Aish Kodesh August 23, 2012 Parsha Shoftim CreativeCommons [1/0]

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Policemen; judges; eyen prayer; aleph prayer; hope sandwich; positive hope; toxic hope; lover; soul mate; TAM simple; Four Worlds; strength; discipline; faith; strong heart; derech eretz; intimacy; wholehearted; three forty-day periods; guileless Aish Kodesh August 23, 2012, Parsha Shoftim Weâre blowing the shofar to wake everybody up: hope to HaShem, be strong and have good courage. Thereâs a Gemora that says what kinds of things do you need courage and strength for and they give four levels of that idea of be strong and have good courage. The idea of the shofar is to give us strength. Itâs not considered a musical instrument, but a voice from the depths. We learn the voice from Siseraâs mother. There are four levels of strengthening for the Four Worlds. Chavale HaShem. What weâre studying in the Gemora comes out with what weâre studying this time of year. Brachote 32B. Weâve been learning how to pray in this MASECHTA. We were talking about Moshe not being able to go into the land of Israel and how do you pray at a mature level and not just to get what you want. Eyen is praying for what you want for a long time. There are two pairs of glasses: with the eye, which is a very narrow look. The branches of the eye indicate the eye sees and the heart desires: I am praying for what I want. Through the aleph glasses you see a much bigger picture. G*d told Moshe he could go up on the mountain and see the whole land. That sounds like his prayer was not listened to. But it says that proves that the prayer was stronger than good acts. Moshe did not get what he wanted but he got a higher vision. Weâre looking for a higher vision of things, to see the essence of things, to see how one thing leads to another, what will be born, what are the consequences. The other type of eyen tefilla we say in the morning, bringing peace between people, going to funerals and weddings. We have three words to see: iyun, which is eyeball, reâeh, to see, and chazon, to see a bigger, higher vision of a prophet. Our prayers are all made up of the higher vision. Thatâs where the word chazzan came from. To see what the prophets saw and transfer the feeling of that to the students. I had a student who was a chazzan and we study about chazanut, about how to put the soul of davening in her voice so she can transmit that to the people who listen. Chazanut got a bad name when it became more of a performance. It is important when you pray that you hear your voice saying these words. Each prayer is a chazzan. When youâre feeling that your words are empty and not inspired, just listen to the words coming out of your mouth and try to get the strength from the chazanut, the vision of the prophet that youâre reading (David, Moshe, Jeremiah and Isaiah and some Ezekiel). The Gemora examines this word IYUN. Thereâs a good IYUN TEFILLAH, looking at the prophet vision of the words word by word, very closely. This is a positive idea of the letter eyen, to use your eyes to see deeply into each word. Thatâs what we try to do. The Aish Kodesh tries to â the whole Torah is to teach us about davening, how to pray. Thatâs a major theme of his and all the other Chassidic rabbis. He says each prayer has a body and a soul. The body is the words and the soul is the kavanah of the prophet who wrote the words. We have this paradox of two types of IYUN. The next piece is the introduction to this idea. Iâm going to read this to get your reaction to it. Rabbi says if you pray and not answered, pray again. (We say that every time we hear the shofar). KAVEH means hope. We call this prayer a hope sandwich. We have this further that evil is giving up hope. Student: Not long ago we were talking about how you have to give up hope to live. Rabbi: Thereâs a positive hope and a negative hope. Student: External actions is one, surviving, helping, and so on, could stop one from acting. But hope to be present and be a conduit for right action is different. Rabbi: The Nazis used hope against the Jews. Person: They wanted you to be hopeful of a good outcome so youâll be cooperative. Rabbi: The Aish Kodesh came out very strongly against that. Ha Tikvah. The Hope. (I just read a nice history of the song.) We can see that hope can be toxic. Whatâs positive hope. Student: The Indians had a saying âItâs a good day to die.