First fruits, blessings and our Promised Land. I dive into it all via The Rebbe, Jay-Z, Mark Twain, The Arizal and a memory of my Savta from Addis Ababa and Yemen in this week’s Parashah, Ki Tavo!

Here are a few paragraphs from the dvar;

The first fruits only became required once we entered, conquered, allocated and settled the Land. So the mitzvah was not a thanksgiving of the gift of the land by Hashem, but is contingent on our settling the land as a permanent home. Only then can we rejoice with peace of mind, and when we are at peace, blessings reveal themselves.

The same way we need to conquer and settle the physical promised land, we need to do that in our own struggle within spiritual selves, making sure that we don’t doubt ourselves to the point of blocking our own blessings.

As Jay-Z says on Welcome to the Jungle:

Where did I go?

I’m losing myself,

I’m stuck in the moment

I look in the mirror,

my only opponent.

Our own promised lands are in our own control. Sometimes it feels like it takes a miracle before we would see it or feel at ease and unified to the point that it would manifest as a feeling of peace or enlightenment, but we have to enter into the process within ourselves, conquer our own doubts and parts of us that act as enemies towards our own selves. When we can settle ourselves to a space of peace, then we can reach a feeling of our own Promised Land.

** Audio/Podcast version - https://lightofinfinite.com/podcast/

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& OF COURSE, BE SURE TO READ THIS DVAR IN FULL @

https://lightofinfinite.com/first-fruit/

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

Thanks for listening/reading.

Much love, Erez Safar

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In this week's parashah we learn how to not perpetuate hatred, bringing in wisdom by Rav Kook, Rebbe Nachman, Dr. David Hawkins, MLK, and more. See below for the last two paragraphs from the dvar/article or go to lightofinfinite.com to read in full! 

Another way to think about our collective Oneness is through water. We know that water is fundamental to all life; our bodies are mostly water, and the brain and heart, in particular, are composed of 73% water. That means we have 73% in common with every person in the world. Which gives new meaning to the saying “the grass is greener where you water it”. On top of that, people mirror each other’s inner belief system, so if we aren’t “watering” ourselves and those around us in connectedness and positivity, then individually and collectively we can’t grow. Hawkins says, “we are all psychically connected. The internal position we hold about another person is forcing them to adopt a complementary defensive position. It is therefore not Pollyannaish to forgive and forget, but a reasonable recognition of emotional realities.

And so we learn from the pasuk (verse) about how to deal with hatred in this week's that we cannot make healthy decisions if they are from a space of anger or hatred. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us so eloquently, “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” These dvars are all part of the Light of the Infinite book series. The idea is that only through light and love can one tap into Oneness and be connected to the light of the Divine source (known as Ein Sof “the Infinite”). And so I pray that we break free from the constrictions of finitude and the darkness that conceals the infinite light and come to a place of revelation, redemption, and everlasting Oneness. 

.... READ THE FULL ARTICLE/DVAR @ https://lightofinfinite.com/dont-hate-foster-the-people/

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

Thanks for listening/reading.

Much love, Erez Safar

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So much anxiety is brought on by thinking one won’t receive what is just. Of course, everyone’s view of their own justice looks different. But the idea of not receiving what you think you deserve, whether from a person or the universe creates a division and distancing in one’s relationships to others, to oneself, and even to life itself. 

Justice brings peace, but only when judgment (gevurah) is balanced with the proper amount of mercy (chesed). When this is done right, it creates harmony (tiferet).

Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s last book is titled, Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life’s Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union, aptly pulling the words from this week’s parashah of Shoftim, which is Hebrew for ‘judges’. One lesson to be learned from Ginsberg through her relationship with her colleague on the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, is how they exemplified putting aside their egos, building a personal relationship based on humane compassion, even when they disagreed vehemently in their views of justice. 

