

Feder: Someone’s got to pull you.

Jacobson: Right. Now, that acknowledgment should not be humiliating, especially if you can find a trusting person, because it means that you are able to reach out. That’s a great strength to be able to reach out.

Feder: I mentioned once before that I was in a mental hospital once, a while ago. And so I know this from experience, the one thing that everyone has in common in those places, among other things, is that they are ashamed of themselves for being in there. They are humiliated. This is not the people who are so far gone that they don’t even know what world they’re living in anymore. Anyone who has a slightest sense of self-awareness, the memories of their behavior comes back to them. And everybody knows this, that as soon as you get better a little bit, for a couple of days or a week in a place like that, the thing that hits you is a wave of shame and humiliation. Can you address that? In other words, why should people feel so ashamed that they are lost and weak?

Jacobson: Because it’s a testimony to human dignity, and I would use the expression "the image of G-d." The fact that we have a certain sense of dignity, of majesty, and when that’s been in some way damaged or scratched or compromised, that dignity itself is a root for the shame.

Feder: But the shame is always in reference to other people. You think, what will they think of me? What will my family think of me, what will the world think of me?

Jacobson: That’s the way we articulate it. But I would say that the shame is really with yourself. It’s not just for others. I believe that if we were alone on an island, we’d also have that shame, because a person can’t deal with the fact that I should be in control of myself, that I should be able to take hold of myself when my thoughts and feelings are so overwhelming. I know that it’s not that dark, so why does it seem so paranoic, or so bleak?

I think the shame is with ourselves, it’s not just an external thing. It also extends, of course, to those around us, because we also feel guilt. Look at what I’ve done to others and now they have to provide for me and take care of me when I should be taking care of myself.

Per se that shame is not necessarily an unhealthy thing. Because if one didn’t have that shame, that would be a statement that it’s just easy for us to compromise our dignity. The key is to recognize that shame results from awareness, from sensitivity. It’s almost like pain, that the reason you have pain is that you’re sensitive.

If you weren’t sensitive, as you put it, you’d be so far beyond that you would not feel any shame. As the verse states: more knowledge, more pain. You’re aware of your own situation, and that should be seen as a virtue: "Hey, I’m aware of that. Isn’t that a sign of life?"

It’s like a stroke victim who couldn’t feel pain in her nerves, and when she finally feels pain, shouldn’t complain, but should say, "Hey, you know, this is sign of life, maybe now I can work on it."

And the shame should be a catalyst to bring more dignity in and more willpower to say, "I don’t want to be this way." If the shame is converted into that, it becomes a very valuable tool. What makes shame terrible is when it becomes something you want to hide. You want to run away. And it again feeds into the self-destructiveness.

But if the shame is turned into, "Yes, I’m ashamed. I don’t want to be this way," or "I need medical intervention," then you may begin to act on it. Of course, you have many people who have grandiose thoughts that they may not need any intervention. That is why it is important to have the modesty and recognize that perhaps I need certain medication, or I need to see a psychiatrist or keep in touch with friends—not to suddenly ignore or go into denial over what happened.

Feder: So maybe weakness is a word that should never be used in this context, right? It’s almost like a pejorative, like cowardice, weakness, any word like that.

Jacobson: Right. It’s hard to tell a person what they should or shouldn’t feel. But when you arm yourself with the information beforehand, it’s like a cognitive life raft, that when the time comes, you can almost reach into your "cupboard," into your resources, and you have that memory etched.

Feder: So you’re prescribing preventative medicine…

Jacobson: There’s no question about that. Whether it will always work there are no guarantees. There are things that are more powerful, and I don’t even want to venture into the area of why G-d allows a person to fall into a place like that. I mean, I refer to metaphors or parallels to the cosmic picture, but it still doesn’t justify why a person or their families have to experience anything like that. Nevertheless, I definitely think that every challenge can be dealt with, even if we don’t understand the reasons for it. And it’s critical that families, parents, siblings, and those around do not run away from it, because that adds to the shame, like if they don’t even want to see the person, or talk about it, like it never happened.

Feder: I think sometimes running away from the problem can also be taking somebody (and this is the popular trend these days) to a doctor who gives you this, that, and the other pill, talks to you for five minutes and says, "Take this for a while and you’re fixed."

To me, that’s also running away from it. That may be controversial, but that’s the way I see it.

Jacobson: It has to be seen ultimately from a psychological perspective, that any type of depression, and I again qualify that I’m not talking about the clinical situation where you need intervention, but the psychological perspective where you can address it. Sadness and depression have to be seen not as an end in itself. If a person feels inadequate, or they feel that they can achieve much more, or they feel a very deep anxiety and sadness, that has to be converted into a sensitivity for growth. For example, tears should be seeds for growth, not an end in themselves.

And it’s the same thing here. There’s an expression in the Bible that says that there’s profit in anxiety, or there’s profit in sadness. So in the Tanya, a classic book of Jewish thought, the author explains that that doesn’t mean that sadness has a virtue, it just means that sadness can lead to a virtue.

On its own, it doesn’t lead to any profit, so to speak, but it can lead to something, like leading you to the joy that follows, like coming out from the darkness into the light. And ultimately it’s all about the celebration of human dignity that you matter, that you’re inherently valuable. Holding onto that for dear life is the single most powerful message that parents can give children. As I mentioned earlier regarding the autistic children that we’ve heard stories about, or others, where a deep sense of dignity was transmitted continuously, and unconditionally, and not fabricated -- this does something to the spirit. The spirit responds to it.

Feder: Okay. We have a caller. We have Baruch from New York.

Caller: The rabbi mentioned before that the Talmud says that if a person has a worry, he should talk about it with other people. What I have a problem with is that nowadays, instead of the clergy and people in general, people should be promoting this idea that it’s a mitzvah if a person has a problem to lend an ear to a friend, to listen. It shouldn’t be that it’s only when people feel they have difficulties and are under stress that they have to go to a so-called professional. There should be this encouragement that part of being a friend is to listen. A friend sometimes can do a better job than a so-called professional who sometimes has a conflict that because for money, they might want to encourage a patient to come back 20 times because they’re getting paid by the hour…

Jacobson: The point is very well taken. A true friend can in some ways be much greater than a professional. I don’t preclude a professional, because sometimes you need someone who has that training, but lending an ear or communicating … the Talmud does not call a therapist, it just says to communicate to someone. And that someone would optimally be a friend or someone that you can really trust.

Feder: Well, as always, it’s sad for me to come to the end of these programs because…

Jacobson: Don’t get depressed…

Feder: I’m not going to get depressed, I’m going to handle it, because I have you to talk to!

This program is brought to us by "you," the listeners, and our underwriter tonight, the people who brought this program to you are Ted and Lynn Doll, in honor of Ted’s mother Loretta’s 80th birthday, and we thank you very much, Ted and Lynn.

Jacobson: And may she have health and many healthy years.

Feder: And once again, you can contact us here if you have any questions or statements, comments, anything, at 1-800-363-2646, wisdomreb@meaningfullife.com, or you can go to our website at www. meaningfullife.com, and you can download our radio programs there.

And also I’d like to say before we end that we have received many requests, in fact, from people asking how they can donate to the Meaningful Life Center, which is the organization that brings you all this, the radio show and the web site among other things. The Meaningful Life Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing a sense of peace, light, inspiration and meaning into the world. All its activities are made possible by donations of listeners just like you who receive the center’s publications and tapes and who listen to this program and visit the website.


We have a couple of minutes left. It’s a sad, serious thing that’s going on out there, and it’s something that affects almost everybody that’s listening, I’m sure.

Now let’s say you’re alone in the world and you don’t have someone to reach out to, is there some sort of advice or some sort of a blessing or something you can say to people who are trying to carry on on their own, in a hard way in a hard world.

Jacobson: Well, it’s critical not to feel alone. It’s critical to find that friend or someone. I don’t think it’s wise for anyone to say, "I’m alone and that’s it." I don’t think that’s good preventive medicine at all.

But I do want to respond to what you’re saying, and to the caller early on, which is, what practically can be done.

I’ve discussed some preventive medicine in this show so far, but actually, when you are dealing with people in that situation (we’re not talking about clinical and that which requires medication, hospitalization or professional help, or other interventions), what can be done is to show true support and a true vote of confidence in the person. To be a true friend.

Even a therapist, even people who are professionals, that’s what they need to do. And that personal touch where you project to others that you matter, that you are valuable, that you have something to contribute.

If someone comes to you, I’m talking about Pinchas, the first caller who asked what happens if someone comes to you and it’s a situation where you still can do something about it, try to get them involved in something productive. Find out what they’re talented in, if it’s music, or writing, or creative, let them get involved in volunteer work, a hobby, but some type of commitment where there’s accountability where they know they have to rise to the occasion, because that forces them out of their own little shell, and forces them to rise and say, "See, I’ve accomplished something."

Success breeds success. Failure breeds failure. And if a person locks himself up into a shell, the worse thing that can happen is that they continue to travel inward, deeper and deeper into their shell. It’s critical to pull them out. And not by force, but to encourage them with enthusiasm in some type of project. Anything that can help build self-esteem because they will need it to fight.

It, in itself, may not be enough, but it clearly helps deal with the issues.

this is a quote from a 14 year old jewish girl Rutka Laskier from Poland who died in Auschwitz,who left a diary by her non-jewish neighbor before she was deported

"I simply can’t believe that one day I will be allowed to leave this house without the yellow star. Or even that this war will end one day. If this happens I will probably lose my mind from joy.”

it puts into perspective

how many times in Birchas Hashachar did I say "Matir Asurim" without thinking much about it

that I can walk on the streets and not be forced to wear a yellow star,and the war has ended,and there is no war,I can walk to shul,to work,to yeshiva,to the grocery store...

why am I not overcome with great joy??? 

How bad have things gotten?  Must I look over my shoulder to wonder if Shabbat Shalom is real or is someone having doubts about the true nature of my thoughts.  EVERY TIME we doubt ourselves in our ability to live in the broader world we cut ourselves off from learning and understanding.  We DO NOT live in a vaccum and by trying to create one we question our own reason for living. 

a profound piece with alot of truth to it

The Mirror of Relationship: Love, Sex and Chastity (in part)

by J Krishnamurti


Questioner: The institution of marriage is one of the chief causes of social conflict. It creates a seeming order at the cost of terrible repression and suffering. Is there another way of solving the problem of sex?

Krishnamurti: Every human problem requires great consideration, and to understand the problem there must be no response, no rejection, no acceptance. That which you condemn, you do not understand. So, we must go into the problem of sex very closely, fully and carefully, step by step - which is what I propose to do. I am not going to lay down what should or should not be done, which is silly, which is immature thinking. You cannot lay down a pattern for life, you cannot put life into the framework of ideas; and because society inevitably puts life into the framework of moral order, society is always breeding disorder. So, to understand this problem, we must neither condemn nor justify, but we will have to think it out anew.