â They gave their life away so they were not holding back. Person: Negative hope keeps a person from having to change. Keeps him stuck. People hoped it would get better and never left. Rabbi: Magical thinking is what children do so the situation will come out the way they want it to come out. The other hope is about being present for the next thing, and you donât know what it is. Moshe said Iâm going to the next place G*d will show me and I donât know what it is. Student: Itâs all about me and hem really wants us to pray for our needs or I can do it myself. You need a place in the middle. Rabbi: Prayer is at the level of the lizard brain, the middle brain, and then the frontal lobes. We overlay all of reality with the YKVK, to be. Womblike presence so you have good timing and good judgment so you know when itâs time to put up boundaries and when itâs time to love. HaShem is the judge and the lover, which is the whole idea of the High Holy Days. Reb Shlomo was on the subway and saw his soul mate, but there was a crowd of people and she got off at the next stop. All he had was the prefix for that area. He got home and got in his car and started going up and down the streets, trying to find this woman who he was sure was his soul mate. While he did this he went through 18 red lights. The police said youâre going to jail and court. He was waiting in jail and walks into the court and sheâs the judge. The judge and his soul mate are the same person. Everybody who has been married knows that thatâs true. (He made that story up to introduce the irony and the paradox.) Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is I am to my lover and my lover is to me and weâre trying to synthesize the judge and the lover. The Aish Kodesh had this very strongly in mind. Most people are much more comfortable when their spouse is loving them and not when theyâre judging them. Gemora: Four activities require strengthening. Rabbi: every time we see the number four, four sons, four sections of prayer, four glasses of wine, and more in the study guide, weâre talking about these four levels of consciousness. Gemora: study is the first, the practice of good deeds, praying and pursuing a livelihood. Rabbi: we would start with a livelihood because thatâs the world of Doing. Shimon Bar Yochai wrote the Zohar in a cave, but he burned up a plow. G*d said you cannot erase the physical. You must connect the physical and spiritual. Gemora: from where is this derived with regards to Torah and good deeds? Rabbi: Weâre trying to talk about strengthen us and give us courage. Gemora: only be very strong and courage to observe to do in accordance with the entire Torah. One must be strong in Torah and courageous in good deeds. Where prayer? For it is from the psalms. The first came from the Book of Joshua. Finally where do we know that parnasa needs strengthening? IN the second book of Samuel, Yoav is addressing his brother, suggesting they divide into two camps. The simple meaning strengthen yourself to reinforce the other. This is the strength and fortitude we need to earn a livelihood. The height is the study of Torah. Each one needs a certain kind of courage and strength. Rabbi: This is a good introduction to our work in Elul. Each one requires a different type of strength. Student: Torah requires discipline and faith so you can hold the paradox. Rabbi: What kind of mental strength does it take to study Torah? Person: Free from prejudged notions and prejudices. Student: commitment and negotiation between linear thinking and intuitive connections. Rabbi: Whatâs the difference between the strength to study and do good deeds? Person: Good deeds require you to be selfless, aware and open to see what needs there are, compassion, a knowledge of the Torah to know what is required. Rabbi: -and what is effective. Student: Physical ability to do good deeds, financial ______. Rabbi: Physical strength. The Aish Kodesh is asking everybody to study, come to class, do good deeds. Why was that a focus of his teaching? Torah study wasnât enough in the Warsaw Ghetto. Person: Itâs an action, reaffirming. Doing good deeds is a way to think of something other than yourself, which would be particularly important in the Warsaw Ghetto. Rabbi: to win the battle with the Germans it was critical to affirm the worldview that everything wasnât just survival of the fittest. Good deeds were the medium of that hope. He said we already have won the battle with the Germans. Just do one good deed each day to help somebody and that will strengthen you. Rabbi: What special kind of strength and courage does it take to pray deeply? It doesnât say courage; it says a strong heart. Student: You have to be comfortable being alone with yourself and do you voice your anger or affirm G*dâs goodness. Rabbi: What kind of strength does it take to earn a livelihood? The word for livelihood is DERECH ERETZ, the way of