The reason people praised their relationship so much is that it seems, as a people, we are moving further and further away from such a rapport. The Talmud (the elaborate explanation and commentary of the Mishnah), is based on opposing opinions and respect. For three centuries (c. 200 CE-500 CE) after the redaction and editing of the Mishna, later Sages, called Amoraim, and their students discussed and analyzed the Mishna. Their questions, discussions, and solutions comprise the Talmud.

If you look at a page of the Talmud, on either side of the ancient arguments of the Amoraim, you find more opposing views, those of the Medieval commentators– Rashi on the right and Tosafos on the left. Judaism, from antiquity to now, is steeped in the teachings and the process of learning in the Talmud. Literally thousands and thousands of Jews (and lots of law students) are lovingly arguing with each other at this moment, using the Talmud as the catalyst for diving deeper into endless hypothetical scenarios connected to the morality of Jewish law and ritual. But, as a modern Western culture and people, we seem to be moving away from this embrace of respectful conflict, something discussed in the book The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. 

In a TED talk Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks speaks on ‘How we can face the future without fear, together’. He begins by saying, “We’ve seen divisive elections, divided societies and the growth of extremism — all fueled by anxiety and uncertainty. Is there something we can do, each of us, to be able to face the future without fear?” He goes on to say that “it’s the people not like us that make us grow” and shares three specific ways we can move from the politics of “me” to the politics of “all of us, together.”

I dive fully into justice and how to find peace in this week's dvar/article with wisdom from the Zohar, Rebbe Nachman, MF Doom, and even a little Bieber. 

Czech it now @ https://lightofinfinite.com/and-justice-for-all/

With this article/dvar titled, "Mo Money Mo Problems, Mo Charity Mo Peace", I dive into the kabbalistic powers of charity, a lesson from the Middle Ages of a Sultan and a great Torah Sage, and share a story of a royal family that ruled a small kingdom (in what is now Iraq), and ultimately converted to Judaism. The son of this period, King Munbaz, became the king of Adiabene at the end of the Second Temple period. 

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At some point in life, we all learn that money comes and goes; you can be up one day and down the next. It’s all in the hands of Hashem. So the deeper way to conceive of money in our lives is that you only own that which you give away, as it says in Mishlei (Proverbs), “There is one who gives generously yet ends with more.” This means that by focusing on what you can give instead of what you can receive, you actually turn yourself into a vessel for receiving. This is all seen through the power and kabbalah of tzedakah (charity). 

In this parashah of Re’eh, we read: "כִּֽי־יִהְיֶה֩ בְךָ֨ אֶבְי֜וֹן … לֹ֧א תְאַמֵּ֣ץ אֶת־לְבָבְךָ֗ וְלֹ֤א תִקְפֹּץ֙ אֶת־יָ֣דְךָ֔ מֵאָחִ֖יךָ הָאֶבְיֽוֹן. כִּֽי־פָתֹ֧חַ תִּפְתַּ֛ח אֶת־יָדְךָ֖ ל֑וֹ" // "When there will be a poor person amongst you.. do not tighten your heart and do not close up your hand in front of your poor brother. Rather, open your hand to him…"

In last week’s Dvar, we covered the Arizal’s teaching that Creation came about because Hashem has a fundamental desire to give. Therefore, the natural state of being is one in which chesed— the bounteous and unlimited influx of Hashem’s kindness– flows freely into the world, unhampered by either sin or dinim (judgment). We, nevertheless, find ourselves in a world that is not completely chesed, because part of Hashem’s desire is to give us the opportunity to sweeten judgment (Hamtakat Hadinim) with tzedakah, to transform dinim into chesed ourselves, emulating God in His ability to give to others.

**** Read the full article & dive deeper into this and other lessons in my book “Light of the Infinite” available @ https://lightofinfinite.com/mo-money-mo-problems-mo-charity-mo-peace/

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Thanks for listening/reading.

Much love, Erez Safar

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Ahava (ah-ha-va)/אהבה/love. In Hebrew, the root word for ‘love’ is ‘hav’ which means “to give”. Loving is synonymous with giving — as real love is created. As The Beatles say, “The love you take is equal to the love you make.”