Now, what is the problem? Is sex a problem? Let us think it out together; do not wait for me to answer. If it is a problem, why is it a problem? Have we made hunger into a problem? Has starvation become a problem? The obvious causes of starvation are nationalism, class differences, economic frontiers, sovereign governments, the means of production in the hands of a few, separative religious factors, and so on. If we try to eliminate the symptoms without eradicating the causes, if instead of tackling the root we merely trim the branches because it is so much easier, the same old problem continues. Similarly, why has sex become a problem? To curb the sexual urge, to hold it within bounds, the institution of marriage has been created; and in marriage, behind the door, behind the wall, you can do anything you like and show a respectable front outside. By using her for your sexual gratification you can convert your wife into a prostitute, and it is perfectly respectable. Under the guise of marriage, you can be worse than an animal; and without marriage, without restraint, you know no bounds. So, in order to set a limit, society lays down certain moral laws which become tradition, and within that limit you can be as immoral, as ugly as you like; and that unrepressed indulgence, that habitual sexual action is considered perfectly normal, healthy, and moral. So, why is sex a problem? To a married couple, is sex a problem? Not at all. The woman and the man have an assured source of constant pleasure. When you have a source of constant pleasure, when you have a guaranteed income, what happens? You become dull, weary, empty, exhausted. Have you not noticed that people who before marriage were full of vital energy become dull the moment they are married? All the springs of life have gone out of them. Have you not noticed it in your own sons and daughters? Why has sex become a problem? Obviously, the more intellectual you are, the more sexual you are. Have you not noticed that? And the more there is of emotion, of kindliness, of affection, the less there is of sex. Because our whole social, moral, and educational culture is based on the cultivation of the intellect, sex has become a problem full of confusion and conflict. So, the solution of the problem of sex lies in understanding the cultivation of the intellect. The intellect is not the means of creation, and creation does not take place through the functioning of the intellect; on the contrary, there is creation when the intellect is silent. Only when there is creation does the functioning of intellect have a meaning; but without creation, without that creative affection, the mere functioning of the intellect obviously creates the problem of sex. As most of us live in the brain, as most of us live on words, and words are of the mind, most of us are not creative. We are caught in words, in spinning new words and rearranging old ones. Surely, that is not creation. Since we are not creative, the only expression of creativeness left to us is sex. In the sexual act there is forgetfulness, and in forgetfulness alone there is creation. The sexual act for a split second gives you freedom from that self which is of the mind, and therefore it has become a problem. Surely, creativeness comes into being only when there is absence of thought which is of the 'me', of the 'mine'. I do not know if you have noticed that in moments of great crisis, in moments of great joy, the consciousness of 'me' and 'mine' which is the product of the mind, disappears. In that moment of expansive appreciation of life, of intense joy, there is creativeness. To put it simply, when self is absent there is creation; and since all of us are caught in the and intellect, naturally there is no absence of self. On the contrary, in that field, in that striving to be, there is an exaggerated expansion of the self and therefore no creativeness. Therefore, sex is the only means of being creative, of experiencing the absence of the self - and since the mere sexual act becomes habitual, that too is wearisome and gives strength to the continuity of the self, so sex becomes a problem.

In order to solve the problem of sex, we will have to approach it, not on any one level of thought, but from every direction, from every side - the educational, religious, and moral. When we are young, we have a strong feeling of sex attraction, and we marry - or are married off by our parents, as happens here in the East. Parents are often concerned only with getting rid of their boys and girls, and the pair, the boy and the girl, have no knowledge of sexual matters. Within the sacred law of society, the man can suppress his wife, destroy her, give her children year after year - and it is perfectly all right. Under the guise of respectability, he can become a completely immoral person. One has to understand and educate the boy and the girl - and that requires extraordinary intelligence on the part of the educator. Unfortunately, our fathers, mothers, and teachers all need this same education; they are as dull as dishwater, they only know the do's, don'ts, and taboos, they have no intelligence for this problem. To help the boy and girl we will have to have a new teacher who is really educated. But through the cinema and the advertisements with their half-naked girls, their luscious women, and lavish houses, and through various other means, society is giving stimulation to sensate values, and what do you expect? If he is married, the man takes it out on his wife; if he is not married, he goes to someone under cover. It is a difficult problem to bring intelligence to the boy and the girl. On every side human beings are exploiting each other through sex, through property, through relationship; and religiously, there is no creativeness at all. On the contrary, the constant meditation, the rituals or pujas, the repetition of words are all merely mechanical acts with certain responses; but that is not creative thinking, creative living. Religiously, you are merely traditional therefore, there is no creative inquiry into the discovery of reality. Religiously, you are regimented, and where there is regimentation, whether it is in the military or the religious sense, obviously there cannot be creativeness; therefore, you seek creativeness through sex. Free the mind from orthodoxy, from ritual, from regimentation and dogmatism so that it can be creative, and then the problem of sex will not be so great or so dominant.

There is another side to this problem: in the sexual relationship between man and woman, there is no love. The woman is merely used as a means of sexual gratification. Surely, sirs, love is not the product of the mind; love is not the result of thought; love is not the outcome of a contract. Here in this country the boy and the girl hardly know each other, yet they are married and have sexual relations. The boy and girl accept each other and say, ''You give me this, and I give you that,'' or ''You give me your body, and I give you security, I give you my calculated affection.'' When the husband says, ''I love you,'' it is merely a response of the mind; because he gives his wife a certain protection, he expects of her and she gives him her favor. This relationship of calculation is called love. It is an obvious fact - you may not like me to put it so brutally, but it is the actual fact. Such marriage is said to be for love, but it is a mere matter of exchange; it is a bania marriage, it reveals the mentality of the market place. Surely, in such marriage there cannot be love, can there? Love is not of the mind, but since we have cultivated the mind, we use that word love to cover the field of the mind. Surely, love has nothing to do with the mind, it is not the product of the mind; love is entirely independent of calculation, of thought. When there is no love, then the framework of marriage as an institution becomes a necessity. When there is love, then sex is not a problem - it is the lack of love that makes it into a problem. Don't you know? When you love somebody really deeply - not with the love of the mind, but really from the heart - you share with him or her everything that you have, not your body only, but everything. In your trouble, you ask her help and she helps you. There is no division between man and woman when you love somebody, but there is a sexual problem when you do not know that love. We know only the love of the brain; thought has produced it, and a product of thought is still thought, it is not love.

So, this problem of sex is not simple and it cannot be solved on its own level. To try to solve it purely biologically is absurd; and to approach it through religion or to try to solve it as though it were a mere matter of physical adjustment, of glandular action, or to hedge it in with taboos and condemnations is all too immature, childish, and stupid. It requires intelligence of the highest order. To understand ourselves in our relationship with another requires intelligence far more swift and subtle than to understand nature. But we seek to understand without intelligence; we want immediate action, an immediate solution, and the problem becomes more and more important. Have you noticed a man whose heart is empty, how his face becomes ugly and how the children he produces are ugly and immature? And because they have had no affection, they remain immature for the rest of their lives. Look at your faces sometime in the mirror - how unformed, how undefined they are! You have brains to find out, and you are caught in the brain. Love is not mere thought; thoughts are only the external action of the brain. Love is much deeper, much more profound, and the profundity of life can be discovered only in love. Without love, life has no meaning - and that is the sad part of our existence. We grow old while still immature; our bodies become old, fat, and ugly, and we remain thoughtless. Though we read and talk about it, we have never known the perfume of life. Mere reading and verbalizing indicates an utter lack of the warmth of heart that enriches life; and without that quality of love, do what you will, join any society, bring about any law, you will not solve this problem. To love is to be chaste. Mere intellect is not chastity. The man who tries to be chaste in thought is unchaste because he has no love. Only the man who loves is chaste, pure, incorruptible.

Questioner: Why is woman prone to permit herself to be dominated by man? Why do communities and nations permit themselves to be bossed by a leader or a Fuehrer?

Krishnamurti: Now, sir, why do you ask this question? Why don't you look into your own mind to find out why you want to be dominated, why you dominate, and why you seek a leader? Why do you dominate the woman or the man? And this domination is also called love, is it not? When the man dominates, the woman likes it and considers it as affection, and when a woman bosses the man, he also likes it. Why? It is an indication that the domination gives you a certain sense of closeness of relationship. If my wife dominates me, I feel very close to her, and if she does not dominate, I feel she is indifferent. You are afraid of indifference from your wife or your husband, from the woman or the man. You will accept anything as long as you do not feel someone is indifferent. You know how closely you want to keep to your guru; you will do anything - sacrifice your wife, honesty, everything - to be close to him because you want to feel that he is not indifferent to you. That is, we use relationship as a means of self-forgetfulness, and as long as relationship does not show us what we actually are, we are satisfied. That is why we accept the domination of another. When my wife or husband dominates me, it does not reveal what I am but is a source of gratification. If my wife does not dominate me, if she is indifferent and I discover what I really am, it is very disturbing. What am I? I am an empty, dour, sloppy being with certain appetites - and I am afraid to face all that emptiness. Therefore I accept the domination of my wife or husband because it makes me feel very close to him or to her, and I do not want to see myself as I am. And this domination gives a sense of relationship; this domination brings jealousy - the moment you do not dominate me, you are looking at somebody else. Therefore I am jealous because I have lost you, and I do not know how to get rid of jealousy, which is still on the plane of the brain. Sir, a man who loves is not jealous. Jealousy is of the brain, but love is not of the brain; and where there is love, there is no domination. When you love somebody, you are not dominating, you are a part of that person. There is no separation, but complete integration. It is the brain that separates and creates the problem of domination.

So, then, the problem is not the leader but how to eradicate confusion. Can another help you in removing confusion? If you look to another to remove your confusion, he can only help you to increase it because a confused mind can never choose that which is clear; since it is in confusion, it can only choose that which is confused. If you wish radically to get rid of confusion, you will set your own mind and heart in order, you will consider the causes that bring about confusion. Confusion arises only when there is no self-knowledge. When I do not know myself and do not know what to do or what to think, naturally I am caught in the whirlwind of confusion. But when I know myself, the whole total process of myself - which is extraordinarily simple if one has the intention to know oneself - then out of that understanding comes clarity, out of that understanding comes conduct and right behavior. So, it is of the highest importance not to follow a leader but to understand oneself. The understanding of oneself brings love, brings order. Chaos exists only in relationship to something, and as long as I do not understand that relationship, there must be confusion. To understand relationship is to understand myself, and to understand myself is to bring about that quality of love in which there is well-being. If I know how to love my wife, my children, or my neighbor, I know how to love everyone. Since I do not love the one, I am merely remaining on the intellectual or verbal level with humanity. The idealist is a bore - he loves humanity with his brain, he does not love with his heart. When you love, no leader is necessary. It is the empty of heart who seek a leader to fill that emptiness with words, with an ideology, with a utopia of the future. Love is only in the present, not in time, not in the future. For him who loves, eternity is now, for love is its own eternity

from Rav Kook

The Precious Reason for Circumcision

The precious reason for circumcision, which decreases sexual desire, encompasses broad principles of wisdom. The covenant-"to be a God to you and to your children after you"-offers knowledge of God's oneness, which is connected to circumcision. The covenant and circumcision are intimately intertwined.