the earth. Not parnasa. This is a nuance. It could also be translated as the way of I want, our own earthiness, doing in the world, work goals, professional goals. What kind of priority was earning a living? The way of the earth is much broader. Itâs understanding the way the world works and getting in the flow of the world. Earning money is just one part of that. Fitting in socially, community, down to earth kinds of things it takes to be a successful human being out in the world. What kind of priority was that when you were 21? Person: When I was 21 it was 3 on a scale of 1-10. Student: Fifteen. Person: I donât know that I thought about it that way. I felt like G*d didnât go into some of the details of life here on earth and I wished that it was something; I wanted but I didnât know that G*d dealt with that. Student: When I was young and starting to work my whole thing wasnât very complicated. I had to feed myself. I didnât think in terms of theology or G*d. Rabbi: What kind of strength and courage did that take? Student: You have to have confidence in yourself that you can do it. Thatâs not trivial. Rabbi: So we have four things. All need discipline, strength courage and hope, but theyâre very different from each other. Each is from a different level of consciousness. The level of doing, tapping into work ethic, to be a doer in the world and make your way. The next level is to say my strength canât do everything and I often need help. Tefillah means the strength that you need to beg G*d to help you. I canât be a Torah teacher without G*dâs help, so I pray all the time. As my father said to me when I told him that was my goal in life, to be a Torah teacher, he said my truck drivers in the liquor store earn more than you. That was really encouraging, thanks Dad. He said come down here and be a spiritual advisor in the liquor store. He was very frightened for me that somehow I wasnât going to make it. But I did okay. It took a lot of courage to move out of the usual framework of livelihood and find purpose. The good deeds are offering help to others. I canât just fill myself up. Every time we pray we give tzedukah. Once I have a channel to bring the life energy into me the way a tree does, then I have to give shaded fruit to other people. At the level of Torah study thereâs a strength and courage required by intimacy. Strength courage needed for intimate relationships. Student: Not to be frightened by intimacy when youâre with the lover, and to believe in a deeper truth when dealing with the judge. Person: Whatâs the first level of NACE? Rabbi: Run away. Person: Being vulnerable. Rabbi: Why is intimacy associated with Torah study? Person: Intimate and vulnerable, one and the same. Torah is much larger than us. Itâs feeling comfortable being small. Rabbi: this Talmud is connection to HaShem at the most intimate level, intimate, specific vision of HaShem in the world, in events, just like weâre trying to do with hope, strength and courage, how that functions and how people can discuss this in this very almost present and stream of consciousness way to communicate a very complex idea. Torah study is a record of peopleâs intimate interaction with HaShem in their lives. Student: I agree. The study of Torah is intimate because itâs all about you, the student. Itâs a way to get past barriers, safeguards and protections to get to the essence. Itâs a very closely guarded spot for many people. Rabbi: The Aish Kodesh says come to my room in the gutter pipe. Outer reality doesnât have to govern the reality of our minds. You can discover a whole different reality of HaShem even here. Iâve learned from my son, right after his accident when he was in the hospital, the first thing he asked to do was to pray in a very difficult circumstance. His life was hanging by a thread. The Aish Kodesh the same way. A number of times in my life where people didnât let the circumstances define them; they defined the circumstances. Thatâs the essence of Torah study. We define the circumstances. Torah study gives us a whole different choice of our options. Student: running up against idealized version of oneself, difficulties are around the corner and not let them define us. Rabbi: Does Torah study ask of you a vulnerability? Person: We have temporariness and weâre finite. We have finite time. This can make us stronger. The way we study Torah is to appreciate our failures. It takes a lot of vulnerability to admit failure. Rabbi: Right, and internalizing Torah to make it part of yourself. To overcome the Tree Of Knowledge. To say this is Sacred Fire 101 Lecture 75. Thatâs not it. Thereâs a passion and a vulnerability to it. Student: the great example of Torah study and intimacy is this shuir. Your method is to get in there and get intimate. Not just listening. Rabbi: Letâs tackle a couple of lines of Torah. This parsha is about judges and lovers. âJudges and police officers you will give to yourself.