You see this most clearly in the love a parent gives to their child. As a baby, the child’s existence fully depends on the parent giving of themselves at every moment. This tireless giving creates an attachment stronger than any other kind– profound, unconditional love. So the greater the giving, the deeper the love.

Ahava has the same gematria (numerical value)– 13– as the word Echad (the Hebrew word for ‘one’). And so to reach oneness and love, we have to be in tune with each other and ourselves, and when we share our oneness and our love, that is 13 + 13, which is 26. And as many of us know, 26 is the numerical value of Hashem’s four-letter name (the Tetragrammaton), the ultimate Divine Infinite Light.



When we read the famous verse , “And you shall love the Lord your God.” We are left asking, how it can be that we are commanded to feel a feeling? This is especially curious for people that tend to believe that love is a sensation that magically, spontaneously appears, while that is something entirely different than love. It may be because this way of thinking is so prevalent, that Erich Fromm writes in “The Art of Loving”, “There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love.” To illuminate the verse from the Torah, our sages point out that it’s not an abstract feeling that is being presented to us, but rather the command to act lovingly, and by this act, love will be created. Love is a choice, and  an action. In this way, the commandment , “And you shall love” manifests through all the ways in which we perform acts of love in the world. 

In his TED Talk, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks suggested to his audience that they run a Search-and-Replace operation on the texts of their minds and substitute every instance of the word “self” with the word “other.” So instead of trying to do “self-help”, you would do “other-help”; instead of looking after your “self-esteem”, you would look after “others’-esteem”. He went on to say that, “if you do that, you will begin to feel the power of one of the most moving sentences in all of religious literature: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

Just as important as the act of giving is the sincerity and love in which it is given. If our heart compels us to want to hold on and not let go, it is the act of giving and letting go that we must master. All of life is about loving and creating love for others, which always brings to mind what the Lubavitcher Rebbe said so beautifully, “You already belong. You are already holy. You are already loved. Now you too must love, and by loving, help others feel that they also belong.”

We are interdependent, equally important, and one. David Sacks, one of my favorite humans, a writer and producer of The Simpsons, explains that each letter, and each of us, is a musical note and that our task is to live in harmony by being in tune and tuning each other. We should strive to not be  dissonant. He gives the analogy of someone sitting at a beautiful piano and playing the black and white keys and it not sounding right, wondering what’s wrong, and just then someone comes to tune the piano. Suddenly, it all sounds gorgeous. The piano is beautiful and what was being played had the potential of beauty, but it needed to be in tune, and that’s our mission– we need to uplift each other, judge each other favorably and show love to one another. 

If you focus on others as you would yourself, then you will love yourself more and, by virtue of that, become love for others.

All of Pesach is an opportunity for bitul hayesh, to negate and nullify all traces of ego and self-centeredness, to transcend the illusion of self.

I just wrote this Pesach & Omer companion called, ‘The Transformative Power of Pesach and Sefirat Ha’Omer’ that you might find interesting.

We can draw connections between the weekly portion from Leviticus and the larger Jewish story of moving from spiritual constriction into spiritual freedom. From safek (doubt) into salvation, the mindset of Redemption.

Chametz literally means leavening: that which causes bread to rise. Chazal (Our Sages) teach us that this chametz represents arrogance and the evil inclination, the yetzer hara.

In Talmud Berachot, the yetzer hara is depicted as the “yeast in the dough”, puffing up a person’s pride.

We are obligated to search our homes in preparation for Pesach, collecting any leftover scraps and crumbs of chametz that might be hidden, and then to ritually burn them before Pesach begins. This process is called biyur. This ritual primes us to spend Pesach ridding ourselves of our spiritual chametz— our arrogance and pride.

It’s important to face ourselves honestly as we do this, and, like the practice of biyur, there comes a time to let our egos “burn”, to not let them hold us back any longer, so that we can strengthen our emunah (faith) and connect to something higher than ourselves.