"From his flesh does a man see God." If you have the power to harness all the abilities of your soul and all your drives to an enlightened and ethical goal, you will see unity in your internal world. The unity of the outer world will become increasingly clear to you. But if your abilities are splintered, if you cannot conceive of overall control of your drives and desires, you will conclude that the entire world, like you, is splintered, and that no unity can be found in existence.
Sexual desire in its essence-and in related expressions, physical, imaginative and spiritual-comprises the basis of all drives. If you experience sexuality in a way that your exalted spirit can rise to it and surround it, can unify it with all the wealth of human abilities (physical and spiritual), leading it to one integrated ethical and supernal goal, then that unity, in its power, is revealed. the revelation of Godly unity will appear in your flesh.

The total immersion of the human spirit in sexual desire to such a degree that the ideals and ethics in its realm are silenced has brought about the substance of the foreskin. This pathological state expresses itself physically as a powerful sexual drive that has left the realm of ideals and the transmission of the ultimate ethics.

Pessimism corresponds to ethical decline. It gives urgency to the divorce of sexual desire from idealism: since existence in general is such a great evil, how can the procreation of miserable creatures be ideal? This doctrine teaches that the sexual drive is not rooted in idealism, but merely demonstrates the eruption of desire.

How different is the outlook of general goodness, of optimism: "God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good." This view permits idealism to extend even over the sexual drive.
The nature of flesh and the inclination of one's heart can descend to the degraded state of the foreskin. But with circumcision, you rectify the holy covenant and stride on an exalted path. All your abilities are directed toward a goal that is all-inclusive, ideal and holy. From your flesh will you see God. You will sanctify the Holy One of Israel, the one God.

from www.meaningfullife.com

no human being is any less important than a leaf

to be treated with care and dignity


The Shredded Leaf 


 
  Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch (1880-1950) told:

“It was summer of 1896, and father and myself were strolling in the fields of Balivka, a hamlet near Lubavitch. The grain was near to ripening, and the wheat and grass swayed gently in the breeze.

“Said father to me: ‘See G-dliness! Every movement of each stalk and grass was included in G-d's Primordial Thought of Creation, in G-d's all-embracing vision of history, and is guided by Divine providence toward a G-dly purpose.’

“Walking, we entered the forest. Engrossed in what I have heard, excited by the gentleness and seriousness of father's words, I absentmindedly tore a leaf off a passing tree. Holding it a while in my hands, I continued my thoughtful pacing, occasionally tearing small pieces of leaf and casting them to the winds.

“ ‘The Holy Ari,”[1] said father to me, ‘says that not only is every leaf on a tree a creation invested with Divine life, created to specific purpose within G-d's intent in creation, but also that within each and every leaf there is a spark of a soul that has descended to earth to find its correction and fulfillment.

“ ‘The Talmud,’ father continued, ‘rules that “a man is always responsible for his actions, whether awake or asleep.”[2] The difference between wakefulness and sleep is in the inner faculties of man, his intellect and emotions. The external faculties[3] function equally well in sleep, only the inner faculties are confused. So dreams present us with contradictory truths. A waking man sees the real world, a sleeping man does not. This is the deeper significance of wakefulness and sleep: when one is awake one sees Divinity; when asleep, one does not.

“ ‘Nevertheless, our sages maintain that man is always responsible for his actions, whether awake or asleep. Only this moment we have spoken of Divine providence, and, unthinkingly, you tore off a leaf, played with it in your hands, twisting, squashing and tearing it to pieces, throwing it in all directions.

“ ‘How can one be so callous toward a creation of G-d? This leaf was created by the Almighty towards a specific purpose and is imbued with a Divine life-force. It has a body and it has its life. In what way is the “I” of this leaf inferior to yours?’”

------------


[1] Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria, 1534-1572.

[2] Talmud, Bava Kama 3b

[3] I.e. cardiac and respiratory functions, digestion, cell replenishment, etc.

I read this yesterday

"the very thing we wish to avoid , neglect,and flee from turns out to be the primary material from which all real growth comes"

it is often the case that addictions come from a part of us that wishes to escape from reality.

our real life has its own set of problems,all of us have setbacks and disappointments,sometimes very big and painful ones.

we dont feel we can climb over that mountain,nor do we believe we have what is within us to make things better.

So we give up

and part of giving up is blocking out the reality of our lives and get absorbed in many unhealthy behaviors.

but we must muster the courage to face reality even the unpleasant parts to our reality and not flee from it.

that is where the growth comes from,that is where peace and comfort and eventually true joy comes from.

and we learn that it is not as hard as our imaginations lead us to believe.

Once we start in our actual physical world,baby steps,small steps,we gain confidence on our path,and even slips and falls on the way will not make us fall into despair

what is needed is a love for ones own soul,to realize that no matter what this sole has infinite value.

The Essence of each and ever one of us was never damaged,was never tainted.

even those who have seen years and years of pornography,who have been involved in unhealthy relationships,have been hurt or have hurt themselves or others deeply,the true fact remains that there is the Essence of each and every one of us that was pure,is pure,will always be pure,and this small part of us never felt the suffering of defilement at all.

and each and every one of us can find that Essence,the spark of true goodness and to let is come out and let it shine

to be our true selves.

we dont need to find this purity on the outside and force ourselves to bring it in

we have it in us already

once it opens up,very special things will begin to happen

like a flower finally opening up on a beautiful spring day.

so dear friend do not become discouraged and do not give up.

I am not affiliated with any particular group,neither Chasidishe or Litvish,nor do I learn from any one place,but rather from many pure and special sources,of even opposite viewpoints,as I try to see the unity of Truth in them all.

so to those who stress the great importance of seeking and trying to find ones own good points-that is a task that each and every one of us needs to do-this is not haughtiness or arrogance.Why not?because we are looking not for our ego,our fixed habits,but rather we are looking for the precious spark that is witin us that God Himself put there that made Him decide YES!!! it is worthwhile for him or her to be born,there is true greatness there that no outside force nor even serious sins can erase or eradicate.

so even if the trail up the mountain seems impossible long......

once we tap into our Essence,our true inherent worth,given to us by God,then we will see how our feet will carry ourselves upward.

that is the amazing thing.

some of us say we need to reinvent ourselves

but the reality is that it is all within us

It always was there.

It's time to look for it and bring it out. 

Beautiful words from Reb Shlomo


Elul: Redemption Through Responsiveness


By Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach on September 1st, 1985


I want to tell you something unbelievable. The Gemara says that one of the greatest Rabbis in the world, Elisha ben Avuya, who was the Rebbe of Rabbi Meir (so obviously he was one of the greatest in the world), suddenly one day decided he had enough of the Torah and he stopped being religious. The Gemara asks what happened to him that suddenly he left Judaism? The Gemara answers that suddenly he stopped singing Jewish songs. He sang only Greek songs. This teaches us that you can learn holy things all your life, but what reaches you the most is still the singing. G-d makes it so hard for us. At the time of the Holy Temple, we had all the melodies of the Temple. It was so easy to be a Jew. You know what it is to be in exile? To be in exile means that I have every word of the Torah, but, I don’t know the proper melody. I am looking for the melody of the Beis Hamikdash.

I remember when I was a little boy. My tatte, my father, was such a sweet Jew, I could swear that there was not a second in his life when he was not thinking, “Moshiach is coming and we will be going to Yerushalayim.” I remember when I was little, I was sitting on my father’s knee and I asked him, “Can you teach me a melody from the holy Temple?” I shall never forget how my father started crying, and said to me, “We don’t know any melodies from the holy Temple. We don’t know any.” I said to my father, “I can’t believe it. How can we live without one note from the holy Temple?”

As time went by, just a few years ago, I met an old Yid who had just come from Siberia, by the holy wall. I asked him, “How did you survive in Siberia for ten years?” He said, “I was singing the whole time.” I had this flash in my head and I said, I can imagine that G-d must have revealed to you a melody from the holy Temple.” so he said to me, “I am in a direct line from the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal ShemTov said that the way we chant prayers on the High Holidays is like the way they did in the holy Temple.” It may not be one hundred percent, but it’s a little bit like that. Those melodies are so deep, that’s why they touch us so deeply.

All the Jews sing the same prayers. In the fifteenth century, there was a great Chazan in Maintz. He was a great Kabbalist. He was a divine musician. He stabilized all the melodies.

We have to keep to the nusach. The way he stabilized the melodies was that he knew exactly where each note reaches in heaven.

One beautiful prayer contains this phrase:

“ad aznecha bamarom, yoshev tehilla”,

Please, Ribbono Shel Olam, listen to me from the highest place in heaven, You Who Are Yoshev tehilla. I am a father. What is the sweetest thing in the world for a father? When his child says something good to him. You can give me two million dollars (I need it sometimes.) But, how does that compare to when my children say something good to me. G-d is the same way. When His children get together in this world to sing His praises — He Is sitting on it, so to speak. When G-d hears us singing, He feels it is worthwhile to be G-d, just to hear that.

The end of this phrase is

“lishmoa el harena ve-el hatefillah”

G-d, listen to our singing and to our prayers. To our singing first.

Sometimes, I am angry at my child, yelling and screaming at her. Suddenly, in the middle of my yelling, there is a fire. What do I do? I take my baby and carry her out with the greatest love in the world. This shows that the yelling didn’t reach very deep.

We are saying to G-d, it’s true our mistakes are very heavy. But, we know that on a certain level, our mistakes never even reach that high. There is one place where our relationship to G-d is so deep.

In a business deal, I have to offer something. If I walk into a bank, unless I have money in there, I can’t take anything out. If I walk into a store, I must have the exact amount of money to buy something. If I tell them I’m a little bit short, they won’t sell to me.

In a certain way, I am coming to G-d in heaven and I am saying,”Ribbono shel olam, give me a good year.” G-d says to me, “Let’s see how much you have.” I say to G-d, “The truth is, I have nothing. I’m not coming to buy. I’m coming to beg.”

When my child asks me for a favor, do I ask her for something in return? We say to G-d, “Please, don’t deal with us on a business level.”

I want to share something very deep with you. You know, I walk in Yerushalayim and see all my friends. I’m so glad to see every person. But, imagine, I am in the Fiji Islands and I don’t know anybody and suddenly, I see a Jew from Yerushalayim! Imagine how good I feel!

The unholy people have something that the holy don’t know. The holy people are sure G-d is everywhere, so, when they meet G-d, it doesn’t amaze them. But, people who aren’t holy, for them G-d seems far away and when suddenly, they discover that G-d is right there – it’s a great discovery for them.

“Obikashtem misham omatzatem ki tidrishenubechal levavech obechal nafshecha”

And you shall seek from there, and you shall find (Him), if you seek with all your heart.