â The meaning doesnât come across in English because âyourselfâ is singular. Thatâs one person. If they are trying to set up a judicial system they would use the plural. It would be a social construction. Since it says singular all the commentators jump on it. The macro and the micro are reflective of each other. The Sanhedrin sat at the gates of the city. Your gates are all the orifices with which you sense the world. Chaim Vital has a beautiful way of expressing it. âWe heard in the name of R. Vital of Aleppo, which is in ruins, mouth of speech, nose of smell, hands and feet of touch, eyes of seeing, ears of hearing.â Every way we take in are covered by these. We need good judgment and a policeman to enforce the good judgment. If we have an eating problem, loshon hora problem; we injest and ejest. The mouth takes in and gives out. Everybody has some dysfunction in these portals into their body and we have to invoke good judgment and be able to effectuate that judgment. Every day I have a good judgment it would be nice to lose ten pounds and my policeman fails to enforce it. The actual judges of the Sanhedrin sat in the gates of Yerushalayim and whatâs happening in the macro level is also taking place in the micro level. Then you can pursue tzedek. The Nazis were excellent at hunting people. They knew what they were doing. There were only four IBM computers in the world and they marshaled them all to hunt down people. They brought them from New Zealand. Thatâs called RODAFE, to pursue and hunt. The signature of a Jew is to learn from that. Righteousness or justice you shall pursue. Tzedek is also the root of the word tzedukah, charity. Thatâs the stuff you want to run down, not the vulnerabilities of other human beings. The core of the Torah is to put the judgment and enforcement into these critical areas. Student: It takes a tremendous amount of integrity to be true to Torah concepts. Rabbi: the energy of these five senses make a person alive. Weâre not suppressing, but channeling. Thatâs challenging. The Torah is adamant about non-suppression. These things need to be celebrated and channeled to celebrate life. Person: Itâs easier to keep it out of your sight, out of your house. What the eye sees. You pray for other people who need to lose weight and ask HaShem to help you. Student: the difference in the Torah value, pursue justice, and pursuing people. Pursuing justice is such a high, lofty wonderful thing. Rabbi: Seduction and pursuit, how we pursue, what we run after, is very important. Are we running after goals of deretz eretz, Torah study, tefillah? Pursing those goals are really different than pursuing other things. And pursuit as a motivation for other things, what weâre willing to focus and pursue. Torah says we have a fundamental nature of being a predatory, a pursuer, so if we could channel that pursuit into these things we have a much different configuration and maturity level than if weâre at the eye sees and the heart desires. SACRED FIRE PAGE 212 -Be guileless with G*d your L*rd. OR: You shall be wholehearted with HaShem your G*d. Rabbi: This comes in the middle of a discussion of magic and sorcery. We started out with the distinction of magical thinking. The desire to control the world for what I want instead of Torah, always pursuing the higher vision of the Aleph. How do they hook up? Where is G*dâs presence in this? The questions are different. Weâre talking about abominations in the line before. The word TAM, which means simple and pure, is associated with Yaakov. We have a lot of different translations of this. Simple, pure, guileless, wholehearted, innocent. This is a very squirrely word. It very nicely fits with what weâre teaching. Yaakov was a simple, pure person because he sat in the tents and studied Torah. Thereâs something about Torah that purifies the heart and makes it wholehearted and guileless, honest, simple and pure. Thatâs called IYUN, when you look deeply into a word like this and say there is not an adequate translation of this word. An ox which has never gored someone is called an innocent ox. -Rashi explains: âWalk before Him without guileâ¦.