Chag Kasher V’Sameach!

Read the full dvar/article @ https://lightofinfinite.com/the-transformative-power-of-pesach-and-sefirat-haomer/

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Thanks for listening/reading.

Much love, Erez Safar

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A letter from The Rebbe in the Positivity Bias by Mendel Kalmenson changed my life when my mom passed away. Today's article in @Chabadorg explains how.

“…Erez Safar, who had received a copy of the book from R' Eli Bachman, (Chabad, UofMaryland), was particularly taken with the Rebbe’s response to a letter writer who wrote about his hardships & troubles despite leading a very blessed life.

As Kalmenson noted, in one particular point in the book, “the Rebbe advised that words & feelings of gratitude that we express to G‑d for the blessings we already have in our lives actually become the vessels for new blessings to flow to our lives.”

“When one does not recognize the explicit good bestowed on them from Above …,” wrote the Rebbe, “is it any wonder that [more] are not forthcoming from Above in other matters.”

Said Safar, “A year+ later, my mother passed away & I remembered the book & that letter & I launched two projects, ‘@DontBlockYourBlessings’ & ‘@theLightofInfinite,’ ” . The former asked people to share stories about how they are seeing the blessing in their lives. Almost immediately, Safar said, people began posting videos. The Don’t Block Your Blessings initiative has morphed into an online festival hosting tens of speakers from pop culture to share their blessings with an online audience.

The Rebbe would often rephrase negative statements into “a not positive” construction, noted Safar. For example, rather than referring to an animal as “unkosher”, the Rebbe would use the term “not kosher”. Safar, a Torah & kabbalah columnist, said that “the fact that the Rebbe took positivity to such an extreme is just inspiring. [And a reminder] to be so aware & mindful of how we talk, & how we can manifest our own positivity.”

Today, Erez's writing a book of Torah commentary & the festivals that focuses on positivity & blessings.

“If you look at Instagram, people are sharing positive messages in their stories because that’s what they want to hear—that’s the message people want in their lives,” he said. “The more positive you are, the more you will bring those things into your life; & the more negative you are, the more negativity you will bring into your life.”

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Thanks for listening/reading.

Much love, Erez Safar

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In this week we enter a new section of Vayikra dealing with the laws of man. The previous parshiot dealt with the laws pertaining to animals. This follows the order of creation; man was created last. It’s simpler to understand the sanctification of the animal world. It’s natural for us to make important distinctions between the clean & unclean, purity & impurity, in the animal world. Man’s struggle with himself, however, & the work we have to do to sanctify ourselves, is far more complex. The Zohar compares man to animals in the regards of the korban (sacrifice), deducing from the verse “and the eighth day the skin of the orlah should be circumcised” being amidst the verses that deal with purity & impurity of the woman giving birth. What we see in these readings in their proximity & importance is the sanctification of time (Shabbat) of man (brit milah) & of place (korban). Hashem is kadosh (holy) as it says, “for I am Kadosh.”

We, on the other hand, have the constant struggle to attain kedushah. All of this comes to teach us how to free ourselves from our slavery to that which is not holy & to take actions towards holiness, freedom, spirituality & oneness.

Reaching exalted levels of the soul is not enough when we are tasked to use the body here on earth elevating it, this is how we bring about the future redemption.

Kabbalah teaches that the world was created as a broken vessel; Hashem constricted himself & hid His good in the brokenness of the world. Reb Natan says that our highest task is to choose to see His Light, to choose to let in & partner with Hashem, even when he is hidden. Our laws & customs, in ways so mysterious & in ways very obvious– literally turning our physical bodies into ritual spiritual objects– are the most powerful reminders we have to keep making that choice to strive for something higher. To not let ourselves believe that we are only creatures, that we are only animals, driven only by physical instincts.