This is a story the Heliege Rizhiner would tell every year, on the second night of Rosh Hashanah. One time, Rosh Hashanah was very heavy. The whole world, especially Yidden, was on the scale of justice and the side of the sins was very heavy. So, the heilege Rebbe Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev ran and stole all the sins from the scale. He took them off the scale and they just disappeared. Suddenly, there was a voice in heaven: “What’s going on here? Who stole all the sins of the Jews?” There was another voice proclaiming” Levi Yitzchak, ben Sorah Sasha stole all the aveiros (sins).” Okay, the heavenly court gets together. And, you know, if you steal something you have to pay double. Can Rebbe Levi Yitzhakl, one human being, pay for all the sins of the Jews? No, he cannot pay. Especially not double. Comes the next question: What happens when a person steals and cannot pay? He is sold as a slave. According to simple law, to Halacha, if a person steals and cannot pay, he is sold as a slave. So, the holy court announces that Rebbe Levi Yitzchak cannot pay and he has to be sold as a slave. They begin to auction off Rebbe Levi Yitzchak. They call out: “Who wants to buy Rebbe Levi Yitzchak?” There is another voice in heaven, the Ribbono Shel Olam Himself. “LeKonehavodov badin” (To the one who buys His servants with justice).Ribbono shel Olam says: “I am buying Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev.” Therefore, “Le-Rachem avodov bedin,” therefore, G-d is compassionate.

Do you know what this means? We all know some people whose scale is not so good. Imagine if I decide that before Yom Kippur, I am going to steal all your sins. You know what happens to us after that? We are becoming the disciples of G-d after that. So, in heaven, they auction us off. Who wants to buy a little Jew like you and me? Only G-d.

On Rosh Hashanah night, when you bless somebody with a good year, it’s not just like wishing someone a good Shabbos. On Rosh Hashanah night, when you bless somebody with a good year, you are telling them: “Tomorrow, I am going to steal away all your sins. I shall steal away our sins. I shall cover up for you.”

I want you to know something very deep. What was the downfall of the world? How did the downfall begin? The first person who did something wrong was our mother Eve. The Kotsker Rebbe said that he wished that one time in his life he would stand before G-d in so much holiness, on Yom Kippur, like Eve did when she stood before G-d after eating from the Tree of Knowledge. The downfall of the world was, when G-d said to Adam: “Why did you eat the fruit?” and he answered, “It is Eve’s fault.” Is this how he loved his wife? We are created in G-d’s image. Is this what you think G-d is all about? He should have said: “It’s all my fault.” He should have covered up for her.

If, G-d forbid, my child would do something wrong and someone will come and ask: “Who did that?” I will say, “I did.” When I love somebody, I cover for her.

We see the influence of the Tree of Knowledge. We are not permitted to lie. We have to tell the truth. So, when G-d asked Adam what happened, he blamed it all on Eve. He didn’t cover for his wife. He did not act like a mentsch. That’s why G-d said to him: “Get out of my Paradise.”

I want you to know, the deepest depths of Rosh Hashanah is that we cover for each other. We each say to G-d, “It’s all my fault. “Who is a Cohen Gadol (a High Priest)? If somebody killed another person, innocently without wanting to, the Cohen Gadol is responsible for it. The Gemara says, if you are a Cohen Gadol, why didn’t you pray that it shouldn’t happen?

In the Passover Haggadah, we have the four sons. One of them is wise and one is evil. The evil one is not the opposite of the wise one. No, tzadik is the opposite of evil. Why is not one of the sons called tzadik instead of wise? So, I learn peshat for myself. The wise one thinks he’s very clever — he’s a Rebbe, he’s a Rosh yeshiva. So, how come, in his neighborhood, there is a rasha, an evil man? He couldn’t even get through to him, so he’s surely not a tzadik.

Yom Kippur, we stand before G-d and say:

“I did everything wrong. Forgive me.”

On Rosh Hashanah my fixing is not that I am telling G-d my own mistakes. Rosh Hashanah, it’s the other way around. I say to G-d, “Ribbono Shel Olam, the way You created the world, the whole world should know that there is one G-d. And, I’m so afraid that if that didn’t happen yet, that it’s my entire fault.” On Rosh Hashanah, I am covering for the whole world.

There are two kinds of Torahs and two kinds of relationships in the world. There is a relationship where somebody gives me everything without my asking that person and there is something so much deeper –asking. There are some things that you cannot give without asking if the other person wants it. You cannot marry a woman unless you ask her first. The asking is so deep.

When G-d gave us the Torah, He asked us first if we want it and we answered,

“Na’ase venishma.”

We didn’t run after G-d asking, please give us the Torah. G-d didn’t ask Avraham if he wanted Eretz Israel; He said, “I am giving it to you.” So, what was missing was, we never ran after G-d begging Him for Eretz Yisrael. We had to go into exile, we had to go through all the mistakes, and we have to wait for Moshiach because He will only come when we beg for Him. Eretz Yisrael, the real Eretz Yisrael, the Moshiach Eretz Yisrael, will only be given to us when we beg for it.

There is Pesach, the getting out of Egypt when G-d didn’t ask. He just took us out. Pesach Sheni, the second Pesach, was given because the people were begging Moshe, “We lost the first Pesach. Give us Pesach Sheni.”

When people make mistakes in their relationships, if, instead of just saying, “I’m sorry”, they ask for another chance, it’s so much deeper.

There are two Torahs. There is Mount Sinai, the Torah from heaven that we learned from Moshe Rabbenu. And then, there is the Torah that we learned from Aharon HaCohen, the Torah of Yerushalayim, of Eretz Yisrael, the Torah of the Beis HaMikdash, the Torah of Teshuva. In short, there is the Torah of Moshiach ben Yosef, the tzadik who does everything right. The Torah of Teshuva, Mashiach’s Torah, is the Torah of mistakes. It is David HaMelech’s Torah. Yosef the Tzadik didn’t make any mistakes; he was holy from beginning to end. Yehuda made mistakes; he did everything wrong. Saul made one mistake and he was finished. David made many mistakes and still, David chai vekayam, David is still our king. Saul was the child of Rachel, Rachel the tzadekes. Saul was not supposed to make mistakes. David, from the beginning on was making mistakes, but, after every mistake, he said, “I’m sorry”, and ran right back to G-d.

The question is not how much you love each other when you love each other. The question is how much do you love each other when you hate each other? The question is not how much you love G-d when you love Him. The question is, how much are you running back to Him when you do something wrong?

Sometimes, I have the privilege of being with Jews who don’t keep Shabbos, but, gevalt, are they longing for Shabbos. They are not longing for the type of Shabbos that most frum people have — some chicken soup, some noodles, the Jewish Press. They are really longing for the Yom shekulo Shabbos, for the true Shabbos, the real Shabbos, which is so much deeper. The Torah, the Torah of rules, is very holy. You learn it and you do it. The Torah of mistakes reaches the deepest depths of our being.

Moshe Rabbenu is the master of Mount Sinai. Aharon HaCohen is the master of the Beis HaMikdash. Aharon is the one who made the Golden Calf. Aharon was the master of mistakes.

G-d gave us the Torah of non-mistakes. On Mount Sinai, G-d asked us if we want it, and we said yes. As for the Torah of mistakes, we have to run after G-d to get it.

As for the Eretz Yisrael which G-d gave to Avraham, we have it. It belongs to us. But, this is not the Eretz Yisrael of Mashiach.

What is the holiness of a house? What is the difference if I live by somebody else or if I live in my own house? When I live with somebody else, if I knock on the door at four in the morning and I am drunk or I’m dirty, they might not let me in. My house is the place where I can go after all the mistakes. I can always get in.

Today, when so many young people are doing teshuva, we cannot ask them, “Why were you following that guru, why did you go to the Moonies?” Teshuva means that they are coming home. We cannot ask them anything. They are just coming back home. They must come home and we must be so glad they are back. We do not say a word.

The downfall of the world was caused by two things. The first is that Chava ate, and gave Adam to eat, the forbidden fruit. But, we were not driven out from Paradise at that moment. We were driven out when G-d asked Adam and Chava, “What’s going on here.” Chava should have jumped up and said, “I’m sorry. It was all my fault.” And Adam should have said, “I’m sorry. It was my entire fault. I should have told her better.”

What is the first sign of people loving each other? That they cover for each other. A house is a cover. Loving somebody is a cover. The beginning of a chupah, of a marriage, is that the husband covers the face of the bride. He is telling her, I won’t be like Adam who said, “Chava did it.” I’ll cover for you.

What did Aharon do when he walked into the Holy of Holies? He would say, “Ribbono Shel Olam, it’s all my fault.” Aharon is the Anan haKaovd, the cloud. On Yom Kippur Aharon says, “It’s all my fault.”

The Succah covers every Jew and every Jew says, “It’s all my fault.” On Simchat Torah, we dance with the Torah when it’s covered. The Torah covers for us. Until Simchat Torah, I open the covers Torah and I feel guilty. The Torah makes us feel guilty. On Simchat Torah, the Torah covers us. We don’t kiss the Torah, we only kiss the cover. We only kiss what covers for us.

Children dance the most on Simchat Torah. Parents are covering for their children. When babies are born, we cover them. When a baby is born, the mother doesn’t go to the Temple for one week or two weeks. Why? The mother is saying to her baby, “I shall cover for you. I am already not going to the Temple for a while. I am already covering what you will do wrong in your life.”

First of all, we ate from the Tree of Knowledge. That is not the tree of mistakes. According to the Tree of Knowledge, there is no such thing as covering for someone. If somebody did something wrong, let them fix it themselves.

Why is lashon hara such a sin? According to the Tree of Knowledge, lashon hara is not a sin. If you saw somebody do something, why not tell? You’re telling the truth. The moment Adam and Chava ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they didn’t cover for each other.

Why is the Temple the deepest fixing? Because Aharon HaCohen is coming again.

We have Gemara on almost everything. But, we have no masechta for loving each other, none for doing teshuva. Why not? Because this is the Torah of Moshiach, the Torah of the third Temple, the Torah of Aharon, of covering for each other.

How does Aharon cure the one who speaks lashon hara? Aharon comes and says, “Ribbono Shel Olam. It’s all my fault.” The person who speaks lashon hara can only be cured when it is clear to him that there is only one way to live in that world — to cover for each other.

The husband covers the bride’s face. The kallah gives him back a tallis. He covers her eyes, but she gives him back a tallis which covers all of him. A tallis covers until techivat hamaytim, until the dead will rise. When Yehuda left Tamar, he left with her a sign. The Zohar says that he left her with tallis and tefillin. Tefillin is the cover. Tallis is the ultimate covering. This was the beginning of bringing Moshiach. She was saying you have to cover for me. Everybody knows Boaz was the neshama of Yehuda and Ruth was the neshama of Tamar. When Ruth said, “And you will spread your wings over your servant”, she brought back the tallis which Yehuda gave to Tamar and she said, “Now, put it over me.” I wish every one of us a Good Year, a year in which we shall all cover for each other and we shall all be forgiven.

We are all capable of thinking and feeling and praying this way

it's just that when a muscle is not used it becomes dries up and needs to be rehabilitated to work again-but with the work-it can become very healthy once again

Prayer of a Loving Spouse
by Cindy Tuttle

This is a prayer a spouse might say to another spouse who is in pain.




I hear your cry

and I weep with you

What words can I say?

How can I show you my love?