â Rabbi: thatâs what you said about being present. Part of being a person of faith is not getting into an over-expected mode of being attached to your goals and expectations of what you think ought to come out. A womblike presence with what is happening and not be rejecting the event. Everything that happens to me is a consequence of my choices. Part of the conversation with HaShem. Student: Not bad things from bad choices. Might be challenging and the result of good work. Rabbi: You can suffer a lot of pain from other peopleâs bad choices. The Aish Kodesh was suffering a cosmic event of bad choices on the bad choices of tens of millions of people to follow a crazed individual. Painful things and bad things do happen and the levels of causality are often difficult to read. To the extent we can read them we have to read them. Things happen because of causality and we want to look at it in the broadest aleph sense of things. -On the simplest levelâ¦. Rabbi: Weâre trying to contrast projecting into the future with be guileless and present right now. Student: No expectations, just being willing to accept whatâs going on. Rabbi: After Jacob had the dream he said if you help me make a living Iâll give you ten percent, which is where the tithe comes from. Person: Yaakov is also ISH TAM. Rabbi: How does that fit in, without projecting into the future? Person: I would use the word manipulative. I will worship G*d now because I want to drive a nice car and live in a nice home. I have an agenda. I want to manipulate HaShem to get what I want. Or have the tools to negotiate a difficult circumstance. Jacob wants help because heâs penniless. Itâs not wanting too much, itâs wanting the tools. Student: Decide for a day, not for forever. -There is another explanationâ¦. Rabbi: Thatâs an outrageous statement. Pharaoh might listen to Moshe- He speaks often of the myopia of pain. Person: Self-absorption. When youâre in pain you canât concentrate on things outside of you. Rabbi: It sounds almost ridiculous. Person: But it makes sense. Rabbi: Moshe is saying if my own people wonât listen to me how will my enemy listen to me? Jewish leaders have said this through all of Jewish history. The Aish Kodesh twists it around. Thereâs a very good reason theyâre not listening; theyâre in pain. Heâs saying that no only for Moshe but for himself. As he always does. People who arenât slavesâbecause the Germans called us slavesâmaybe could hear me and understand me better. Itâs audacious. This paragraph shifts directions right in the middle. These books were all in the milk can. He had his own books with him in his shul. -One might also ask:â¦. Heâs comparing two pasukim of two things Moshe said of his own speech. Lumpish of tongue fits with the stuttering idea. But uncircumcised lips are tumah; my words feel stopped up and constipated. Thatâs a real subtlety. -My father of blessed memoryâ¦. Rabbi: Thereâs a type of distress that gives you a readiness. Youâre in pain with a strong spirit, then when you hear words of guidance and hope, you respond to that. But letâs acknowledge the people who are utterly broken. Thereâs no longer a person capable of having energy and rejoicing. Itâs hard to have energy when youâre starving. One vitamin pill was worth gold in the Warsaw Ghetto. Student: Heâs talking about Moshe being dispirited because his mouth is stopped up, so thereâs a reciprocal relationship that Iâm supposed to help people but they canât listen to me. The question is how does that situation now change? Rabbi: How in the world is it possible for the Aish Kodesh to keep speaking with this reality in the Warsaw Ghetto? How can he not be stopped up? How can he not be stopped up and dispirited? Person: the people are so burdened and overwhelmed that they canât draw his teaching out of him. Rabbi: Heâs describing how difficult it is for him every day to do what he is doing. He also says every time you show up for a class, you turn me into an angel. -The Talmud says the following about the verse, âand G*d said to Mosesâ¦. Rabbi: G*d says get off your perch. Thereâs three 40-day periods. The first ended with the Golden Calf. Then Moshe spends another 40 days dealing with the consequences of the Golden Calf. The third is between Rosh Chodesh Elul and Yom Kippur, back at the top of the mountain fashioning the second manmade set of tablets. The first Shavuos to 17 Tamuz, second 17 Tamuz to beginning of Elul, the third beginning of Elul to Yom Kippur. The first and last are called times of will and desire. The middle is called Time of Pain. At the end of the first 40 days G*d says get off your perch. The only reason I invited you to My inner room is because of those people. Moshe says Iâd really like to stay up here. At that moment when G*d said that, Moshe became weak and lost his power of speech. -âHow will Pharaoh listen to meâ¦.