Man is but dust of the earth, Adamah, but through the struggle & fight to spiritualize reality we become Adameh la-Elyon, a semblance of God. 

** THIS IS JUST A SNIPPET OF THE DVAR, READ IT IN FULL - > @ www.lightofinfinite.com

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Thanks for listening/reading.

Much love, Erez Safar

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This audio is a bit of a Public Service Announcement from Erez Safar of the Light of Infinite to you🤍🕊

As physical creatures, we can’t fully defeat the forces of fate; we’re constricted by time and space. But our souls-- the parts of us that are infinite-- can reach beyond these constrictions. It’s only when we choose with our souls to surpass our limitations that we can connect to the true, everlasting, joyful freedom that can only be found in the Light of the Infinite.

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Thanks for listening/reading.

Much love, Erez Safar

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When I can’t sleep, I often free verse / wax poetic about whatever’s on my mind. It’s always interesting reading it the next morning. Here’s one from the other night: 


—-

The world
is full
of enough
dissonance

produce
melody
perform
alchemy

sift the good notes
from the bad
the serene
from the siren song

step in rhythm
grow in concert

we are all notes
in this
divine
orchestra
of existence

—-

It seems we all want to be one with our natural state and the spaces we are in — content, fulfilled, thriving. That would seem to be enough, but the truth is we want more than that— we want to transcend this natural state, to not be bound by the limitations and constrictions of this world, a world where the good is always intertwined with a bit of “bad”. Only in the next world is good 100% and bad is not even a concept. When I was a kid, and even today, when I walk out of the theater after seeing a superhero movie, I feel like I have those powers, if only for a little bit. The allure of these comic books turned movies is the thought of breaking free of one’s limitations, of ridding oneself of reality, of turning what is natural into supernatural.

In these past parshiot, we have been reading about the Mishkan (the tabernacle) and how Hashem commanded Aharon, the high priest, and his sons to bring special sacrifices for seven days to prepare themselves for their service in the Mishkan. Every seven days, Moshe would take the Mishkan apart and put it back together, as the Jews wandered through the desert on their way to the Promised Land. In this week’s parashah, Shemini, Hebrew for “eight” (referring to the eighth day following the seven days of the inauguration of the Tabernacle), we learn that the service of the Mishkan actually begins on the “eighth” day.

As we read, “And it was on the eighth day . . . and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people . . . And fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fats upon the altar, and all the people saw, sang praises, and fell upon their faces.”

The Kli Yakar, a preeminent Medieval Torah scholar, asks why it’s called the “eighth day.” The Jewish week is seven days, and the consecration of the Mishkan was limited to seven days, as it is written, “And you shall not go out of the door of the tent of meeting for seven days, until the days of your consecration be fulfilled, for He shall consecrate you seven days.” The Kli Yakar answers his own question, stating that related to the eighth day it is written, “Today the Lord appears to you.” Hashem doesn’t appear in the Mishkan during the seven days of consecration but on and because of the eighth day, a day beyond the natural order of things.

Seven is a recurring number in the Torah representing the natural order: seven days of the week; the month of the festivals is Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar; and we have seven-year cycles, culminating in Shemittah (the Sabbatical year). As we learn, seven in Judaism always represents completeness of the natural world, the finite world; so eight, of course, is that one step beyond nature, something more than human, more than finititude– something holy. Shabbat, the seventh day of our week, is a taste of the infinite, but it’s still bound in time and space. It’s a gift from Hashem that we even get that taste, as it is stated in Talmud Shabbat, “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moshe, I have a precious gift in My treasure house, and it is called the Shabbat.” The eighth day represents a taste beyond this world.


I can’t put all that I wrote in this little taste of the Dvar, you’ll have to read it at the link below, but the biggest takeaway from this parashah for me is that when we elevate our soul above our body, aligning our physical selves to our spiritual selves we can transform our natural space into a supernatural setting.

READ IT IN FULL @ https://lightofinfinite.com/step-in-rhythm-grow-in-concert/