You are the light that

gives the world love

You are the sunset which

brings new life

You are the image of God

You are in my heart and soul

If I could take away your pain

I would gladly give all for you

What I can do is hold you

in my arms and together we

will get through this storm of life

The Power of Words


by Lew Duffey


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Words come in different sizes from short to long
Lyrics put to music make up the verse of a song
The letter ‘I’ when used alone is one complete word
“I” means the person responsible making a promise to you is me
Promise is another word some people use too frivolously
For instance if I sell you a product it comes with a guarantee
You may find yourself asking, “And what does this mean to me?”
A promise is assurance of what is too be
People use words as a way of communication
They come as expressions, discussions and even declarations
But these words should be wrought with restraint and consideration
For within them is a power to be a source of joy or depression
Take time, my friend before you speak and voice not from aggravation
Guard your thoughts for they too easily become words
Words can clearly cause pain to those who have heard
Be careful that your assertions are not prompted by feelings of duress
Kind words build bonds of friendship while angry words create animosities
Words of anger will intensify a quarrel while kind words will appease

something to think about on Rosh Hashana

we look for the spark of beauty in others ,God in turn will look for ours,and He will allow it to shine forth in the upcoming blessed year,with mercy and kindness to all of Klall Yisroel


Beauty Deep Inside
by Suzie Palmer


Invisible to some
But not to others
Appearances change
As one discovers

What we see
Comes from ourselves
The way we view
Our interpretations tell

Beauty comes from deep inside
The beholder’s eye is where beauty shines
It’s how we see that truly matters
Rise above life that flatters

Look around
Absorb each other
Take the time to see another
Reach in deep
Find the light
Beauty shining clear and bright

stories about Rav Kook from ravkook.net

have a wonderful Shabbos


The Background Of Rav Kook
compiled by Prof. Chaim Lifschitz

        R. Avraham, Commentator on the Zohar

Rav Avraham, Rav Kook's mother's father's father, was a student of R. Eliyahu of Vilna (whom he referred to as "the Gaon"). He officiated as the rabbi of Sivitz and Pril, and was accomplished in both the revealed and Kabbalistic teachings.

He left behind five volumes of notes on the Zohar (in manuscript), one part of which points out comparisons and parallels between the Zohar and other works of the sages. These notes were given by R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook (son of Rav Kook) to R. Reuven Margaliot, who published them in an edition of the Zohar entitled Zahiruta D'Avraham (The Radiance of Abraham).
heard from R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook

        Acting Kindly

One wintry night, when R. Avraham was the rabbi of Pril, he entered a guest-house near his home in order to warm himself by the oven and review by heart the commentary of R. Yitzchak Alfasi (the Rif) on Seder Moed, which he was then learning.

A wagon driver came to the guest house, with his horses. It was a wild night, and outside a snow storm raged. The wagon driver was tired, worn out and frozen, and it was hard for him to go over to the well, which was at some distance, to fetch water for his horses.

When he saw R. Avraham sitting next to the oven, he thought that R. Avraham was a simple person. He asked R. Avraham to go water his horses, for which he would pay him a kopek.

R. Avraham wanted to do the wagon driver a kindness and to keep the horses from suffering. So he immediately went out and gave them water.

The next day, when the wagon driver learned that the city rabbi had given his horses water, he quickly went to his house to ask his pardon.

But R. Avraham answered him simply, "Why do you have to apologize? You already paid me in full for my trouble."
Toldot Yeshivat Hayihudim B'Korland, p. 54, note 11; cited also in Toldot Harayah by R. Maimon

        Do Not Delay Payment

Once, when a shoemaker brought R. Avraham his repaired shoes, R. Avraham did not have the money to pay him and so he did not want to take the shoes, because one is not allowed to delay payment.

The shoemaker told him that he is not so exacting. Still, R. Avraham did not want to take the shoes. Even though it is permissible to delay payment if the worker does not mind, the Zohar counsels one to be strict in this matter.
from R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook, and cited also in Toldot Harayah

        Four Minyanim Long

R. Avraham's son, R. Rafael (who was Rav Kook's mother's father) was a Chabad (Lubavitch) Hasid.

He was known for his piety, and he was very close to the Tzemach Tzedek (who was the grandson of the founder of Chabad, the Baal Hatanya).

R. Rafael used to recite his prayers slowly, and had a reputation as one who serves God. It was said that his prayer took as long as the prayers of the four prayer groups that met in the synagogue, one after the other. He would begin his prayers with the first minyan, and conclude with the last.
from R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook, citing his uncle, Rav Dovid Hacohen Kook

        The Great Servant of God

Rav Kook's father was R. Shlomo Zalman.

R. Shlomo Zalman's mother's father (i.e., Rav Kook's great-grandfather) was R. Dov Ber Jaffe, a descendant of R. Mordechai Jaffe, author of the Levush, who traced his lineage back to King David.

R. Dov Jaffe was one of the original group that learned in the Volozhin yeshiva, all of whom were outstanding students of R. Chaim of Volozhin. He was known as R. Ber Karlitzer (after his home town), as well as R. Ber Turtzer (after the town where he held his first rabbinical position).
R. Ber's heartfelt prayer was remarkable. Wonderful things were told in Lithuania of his prayers. R. Chaim of Volozhin said of him, "I taught R. Ber how to pray."
Toldot Harayah; Pirkei Volozhin by R. Moshe Tzvi Neriah

        Slow Prayers

R. Ber was known to pray slowly, with great concentration. It is told that one time he went traveling with a wagon driver. When the sun set, they stopped at an inn and recited the evening prayers. As R. Ber began Shmoneh Esrai, the wagon driver (who had already finished his prayers) left him and went to sleep. It was a long, winter's night. When the wagon driver awoke before dawn, he found R. Ber still engaged in Shmoneh Esrai.

It is also told that when R. Ber was in his town of Utian, a resident entered his home to ask him a halachic question. R. Ber's wife told him, "The rabbi is reciting birkat hamazon (the blessing after the meal)."

"Where is he up to?" asked the man.

"'Harachaman,'" R. Ber's wife answered him-[near the end of birkat hamazon].

"In that case," said the man, "I can leave and come back in a little while."
from R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook
Shivchei Harayah

        The Violinist

R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook writes:

My father and teacher, the rav (of blessed memory) said:
When the father of a.z. ?? the gaon R. Dov, the father of the gaon R. Mordechai Gimpel Yaffe of blessed memory was asked why he wiped his nose with his handkerchief in the midst of his prayers, he replied, "When a violinist is playing music, if there is something wrong with a string, he does not stop playing. He rubs oil on it right away and continues playing without interruption."
Olat Rayah II p. 434

        An Interruption Out of Burning Enthusiasm is Not an Interruption

R. Dov Ber used to recite the Sh'ma with great feeling, having in mind the meditative formulae of the Ari.

When he reached the words "with all your soul," he would add the sages' comment, "even if He will take your soul." And after "with all your might," he would add their explanation: "whatever God metes out to you."

Rav Kook (who was the grandson of the daughter of R. Ber) defended this interruption of prayer out of passionate feeling. In a special ? responsum, he stated that interruption of prayer out of such ardor is not considered an interruption. And he brought a proof from the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva.

The Talmud tells that "when Rabbi Akiva was put to death [by the Romans], it was time for reciting the Sh'ma. At that time, his flesh was being raked with a metal comb. He accepted upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of heaven [by reciting the Sh'ma]. His students said to him, 'Our teacher-to such a degree?' He replied to them, 'For my entire life, I worried about when I would be able to [love God] "with all your soul." Now that I am able to, should I not do so?' He stretched out the word Echad-One-until his soul left with the word 'One'" (Berachot 61b).
Here we see that in the middle of reciting the Sh'ma and accepting the yoke of the kingdom of heaven with such extraordinary righteousness and self-sacrifice, R. Akiva interrupted himself in order to teach his students the greatness of self-sacrifice.

And Rav Kook cited this as proof that interruption [of prayer] out of ardor is not considered an interruption.
heard from R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook

        To Accompany the Soul with Joy

On Rav Kook's father's side and on his mother's side as well there were a number of shifts: from mitnaged to a Hasid, and vice versa.

R. Yitzchak Hacohen Maggid was Rav Kook's father's father's father. He was a notable and well-off Torah scholar who, against his family's wishes, became one of the Baal Shem Tov's first Hasidism (when his mother heard of this, she fainted). And he remained a Hasid for the rest of his life.

Soon before he passed away, when many people were crowded around his bed, R. Yitzchak saw that they were sad. He rebuked them, "You have to be happy! 'She laughs at the final day!'" (Proverbs 31:25).

He told his family to bring gold and silver candle sticks and to light candles as though it were a holiday. And he also ordered that musicians be brought, and that they should play music "in order to accompany the soul with joy."

And in this way, in the midst of Hasidic ardor and joy, his soul left in purity.
heard from R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook
Shivchei Harayah

        R. Nachum Hacohen Kook

The son of R. Yitzchak, R. Nachum Hacohen Kook, was known as a mitnaged.
R. Nachum was great in Torah, although he did not hold a rabbinical post. Instead, he supported himself as a businessman.

He lived in the city of R'zhitza. The city rabbi, R. Yitzchak, who was one of the greatest scholars of the generation, used to consult him in halachic matters. R. Nachum spent much time away from home on business, and many times R. Yitzchak would wait for him to return before adjudicating a halachic dispute between two people.
heard from R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook

        The Help of Heaven

In his youth, R. Nachum learned in the Volozhin Yeshiva. (At that time, that the rosh yeshiva was R. Itzele.)

R. Nachum had married at any early age, but that marriage had ended in divorce, and so he returned to the Yeshiva of Volozhin. He learned with great diligence, morning and evening.

At that time, the yeshiva did not yet have gas lighting, so at night the students used to learn by candle light. On Friday nights they would learn by heart in the dark.

One Sabbath, R. Dov Ber Yaffe, rabbi of Utian, who in his youth had been one of the first students of the Volozhin Yeshiva, happened to be visiting Volozhin. On Friday night, he entered the yeshiva as R. Nachum sat learning in the dark with his fellow-students.

When R. Dov Bear Yaffe heard the sweet voice of R. Nachum's learning, he was very much impressed. He stood up and walked over in the direction of the voice. Reaching R. Nachum, R. Dov Ber put his hand out in the dark and touched his face. When he felt that R. Nachum's beard had barely begun to grow, R. Dov Ber realized that he was quite young.

Immediately, R. Dov Ber asked him, "Are you unmarried?"

R. Nachum replied, "Yes."

R. Dov Ber said to him, "I am the rabbi of Utian. Would you like to marry my daughter?"

R. Nachum replied, "Yes." And so the match was made.

R. Nachum married Freida-Basya, the daughter of R. Dov Ber, the sister of the gaon R. Mordechai Gimpel Yaffe.

When R. Nachum would tell this story, he would add, "What divine providence was at work to make my father-in-law ask me if I am unmarried! If he had asked me [using the more usual phrase] whether I am a basher, someone who has not yet married, I would have had to answer, 'No.'"
told in the name of Rav Kook in Pirkei Volozhin by R. Moshe-Tzvi Neriah

        The House of R. Shlomo-Zalman Hacohen Kook

R. Shlomo-Zalman Hacohen Kook was the son of R. Nachum Hacohen Kook and Freida Basya (the daughter of R. Dov Ber Yaffe).

R. Shlomo Zalman married Pere-Zlata, daughter of R. Rafael of the town of Griva, which is close to Dvinsk. Dvinsk was a part of Courland, at that time a part of tsarist Russia. They were so poor that he married his wife not with a ring but with a small coin called a zekser.

