Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 17 Jun 2011 19:16:


Thank you for the kind sentiments, halevai it should be true (maybe if I read enough of your haaros).

Ha!

You are the guy who inspires me to come up with them!!!

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 17 Jun 2011 19:27:


Yosef Hatzadik's Ha'oros
« on: February 18, 2010, 03:05:02 PM »


ur-a-jew
Date Registered: June 08, 2010, 11:44:16 AM

The facts speak for themselves.

Just read this in an email:  This week we read about how the spies went to Eretz Yisroel and carried, among other things, giant grapes on a wooden pole. Rashi explains that one person can carry 1/3 of the weight that two people can carry. For example, if one person can carry 100 lbs. on his shoulders, then two people can carry 300 lbs. together. From here, the Chassidishe seforim teach us an uplifting message: Two Jews have more power to uplift together than one alone!

This in essence is the power of GYE. Alone I can't overcome my Yetzer, but together with this wonderful chevra we can do it together.r
Thank You Hashem and all his local emissaries on this wonderful site.

BH Shabbos was great and inspiring.  Had the following insights on Parshas Shlach

A Lesson from the Mapilim:
It happens all the time we have a nasty fall and we finally get back up and all of the sudden we act like big tzaddikim.  In a way we are acting no different than the maplim.  The cheit of the meraglim a tremendous yeridah that we are still paying the price for today.  Yet, what happens.  They realize they made a mistake, they do what they think is teshuva, and the next day they are in their own eyes tzaddikim and they are off to Eretz Yisroel.  The Torah teaches us that this is not the way.  You need to slowly slowly work on yourself.  Forty years in the midbar and with all of the connotations of what a midbar is.  And even then you may not see the fruit of that labor in yourself but in your kids.  There are no shortcuts in life.

A Lesson from the Meraglim:
Picture what the scene must have looked like.  Moshe tells the Bnei Yisroel everyone that is twenty years old and up should bring a machtzis hashekel to be counted.  These coins are going to be used for the foundation of the mishkan.  Do we have a concept of what it means to contribute to the very yesod of the mishkan.  Chazal tells us that had the goyim understood the benefit the mikdash brought to the world they would never have destroyed it.  And here you have an individual who has the opportunity to contribute to the very foundation of this edifice.  Off to the side is Moshe.  Moshe is 19 years old.  He was hoping to contribute a Machtzis Hashekel, but alas he is too young.  Imagine how devastated he is.  Fast forward the Meraglim come home and Hashem issues a decree everyone from 20 years and up will not enter into Eretz Yisroel.  Moshe breathes a sigh of relief.  He was saved from this terrible gezairah.  There are times throughout our lives were we see someone who has something that we don't have.  It may even be what appears to be a spiritual achievement that someone else has that we don't.  One never knows the price tag that comes along with it.  We say in davening "Visen Chelkaynu B'torahsecha."  Give us our chelek in torah.  We each have a unique mission. Don't lose out on your own opportunity because you feel like you haven't lived up to someone else's.


I would imagine that someone on this site must have said something about the chinuch on Parasha Shelach, but I encourage everyone to read it.

מצוה שפ״ז שלא נתור אחר מחשבת הלב

The chinuch compares one who pursues lust to an alcoholic:  כי התאוה תמשוך הבשר כמשוך  היין אל שותים.  How's that for an endorsement of AA.

The chinuch also writes that there is no malkus for one who violated this lav since its impossible to set a shuir

כי מהיות האדם בנוי בענין שאי אפשר לו  שלא יראה
בעיניו לפעמים יותר ממה־שראוי

So next time you walk down the street and you see some attractive woman.  Don't get all bent out of shape.  Our job starts once you've seen, to now avert your eyes because Hashem commanded you to do so (and because continuing to take in the sight will bring to a place that you don't want to be).

The Minchas Chinuch comments on the Chinuch for this Mitzvah: 

ודברי הרהמ"ח קשרם על לוח לבך ואשרי וטוב לך

your lessons from the Mapilim and the Meraglim are absolutely awesome. thank you for sharing them

they are so important and true. i should print them on a t-shirt to wear

Today is the hebrew anniversary for one-year of sobriety (I had to wait longer this year because of the leap year).  Thank You Hashem for bringing me to this point.  Thank you for giving me this Ir Miklat to run to, Thank you for the wonderful chevra and friends that I've made.  Thank you for the wonderful advice and tools that I've learned.  Thank you for life itself.

Thank you UAJ for being part of what makes GYE such a special place!

Great vort.  Mazel tov.  I loved, "there are no shortcuts in life".The Alter Rebbe speaks about the short way being the long way around.  You've shown us all what one day at a time, baby steps and kot really mean.

I was driving my son up to Yeshiva this week. Along the road there is a stream (which I've written about before). In the winter you see the stream along the whole trip. In the summer the foliage is so thick that it is hard to see that there is even a stream behind the trees. If you saw it in the winter you would never believe that these trees would ever have leaves again, let alone with such thickness. On the flip side when you see the trees now you would never believe that these same trees looked dead a couple of months ago. Which image represents the real tree?  I think all would agree that it's the tree full of leaves.  Many of us, have lived or are living double lives.  One of them is a vibrant live, the other resembles death.  We have to realize that the one with vibrancy and color is the real life.  And that as hard as it may seem to believe that when in our "dead" state there is no more chance for life, it's simply not true.  We all have our ups and downs. But our essence is the green vibrant life-giving tree.

UAJ

Very well said

A thought from Parshas Chukas:  וַיִּפְּלוּ עַל-פְּנֵיהֶם וַיֵּרָא כְבוֹד-ה' אֲלֵיהֶם  To see Hashem you need some sort of fall.  Either in our own view of ourself, i.e., through humility, or to fall on our faces, by hitting rock bottom and realizing that there is nowhere else to turn.

beautiful!

Like!

Thank You Hashem and Thank You Guard for this website. Its days like today that I have little doubt if I hadn't discovered GYE that I would've acted out. Fortunately, I now know that its not an option.