â Rabbi: what is he teaching? Student: Heâs teaching being artless and whole. Artless is without manipulation and the whole is being true to oneself. A big part of that is to say that there is this miserable situation full of despair and not I must have done something to deserve this. Rabbi: Whatâs the guileless part? Person: Thatâs TAM, naÃ¯vetÃ©, purity, wholehearted sense of what youâre about. Guileless means no pretence; youâre not contemplating an outcome, with a wholehearted expectation. Rabbi: Heâs saying thatâs what kept me going, because I could have this attitude. Similar to what Viktor Frankl said, but Viktor Frankl didnât each every day in the camp, as the Aish Kodesh did. The ability to let go of any other agenda. FINAL REMARKS Student: the Aish Kodesh is saying a way that you can be in the ghetto and endure and still find a way to be with and communicate with G*d and have faith, by being honest with who you are, your expectations. Just to be artless about this. You will be with G*d by accepting it. Not easy. Yet thereâs a comforting message, that if worse comes to worst you can be with G*d, who you are. Rabbi: The word stopped, circumcised. The German court outlawed circumcision. Where do people get the strength when theyâre stopped? Numbness. Thereâs a bris of the mouth and the bris of the sexual organ, and the bris of the heart. We started out with the courageous heart, and it fits so well with what heâs teaching here. Pursue Derech eretz, prayer, good deeds, Torah, and how the secrets of his motivating himself to not be stopped and stuck by all this stuff. Person: I like the last paragraph, that HaShem is with us in our suffering. That acknowledgment makes us whole, a spiritual wholeness. Each one of these pieces is also a prayer. I think thatâs his prayer, that other people become whole and make that a spiritual wholeness. Itâs an important question and connection between toxic hope and courageous hope. Heâs not saying the hope is to change the situation, but to not become so broken and full of despair and that 49th state of tumah, that thereâs always that little bit of ray of hope so ultimately our lips are not stopped up and there is that little element of spark. Heâs not Pollyanna. Heâs saying donât even go there. It may not even come at all. Can you find salvation? In the beginning of the book he makes the comment âthe blink of an eyeâ about salvation. In the back part of the book those words are good. This is a good transition piece for that part of him. when you change the paradigm, one type of salvation to another. Student: I marvel at him. Heâs the energizer bunny. He just keeps going. This is an explanation of how he does it. He hangs onto HaShem and turns loose of everything else. He has no hopes for the futureâdonât even go there. Rabbi: I love his focus on simple and guileless. If he was manipulative it would stop him. Student: Heâs not blaming, not trying to make anything happen. Person: He gets stopped up because of their discouragement. Thereâs also the intimacy of the community that lead to changes in your behavior, not just for your own benefit, but to make it possible to have better intimacy in the community. Rabbi: Itâs crucial for us to energize each other. Student: Who has good judgment? The judge or policeman? Itâs a good question to ask. Also stop objecting, Shabbos will be different. Rabbi: TAM is energizing. He presented a profound idea. It took a lot of skill. Person: I didnât mention before about not being full of yourself if you find yourself in a position of strength. Rabbi: Also his ability to not resent other peopleâs neediness. He was feeding 1,000 people a day. What an enormous accomplishment this really was. I never feel bad about focusing on his works and his words. Good Shabbos of Shoftim and pursing tzedek and remembering what it was like to be hunted down by people who pursue other things. What we run after, how we motivate ourselves, have a simple strengthening oneâs heart, getting courage from the Aish Kodeshâthe Hebrew is so much more eloquent. Rabbi Henoch Dov teaches in Denver, Colorado. You can contact him through his web page, www.RabbiHenochDov.com or via email sh6r6v4t9@aol.com. This content hosted at the Internet Archive at http://archive.org/details/AishKodeshAugust232012ParshaShoftim Files may have changed, which prevents torrents from downloading correctly or completely; please check for an updated torrent at http://archive.org/download/AishKodeshAugust232012ParshaShoftim/AishKodeshAugust232012ParshaShoftim_archive.torrent Note: retrieval usually requires a client that supports webseeding (GetRight style). 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