They had five sons. The oldest was Avraham Yitzchak. After him were born Dov Ber, Chaim, Shaul Chana, and Shmuel; and two daughters: Ruchama (she married R. Yosef Rebbe); and Freida (she married R. Yonah Mirkin).

        "See What is Before Us"

In his youth, R. Shlomo Zalman learned in the Volozhin Yeshiva.

Afterwards, he maintained close ties with the yeshiva, and from time to time he would travel on its behalf raising money, as far as the Caucasian Mountains.

His son, Rav Kook, used to tell how it came about that his father became a money raiser for the yeshiva, traveling as far as the Caucasus and Middle Asia in Russia.

R. Shlomo Zalman grew very poor, until there was barely any food in the house. When his son, R. Avraham Yitzchak, was about to leave home to learn Torah in the famous Volozhin Yeshiva, R. Avraham Yitzchak promised his father that he would ask the Rosh Yeshiva, the Netziv (R. Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin), for advice.

When he came to Volozhin, R. Avraham Yitzchak immediately went to the Netziv and told him about his father's poverty. The rosh yeshiva was very sorry, but he didn't know what he could do for him.

As they were sitting, a Jew entered the room, dressed strangely and with unusual features. He introduced himself as a Jew from Georgia, in the state of Caucus. It became clear from his words that the reputation of the holy yeshiva had reached his land. He asked the Netziv, "Rabbi, why do you not honor us by sending a shadar-someone to raise money-on behalf of the holy yeshiva?"

When the Netziv heard these words, he looked at his student, who had been present throughout this talk, and said, Chazi mai d'kaman-See what is before us." In other words: God's Divine providence has sent this man at precisely this time.

And so R. Shlomo Zalman Hacohen Kook became a fund-raiser for the Volozhin Yeshiva in Caucus and Middle Asia in Russia.
heard from R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook
Shivchei Harayah

What Rabbi Kook Was

People speak and write without end about what Rav Kook was. But no matter how much they write and speak, no one can reveal what he was, because he transcended anything that one could say of him.
Rabbi Dovid Hacohen (the Nazir), Likutei Harayah, p. 17

A Good Jew
by Rabbi Yisrael Porat

Usually, a person who has become famous is treated with awe and respect by those who are far from him and have an exaggerated idea about him. But when they come to know him better, their impression diminishes. They see many things that are understandable and not so wondrous. Everyone has weaknesses and failings.

But Rav Kook was different. The more you stood in his presence, the more you saw how he conducted himself, the more you heard him speak, the more did he rise beyond your comprehension. You came to honor and respect him, to roll in the dust of his feet. Before you, you saw the immense phenomenon of a giant, a man with a mind that was encompassing and penetrating, a "good Jew" [a tzaddik] in the full meaning of the word, and a man in his full stature.
Likutei Harayah, p. 17

A Visionary
by Prof. S. H. Bergman

Rav Kook was a great visionary. In his mind's eye, he saw many things that we cannot. But he did not know how to control the flow of his visions and to arrange them in accordance with an ordered philosophical system.

Nevertheless, each of his small essays is filled with lightning flashes, and from that viewpoint it surpasses methodical presentations. This drawback of methodology and order is a great stumbling block to those who try to explain his thoughts to others. But this does not detract from the great wealth of his visions."
Likutei Harayah, p. 40

Not Because I Have the Strength

Rav Kook once wrote, "I write not because I have the strength to write, but because I do not have the strength to remain silent."
Likutei Harayah, p. 43

The Rabbi of the Era
by Rabbi Alter Yaakov Shachrai

The acute writer, Rabbi Alter Yaakov Shachrai wrote regarding Rav Kook's unique post as chief rabbi of the entire land of Israel. This was in 5685 (1924), when Rav Kook returned from his trip to the United States, which had made such a great impression. This article was printed in Ha'aretz:

"Rav Kook is the rabbi of all of the land of Israel-not because the committee of rabbis and representatives of the communities from Dan to Be'er Sheva appointed him as head of the rabbis. He is the natural rabbi of the land of Israel because in our generation, there is no one amongst all the rabbis of Israel as fit as he for that post. Therefore this merit is his alone.

"The people of Israel are not orphaned of great rabbis, pure of heart and of elevated character. But the land of Israel has found its rabbi, its spiritual leader and religious teacher, only in Rav Kook.

"He is the rabbi of the era. Whoever has seen Rav Kook stand on stage and speak with grandeur, whoever has read his works and seen the lights and illuminations flashing and rising from the lines must realize that here the generation's spiritual and religious leader speaks to it, that here the prophet of the spiritual and religious renewal speaks to it."
Chayei Harayah, p. 162

A Gushing Wellspring
by Rabbi Eliezer Cohen

Rabbi Eliezer Cohen of Jerusalem told me:

From the time that I was quite young, I always ran to hear the talks of Rav Kook. Even then, I felt that he is like a gushing wellspring, and I realized that he did not say anything that he had prepared ahead of time, but that his words were new even as he spoke.

Once he spoke in Yeshiva Eitz Chaim, juxtaposing many statements of Rabbi Meir from in the Talmud. The great scholars there were astonished at his amazing memory and breadth of thought.

"In this great man of Israel were combined abilities that usually do not appear together: his memory was extraordinary. On his lips were not only the Bible and Talmud, but also the language of the Zohar, of Rambam, and so forth. And with that, he was also a well of original ideas. When his wellspring began to flow, it was difficult for him to interrupt it. Whoever touched upon any halachic or aggadic statement, in revealed or mystic teachings, or in ethical teachings, his wellspring began to pour forth almost without constraint. The current of his thoughts flowed without limit. Even more astonishing, all his talks and speeches, whether in intricate Talmudic discussions, whether ethical talks and ideas, were given without preparation. He once wrote, 'I write not because I have the strength to write, but because I do not have the strength to remain silent.' We saw that he would interrupt his words and his writing not because he had no more to say and to write, but because that he had to at last stop"
Rabbi Y. M. Tukatzinsky, Shaarei Zion, Sivan-Elul 5696 (1936)
Likutei Harayah, p. 43

More Thought

The poet Uri Tzvi Greenberg once told Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neriah: "One section of Rav Kook's Orot Hakodesh contains more thought than entire books written by non-Jewish thinkers."
Malachim Kivnei Adam, p. 373

A Voice Coming from Heaven
by Professor Haim Lifshitz

Rabbi Dov Ber, one of the early students at Merkaz Harav, told the following:

"I was a boy when I first came to Merkaz Harav. But the image of Rav Kook has never left me, from then until this day. Rav Kook used to teach in the yeshiva in a loud voice. Every word that he pronounced was clear and distinct, as though you were listening to a voice coming from heaven. I felt in my heart as though I understand everything that I heard from his mouth, in halachah and in philosophy.

"And Rav Kook's ability to explain was extraordinary. The moment he looked at you and opened his mouth, you felt as if you were standing before the ultimate truth, and that you were hearing Torah from Mt. Sinai. His words were joyous, and they made the heart rejoice.

"Today, when you read Rav Kook's writings, it is hard to understand the difficult style. You have to read the words through twice and three times, in order to understand their meaning. And not everyone can understand what he reads.

"But then it was different. Rav Kook would pour forth ideas, thoughts and words. His only desire was to give: to give of his wealth, of himself and of his being, to impart to others from who he was."
Shivchei Harayah, p. 175

The Letter of a Young Idealist
by Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah Kook

Rav Kook's only son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah, sent the author Yosef Chaim Brenner his father's work, Ikvei Hatzoan, accompanied by a letter in which he explained his father's teachings and attitude to the Zionist aliyah and the religious old guard of Jerusalem. The letter was sent in 1907. Brenner was living in London, and employed as editor of Hameorer. Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah was at the time only seventeen years old.

I request that you not only read this book but study it deeply and respectfully. Superficiality is harmful to understanding the intent of words of deep wisdom. When you read it over and over again, I believe that you will gain new insights and even new ways of viewing the world. I am sending you this book not to sell it or because the author is my father and I love my father's ideals and wish to see them publicized. Rather, I send it to you as a member of our young generation, one of the idealists who sends a sweet gift to someone who I have heard of as someone like me and close to my spirit.

In explanation of the book, let me tell you that my father is one of the most pious rabbis. Besides being a genius in Torah, he is also a tzaddik. Nevertheless, at the same time he is a philosopher whose thought tolerates no obstacles whatsoever. He has deeply investigated and studied the teachings of the non-Jewish philosophers, penetrated the foundations of our Torah and come to the inner chambers of the kabbalah.

With a torn and upset heart, he has seen and understood how his nation, which he loves so deeply, is broken and torn to shreds. And he has come to recognize the source of these evils as a lack of recognition of Jews for each other, of their distance from each other, their inability to truly appreciate each other's gifts and ideals. The elders of Judaism have been identified with a hatred of life, with laziness, and other such traits. On the other hand, the elderly view those who seek enlightenment, wisdom and animated yearnings as synonymous with heresy, apostasy and a contempt for the holy....

The breaches that this have caused have broadened to such a degree that our situation today is worse than it has ever been.

Three years ago, my father came to the land of Israel and saw the full ugliness of this breach. He decided to mount the community podium and work for the good of his people with all his strength. With his eloquent pen, he publishes his thoughts in many forums, and with his articulate speech, he communicates with those who are fit.

Despite his many obstacles-in particular, from the older generation-he has already accomplished much. For instance, he has set up a vocational center in the Talmud Torah here in Jaffa, in order to teach the students crafts. Whoever lives here knows how great a step that is.
Young individuals have answered his call here and outside the land. His influence of the new generation, which recognizes his unique worth, has been great. He stands as the touchstone between the two sides, bringing forth the good in each, and seeking to bring them together and to make them recognize each other as brothers. Most of all, he wishes Judaism, its character and its details to be understood.
Malachim Kivnei Adam

How Rav Kook Relaxed
by Rav Moshe Tzvi Neriah

Rav Kook once explained:

When the philosopher Kant wanted to relax from his philosophical investigations, he studied geography. He would say, "Since I am a man of abstractions, I relax and renew my energy when I study concrete things, such as mountains, rivers, cities, towns, and so forth."

I am like that too. By nature, I am a man of thought and feeling. When I need to relax, I learn halachah, and then I feel that my feet are standing on solid ground.
Likutei Harayah, p. 427

How Rav Kook Read the Newspaper
by Rav Moshe Tzvi Neriah

I never saw Rav Kook sitting and reading a newspaper. Every morning, after prayers, on his way from the beis medrash to his room, while he was still in tefillin and tallis, he would stop at the window opposite the door of his little room, where the newspaper, Doar Hayom, was placed regularly (and into which we too would peek while Rav Kook was giving his lesson in mishnah to the laymen's minyan).

Rav Kook would pick up the paper and quickly scan the outside pages-and at times the inner pages as well. At most, he devoted a few minutes to this. In this way he completed his daily newspaper reading.

[It goes without saying that the newspaper of Rav Kook's time had no immodest illustrations and no degraded, sensationalist articles.]

Only once did I see him read the paper with gravity, sitting down. This was a special edition of Doar Hayom presenting the White Paper of Lord Passfield, which gave the deathblow to the Balfour Resolution [which had presented the British government's support of a Jewish state].
This edition appeared in the evening. When Rav Kook's son, Rav Tzvi Yehudah, saw it on his way home from the yeshiva, he brought it immediately to his father. Rav Kook read the words carefully, and immediately upon finishing composed a sharp response, an inspiring proclamation, a powerful statement to the nation: "my great people, the nation of the living God and eternal King." It was sent to the printer that evening. The next day, even before the responses of the national organizations were published, Rav Kook's statement had already appeared in Jerusalem on the poster boards.

In this way, Rav Kook strengthened the depressed spirits upon whom the White Paper had descended like a shock.
Likutei Harayah, pp. 428-29

In the months of Rav Kook's final illness, when he was offered him a newspaper, he refused to look at it.

He said: "In essence, I have no connection to ephemeral events, but I am given over to deep thoughts of eternal life. However, my position and responsibility obligated me to keep up with events and to know what was happening. But in my present situation, I am free from this, and I can devote this time to learning Torah."
Likutei Harayah, p. 429

The Stature of Rav Kook
by Rabbi Gedaliah Aharon Koenig

I heard my father, Rabbi Eliezer Mordechai, praise Rav Kook a great deal and speak of his genius and piety, from the time that I was young until I became father to my first-born daughter.
And with my own eyes, I saw him protest against any insult to Rav Kook. With my own ears, I heard him cry out with all his strength in his old age, out of a true pain in his heart, against the abuse of Rav Kook's opponents.

This was the story:

In the summer of 5692 (1931), my brother, the first-born of my mother, Rabbi Yosef Hillel, was engaged to the daughter of Rabbi Tzvi Blau, the brother of Rabbi Moshe Blau.

About two weeks before the wedding, a few young men from the bride's family came to visit my father. He welcomed them graciously. It was his custom to receive everyone who came to his house and offer food and drink-and these were the bride's relatives. He assumed that they had come on some errand from her parents regarding the wedding plans.

But they began speaking sharply. They told my father, "We have heard that you visit the house of Rav Kook. We are informing you that if you do not break your connection with him, we will call off the wedding."

When he heard this, my father was shocked. He didn't argue with them at all. Instead, he immediately got up from his chair and shouted at them: "Low-lifes! Whom are you talking about? Such a holy man of Israel!" He lifted the chair as though he were about to throw it at them, and forced them out of his house.

The men began to apologize that they hadn't meant to upset him. But my father stood firm: "My own pain I forgive you. But when you speak against a man who is so noble, who is head and shoulders above everyone else-that I do not have the authority to forgive. And I no longer want to see your faces." And he closed the door and left them outside until they left.
It later became clear that those men had acted of their own accord, without speaking to the in-laws....

I also heard from my maternal grandfather, Rav Shmuel Yaakov, that when he once went to a pidyon haben with a friend, he was astonished to see Rav Kook and Rav Chaim Sonnenfeld [who were ideological opponents] sitting together at the head of the table.

My grandfather was even more astonished when Rav Kook led the grace after meals. He held a goblet of wine. When a few drops spilled from his hands, Rav Sonnenfeld placed his hands under Rav Kook's hands to receive those drops, and he licked them repeatedly.

My grandfather told me that from that time forward, he never believed any slander against Rav Kook. When he told me that story, I was young. The story is so deeply engraved in my mind that I cannot forget it. It sometimes seems to me that I myself saw the incident.

This is what I know from my parents regarding the sanctity and truthfulness of Rav Kook.

I understood this matter more when I grew up and came close to the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, "a river flowing from the wellspring of wisdom." I saw how the Evil One incites dissension in Israel, particularly amongst the wise and righteous of the generation. I saw how important it is to disbelieve any slander that is spoken about any unique one among them....
(Rabbi Koenig was one of the most respected leaders of Breslov Hasidism of the previous generation)
Likutei Harayah, pp. 161-63

R. Nachman Of Breslov And Rav Kook
by Moshe Tzvi Neriah

In his journal, the Nazir wrote the following.

From a conversation that I had with Rav Kook regarding the Jewish mystical spirit:

There is a natural holy inspiration (ruach hakodesh), and a divine holy inspiration, the latter being is singular and unique to Israel-"and I and Your people shall be separate" (Exodus 13:16). And it is necessary to clarify and define in detail the differences between the two.
This is the depth of the secret of the Rambam's words in his Guide to the Perplexed that after one preparations for prophecy as much as one can, it depends on God's will. That is to say: true prophecy is not natural, but divine and singular. It is not dependent upon nor acquired through techniques that reveal the flow of prophecy.

Rav Kook also spoke to me about the works of R. Nachman of Breslov and R. Nosson his student. In my heart I rejoiced, for what he said confirmed my opinion regarding R. Nachman's approach: that everything [including the secrets of the Torah], should be presented in an accessible manner.

This was the reason for the opposition of the Grandfather of Shpole. And this approach is similar to that of Rav Kook's: that the hidden should be made accessible.
Likutei Harayah

"I Am The Soul Of Reb Nachman"

In regard to the influence of Hasidism on Rav Kook, the author and thinker R. Hillel Zeitlin, writes, "It is clear to me that Rav Kook based himself not only on the works of Chabad but also on the Kedushas Levi, the writings of R. Mordechai Yosef of Izbitz and his son (Mei Hashiloach and Beis Yaacov) and the works of the Cohen of Lublin-but most of all, on Likutei Moharan, and the other works of the great seer of Breslov" (R. Hillel Zeitlin, Hatzofeh, eve of Rosh Hashanah 5699).

And we have added testimony regarding Rav Kook's connection with Breslov Hasidism from R. Yisrael Porat: "According to what [Rav Kook] told me personally...his heart was drawn to the ways of service of Hasidism, and in particular he was devoted to the mysterious teachings of R. Nachman of Breslov. He read and reviewed his works and talks a great deal, and studied his ideas" (R. Yisrael Porat).

I was told by Rabbi Shmuel Horowitz of Meron that he had heard from R. Meir Anshin, an elder Breslover who had lived for a while in Jaffa, where he would often visit the home of Rav Kook, that R. Nosson of Nemirov's Likutei Tefilos (based on the teachings of Likutei Moharan) was on the shelf of R. Kook's prayer stand, and he would occasionally look into it.

And a Breslover of Jerusalem, R. Yechiel Greenwald, told me that Rav Kook once said: "Ani nishmas Rebbe Nachman" ("I am the soul of R. Nachman").
Chayei Harayah, pp. 171-72

Great Study
by Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neriah

As a result of Rav Kook's connection to the teachings of Breslov and his close relations with Breslovers, when his only son, R. Tzvi Yehudah, went to learn from R. Epstein in Yeshivas Toras Chaim in Jerusalem, the Breslover Hasidim of Jerusalem befriended him and tried to draw him into their circle and way of service (hisbodedus meditation, midnight tikun chatzos, immersion in the mikveh, and so forth). R. Tzvi Yehudah decided to ask his father for guidance, and his father's response was not long in coming. This response contained a certain measure of reserve (for that which is fit for adults is not appropriate for youngsters who are still maturing). And here is part of his reply.

"The inner quality of this man, [R. Nachman,] requires great study. For this, however, one needs a healthy heart and a healthy spirit, a path of good hygiene (both psychological and physical) and a fitting and straight connection to other studies-both those that support and those that disagree with [Breslov's] points of view. In that way, matters will be properly illuminated."

Despite this expression of reserve and the [expressed] need for an appropriate critical approach, Rav Kook had great appreciation for R. Nachman's person and the teachings of Breslov.

When Yeshiva Chasidei Breslov was founded in Jerusalem, Rav Kook sent a letter (dated Thursday, Adar I 5692) of congratulations to the rabbis "who founded a yeshiva in which will be learned, together with other topics of Torah and piety, the wondrous works of the rabbi, the holy gaon, unique in his uplifted thoughts, Moharan of Breslov."
Chayei Harayah, pp. 171-72

Straw
by Simcha Raz

When Rav Kook became chief rabbi of Jerusalem, members of the extremist circles rose against him and harassed him. But Rav Kook was, in the words of the sages, like those "who are insulted but do not insult, who hear themselves reviled but do not respond."

Once, his enemies were especially provocative and insulted him publicly. The city was in an uproar. But Rav Kook, as usual, overlooked the insult and remained silent.

"Rabbi," those close to him asked, "to such a degree?"

Rav Kook responded, "I will tell you that in my heart, I know that I am not fit for the rabbinate of Jerusalem. Who am I to sit upon the rabbinical chair in the holy city, most of whose inhabitants are wise men and scholars, the masters of the generation and the pious of the world?

"I am like a man who puts on shoes that are too big. What does he do? He stuffs them with straw. And thank God, here in Jerusalem we have a good deal of straw. And by its nature, straw is prickly...."
Malachim Kivnei Adam, p. 201-02

What Is Money?
by Prof. Ch. Lifschitz

The company Carmel Mizrachi had a dispute with another corporation, which was using its logo-a picture of the two biblical spies holding a cluster of grapes ("and two people carried it on a yoke")-thus misleading customers and causing Carmel Mizrachi great financial damage. Carmel Mizrachi summoned the other company to court (din Torah), headed by Rav Kook, with a large claim for damages.

The court case lasted for more than a week, almost every morning of which the two sides engaged in dispute that was recorded by the court reporters.

One day, Rav Kook, saying that he had things to think about, got up and left the room.

At three in the afternoon, Rav Kook came home for lunch and told his family, "I had to give a judgment. And in order to come to a correct decision, I had to understand the people on both two sides and their feelings in regard to money. I had to go out by myself in order to put myself in a state of mind of desiring money. So I left the room in order to think about money: What is it? Why is it necessary? What is this desire for money?"
Shivchei Harayah, pp. 109-10

In London

During his stay in London, during Shalosh Seudot, Rav Kook was surrounded by people far from Judaism and of various types, who didn't understand a word he said, but who were nevertheless influence by the light that came from him, that entranced them for this period of time. They sang as well as they could, even though they barely knew one Jewish word and even had trouble praying in English, and admitted that until then they had never even seen a Jew from Eastern Europe.

Followers

Rabbi Charlop quoted Rabbi Kook as saying:

If I wanted, I would attract certain circles to me, who would be my followers, involved in spreading my teachings and thoughts. But I do not want this, narrow groups. I want to be connected to everyone. I do not want to be separated from anyone.
Moadei Harayah, p. 170

A Good Inclination
by Simcha Raz

Dr. Folk Schlessinger was Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook's physician in his last days.
Close to the last Tisha B'Av of Rav Kook's life, when he was very ill, he consulted Dr. Schlessinger about fasting on Tisha B'Av. Rav Kook told him, "My evil inclination is telling me to fast, while my good inclination is telling me not to fast."
Malachim Kivnei Adam

Every Tree
as told to Chaim Lipschitz by R. Shmuel Hacohen Kook

One time Rav Kook went for a walk with his brother, R. Shmuel. They sat down to rest under a non-fruit-bearing tree, and R. Shmuel plucked a leaf.

Rav Kook was taken aback and told him, "What did you do? Everything planted in the ground has value. What is planted today gives life to the earth. We have the four species that we take on Succos-chag ha'asif, the harvest festival. They represent the gifts of the earth. And the reason that one of them is a willow is to teach us that even a non-fruit-bearing tree has value."
Shivchei Harayah

Writing A Book

One time, Rav Kook went to a circumcision together with his close friend, the gaon, Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer. As they walked, they spoke of their rabbi, the Netziv of Volozhin.

At that time, Rav Kook said, "There is no comparison between one who writes a book after years of learning and one who does so before this. And there is no comparison between one who writes a book after many years and one who does so in his youth."
Shivchei Harayah, p. 202

taking this article to heart will help yidin here listen to each other in a way that will really help,and can also enrich a marriage in a very deep way

Brenda Ueland

The art of listening


It is through this creative process
that we at once love and are loved



I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don't listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all - which is so important, too - to those we do not love. But we should. Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. Think how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like ultraviolet rays.

This is the reason: When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life. You know how if a person laughs at your jokes you become funnier and funnier, and if he does not, every tiny little joke in you weakens up and dies. Well, that is the principle of it. It makes people happy and free when they are listened to. And if you are a listener, it is the secret of having a good time in society (because everybody around you becomes lively and interesting), of comforting people, of doing them good.

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Who are the people, for example, to whom you go for advice?
Not to the hard, practical ones who can tell you exactly
what to do, but to the listeners; that is, the kindest,
least censorious, least bossy people you know.

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Who are the people, for example, to whom you go for advice? Not to the hard, practical ones who can tell you exactly what to do, but to the listeners; that is, the kindest, least censorious, least bossy people you know. It is because by pouring out your problem to them, you then know what to do about it yourself.

When we listen to people there is an alternating current that recharges us so we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created.

Now, there are brilliant people who cannot listen much. They have no ingoing wires on their apparatus. They are entertaining, but exhausting, too.

I think it is because these lecturers, these brilliant performers, by not giving us a chance to talk, do not let this little creative fountain inside us begin to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom. That is why, when someone has listened to you, you go home rested and lighthearted.

When people listen, creative waters flow
Now this little creative fountain is in us all. It is the spirit, or the intelligence, or the imagination - whatever you want to call it. If you are very tired, strained, have no solitude, run too many errands, talk to too many people, drink too many cocktails, this little fountain is muddied over and covered with a lot of debris. The result is you stop living from the center, the creative fountain, and you live from the periphery, from externals. That is, you go along on mere willpower without imagination.

It is when people really listen to us, with quiet, fascinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way.

I discovered all this about three years ago, and truly it made a revolutionary change in my life. Before that, when I went to a party, I would think anxiously: "Now try hard. Be lively. Say bright things. Talk. Don't let down." And when tired, I would have to drink a lot of coffee to keep this up.

Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me, to be in their shoes when they talk; to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing, or changing the subject.

Sometimes, of course, I cannot listen as well as others. But when I have this listening power, people crowd around and their heads keep turning to me as though irresistibly pulled. By listening I have started up their creative fountain. I do them good.

Now why does it do them good? I have a kind of mystical notion about this. I think it is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come.

It is so in writing. You are taught in school to put down on paper only the bright things. Wrong. Pour out the dull things on paper too - you can tear them up afterward - for only then do the bright ones come.

If you hold back the dull things, you are certain to hold back what is clear and beautiful and true and lively.

Women listen better
I think women have this listening faculty more than men. It is not the fault of men. They lose it because of their long habit of striving in business, of self-assertion. And the more forceful men are, the less they can listen as they grow older. And that is why women in general are more fun than men, more restful and inspiriting.

Now this non-listening of able men is the cause of one of the saddest things in the world - the loneliness of fathers, of those quietly sad men who move along with their grown children like remote ghosts.

When my father was over 70, he was a fiery, humorous, admirable man, a scholar, a man of great force. But he was deep in the loneliness of old age and another generation. He was so fond of me. But he could not hear me - not one word I said, really. I was just audience. I would walk around the lake with him on a beautiful afternoon and he would talk to me about Darwin and Huxley and higher criticism of the Bible.

"Yes, I see, I see," I kept saying and tried to keep my mind pinned to it, but I was restive and bored. There was a feeling of helplessness because he could not hear what I had to say about it. When I spoke I found myself shouting, as one does to a foreigner, and in a kind of despair that he could not hear me. After the walk I would feel that I had worked off my duty and I was anxious to get him settled and reading in his Morris chair, so that I could go out and have a livelier time with other people. And he would sigh and look after me absentmindedly with perplexed loneliness.

For years afterward I have thought with real suffering about my father's loneliness. Such a wonderful man, and reaching out to me and wanting to know me! But he could not. He could not listen. But now I think that if only I had known as much about listening then as I do now, I could have bridged the chasm between us. To give an example:

Recently, a man I had not seen for 20 years wrote me. He was an unusually forceful man and had made a great deal of money. But he had lost his ability to listen. He talked rapidly and told wonderful stories and it was just fascinating to hear them. But when I spoke - restlessness: "Just hand me that, will you? ... Where is my pipe?" It was just a habit. He read countless books and was eager to take in ideas, but he just could not listen to people.

Patient listening
Well, this is what I did. I was more patient - I did not resist his non-listening talk as I did my father's. I listened and listened to him, not once pressing against him, even in thought, with my own self-assertion.

I said to myself: "He has been under a driving pressure for years. His family has grown to resist his talk. But now, by listening, I will pull it all out of him. He must talk freely and on and on. When he has been really listened to enough, he will grow tranquil. He will begin to want to hear me."

And he did, after a few days. He began asking me questions. And presently I was saying gently:

"You see, it has become hard for you to listen."

He stopped dead and stared at me. And it was because I had listened with such complete, absorbed, uncritical sympathy, without one flaw of boredom or impatience, that he now believed and trusted me, although he did not know this.

"Now talk," he said. "Tell me about that. Tell me all about that."

Well, we walked back and forth across the lawn and I told him my ideas about it.

"You love your children, but probably don't let them in. Unless you listen, you can't know anybody. Oh, you will know facts and what is in the newspapers and all of history, perhaps, but you will not know one single person. You know, I have come to think listening is love, that's what it really is."

Well, I don't think I would have written this article if my notions had not had such an extraordinary effect on this man. For he says they have changed his whole life. He wrote me that his children at once came closer; he was astonished to see what they are; how original, independent, courageous. His wife seemed really to care about him again, and they were actually talking about all kinds of things and making each other laugh.

Family tragedies
For just as the tragedy of parents and children is not listening, so it is of husbands and wives. If they disagree they begin to shout louder and louder - if not actually, at least inwardly - hanging fiercely and deafly onto their own ideas, instead of listening and becoming quieter and more comprehending.

But the most serious result of not listening is that worst thing in the world, boredom; for it is really the death of love. It seals people off from each other more than any other thing.

Now, how to listen. It is harder than you think. Creative listeners are those who want you to be recklessly yourself, even at your very worst, even vituperative, bad- tempered. They are laughing and just delighted with any manifestation of yourself, bad or good. For true listeners know that if you are bad-tempered it does not mean that you are always so. They don't love you just when you are nice; they love all of you.

In order to listen, here are some suggestions: Try to learn tranquility, to live in the present a part of the time every day. Sometimes say to yourself: "Now. What is happening now? This friend is talking. I am quiet. There is endless time. I hear it, every word." Then suddenly you begin to hear not only what people are saying, but also what they are trying to say, and you sense the whole truth about them. And you sense existence, not piecemeal, not this object and that, but as a translucent whole.

Then watch your self-assertiveness. And give it up. Remember, it is not enough just to will to listen to people. One must really listen. Only then does the magic begin.

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We should all know this: that listening, not talking,
is the gifted and great role, and the imaginative role.
And the true listener is much more beloved, magnetic
than the talker, and he is more effective and learns more and
does more good.
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We should all know this: that listening, not talking, is the gifted and great role, and the imaginative role. And the true listener is much more beloved, magnetic than the talker, and he is more effective and learns more and does more good. And so try listening. Listen to your wife, your husband, your father, your mother, your children, your friends; to those who love you and those who don't, to those who bore you, to your enemies. It will work a small miracle. And perhaps a great one.

Here is part of a study in regard to what was posted above

Doell and Reid (2002) developed a novel conceptualization to understand the ways in which partners in committed relationships listen to each other. Based on their clinical observations they found during interpersonal discourse partners habitually fail to fully understand the meaning of what their partner is communicating and instead think that they understand.

Individuals tend to be caught up with what they assume their partner is trying to convey, obstructing their ability to really listen and get at the deeper meaning behind what their partner is conveying. Therefore partners in distressed relationships often only hear enough of what their spouse had said so as to be able to react with their own response. This is not intentional, but a non-conscious habit of failing to listen thoroughly and serves to frustrate each partner’s ability to relate effectively to the other.


Doell and Reid (2002) developed an assessment tool to study this concept and found that people differ in the degree to which they characteristically operate within two distinct modes of listening: listening to understand (LTU) and listening to respond (LTR).

Listening to understand is characterized as a more proactive and intentional form of listening requiring more focused attention and sensitivity on the part of the listener to the verbal and nonverbal message of their partner. It indicates an underlying motivation to get at the deeper meaning or ‘understanding’ of what one’s partner is trying to say. Such concern for accuracy in their perception of their partner’s message better enables them to effectively and appropriately deal with marital issues, because it facilitates a ‘shared’ sense of inquiry between partners and working together.

Listening to understand behaviours are reflected in such behaviours as removing distractions, providing verbal and nonverbal gestures that one is listening, using feedback to seek clarity on what their partner is
saying, delaying immediate reactions to allow partner to finish speaking and to give one a chance to reflect on what their partner has said.


In contrast, listening to respond is commonplace and is characterized as a more automatic form of listening, a kind of jumping to conclusions that reflects listening only enough to react with their own response. Individuals high on this mode of listening are concerned with only ‘knowing’ what the partner has said, as distinct from facilitating a deeper ‘understanding’ of what their partner is trying to convey. The listener is unconsciously only trying to get enough information from their spouse to allow them to come back with their own response. Such listening is characterized by effortless and passive listening where the listener aims for only a superficial understanding of what their partner is saying because they feel they already ‘get it’. Listening to respond is reflected in behaviours such as interrupting their partner to correct them and defensive responses after their spouse has finished speaking. They tend to be distracted and preoccupied and place more emphasis on expressing their own opinions than those of their partner. There is a tendency to react to details of what their partner is saying and missing the bigger picture. Listening only to respond, and especially when accompanied by a lack of listening to understand, can become problematic especially since people are not typically aware of such listening habits.