Rav Daniel Kohn הרב דניאל כהן

Series: Be'erot, Love & Relationship with God.

Synopsis:  An exploration of Avraham's humility: "Anochi afar v'efer".

Episode Transcript:

Avraham Avinu and the teachings of the Rabbis is the image par excellence of what it means to be a lover of G-d.  And as the Rambam describes him in the teachings that he gives of how one is to live, in his Sefer Hamitzvot, so in his third mitzvah, he says that this man is the teacher of how we are to be in the mitzvah of vahavta et hashem elokecha. How we are to be in the mitzvah of you shall love your G-d. He teaches there that Avraham Avin is the one whose very being is given over to the love of G-d and this is demonstrated in a way that the prophet describes Avraham ohavi, Avraham who is my lover. And he also describes a path coming to that love, and he also tells that a love that is a true love of G-d is come to by virtue of a person's contemplation of His greatness. And in contemplating His greatness, over time, and with proper stillness, so one accesses something which is the oneg which is the tachlit hataanugim, the Rambam says; one accesses a pleasure which is the pleasure which is the end of all pleasures. That's the language of the Rambam. And then when one arrives at the place of pleasure which is the end of all pleasures, so one certainly will be in love. And there was Avraham who was the first one who that happened for.

One aspect of what I want to explore with Avraham is something which the rabbis also tell us about his having, and that is his anavah. And to appreciate this, we need to appreciate something about a dual aspect of Avraham's nature. On the one hand, we find that Avraham is the very root of the creative force of our world; meaning, he is the source and origin of the unfolding of reality. And this is actually expressed in the verse: Eleh toldot hashamayim v'haaretz, vehi baram. These are the unfoldings of the heaven and the earth when they became created. Vehi baram. And on this the Rabbis say, vehi baram, those are the letters of Avraham, he who is, of course in the transpersonal sense, he is the origin of the creative unfolding. Something else that is hidden in Avraham's name is what the Zohar says in the Introduction to the Zohar: Avraham is otiot ever ma. Ever ma means the limb of what. What—ma. Although ma, even though it might appear inconsequential, is a word of opening. Like in the seder, we say Ma nishtanah, ma zeh, we all know ma. And when Moshe Rabbeinu expressed his deepest humility, so the way in which the rabbis say he expressed it, when people were arguing and complaining against him, he says: v'anachnu ma? We are what? So why are you complaining against us—we are what? V'anachnu ma.

And the word ma, which is what, this might be abstract… but the word ma is always the opening word, but it also is the word hidden within chochma, wisdom, which is cheich-ma, a palette for "what-ness". So a person who has a palette for what, has the opportunity for becoming a bearer of chochmah. And that has to do with the kind of openness that wisdom requires of us. Not the kind of a wisdom which is the thinking about things, but a kind of a wisdom that is the openness to receiving what is. What is. Without asking who it is, or attempting to describe it and delineate it and define it, just what. That what-ness of things is, if we've come to the point of seeing Adam as meod, it's also important to point out that Adam is also mah, because the numerical value of the word Adam is the word “what.” And the Rabbis describe him as being a “what.” At the beginning of Baba Kama in a very interesting passage which we're not going to review right now, but they actually say that the nature of man is “what.” So that also interestingly, the bracha we say in the morning, asher yatzar et ha'adam b'chochma, and we continue to say that throught the day even time we go to the bathroom, so we are actually blessing G-d for the wisdom he gave us--chochma—and the number of words in that bracha are forty-five, which is kneged mah, kneged Adam.

      I say this because there is something primary about who we are and who we are meant to be in our ability to question with "what?" So there are various aspects and levels to it, but the one I want to explore with you, the one I want to point out is one which is very prevalent in Avraham, and that is his humility. Because “what” as I said, is the demonstration of humility, as I've said I am what? And I hope that during the course of this, we'll get a better sense of what it means to say: I am what? And where that comes from. Anachnu mah? And why it is such an important root in our relationship and love with G-d.

      So there's two places where the Rabbis tell us about Avraham's humility. One is when he is standing before G-d and he's pleading for the city of Sodom, which is filled with evil people who are doing all these things that are not meant to be done.

Avraham begins his conversation with G-d by saying, Anochi afar v'efer. I am dust and I am ashes. And on this the Rabbis point out, See what tremendous anavah that he has, to say, Anochi afar v'efer, I am dust and I am ashes. And of course, the simple reading of those verses is that Avraham is introducing himself as dust and ashes as a way of creating a supplication to point out to G-d that I am not thinking of myself as being very much of anything. But please, nevertheless, let me speak to You on behalf of these people. But there's another level of dust and ashes which I believe is even more important to recognize in Avraham's saying I am dust and ashes, which has to do with his connectiveness. It has to do with his ability to connect to the what-ness of things. And in order to bring this into a more real, concrete depiction, I want to tell you something that the Rabbis teach us about what the highest level in spirituality that a person can access is. And that is the midah of anavah.

      So there's a rather extraordinary set of statements which the Rabbis teach us about the nature of anavah, and they tell us that the following tale—well, first they tell us the following directive, and then they tell us a story. L'olam yilmad adam midat kono. A person should always be focused towards the characteristic of His Creator. She harei hakadosh baruch hu hiniach kol heharim hagvohim. G-d left behind all of the high mountains, vayishrash hinato al har sinai. And He brought down His Presence onto Mount Sinai. Why? Mount Sinai is a low mountain. So, given that, for some reason, the revelation had to be on a low mountain, and the one that G-d chose was one which was low. And the Talmud continues there to say that this derives from what G-d says about Himself. Ani et dakah ushfal ruah eshkon. He says, I dwell with those who are downtrodden and I dwell with those of humble spirit. So Rebbe Yochanan teaches the following about this. He says: You know, every time you find G-d's gedulah, every time you find G-d's greatness, sham atah motzei invat nuto. There you also find His humility, and you know what? It says in the Torah, it says it in the Prophets, in the Neviim and it says it in the Ketuvim, in the writings. It says, ki hashem elokeichem hu elokei elohim adonei adonim G-d is the god of all powers, the great Master of all Masters, the great, powerful and awesome One, Who will not take any bribes. And then right after it, it says, He always worries about the justice of the orphans, of the widows, he loves those who are strangers, those who are converted, and gives them bread, and gives them clothing. It does it again in the Neviim. It says, So speaks G-d Who is the All-Mighty One, Who is raised above, Who dwells forever in utter sanctity, Who is beyond and transcends all of reality. I live, He says, I live with those who are downtrodden and who have a humble spirit. To always bring life to the heart of those who are hurting. And then it says again in Tehillim: Shiru l'elokim, zamru lo, sing out to G-d and make a path for the One who travels in the high clouds and make great praising to Him, and it says right after that, For He is the Father of the orphans and He is the judge for the widows, He sits in His holy place.

      So Rebbe Yochanan is giving a teaching about what it is to be a godly anav, to be divinely humble. So here is a contradictory interraction between these things. G-d is beyond, transcendent, very great, very awesome, and he dwells with the lowly. So now, a person who relates to things in terms of their physicality would be confused by such a thing. Usually, when a person is big and tall and beyond, so he can't be with those who are lowly. Not only can't he be with them psychologically, he can't be with them also spiritually. Like a person who is, say, all caught up with their titles, status, puffing themselves up with names they have acquired, and perhaps they worked hard to acquire these names. So the more names they acquire, so the more separated from the common folk. So if you think about it, there's a phenomenon that the higher you get up on the ladder, so the less people will be able to accept being just commonplace. You can't just like hang out with the common(er)s. I remember in various situations when I was teaching, or especially in raising money, people become very status-conscious regarding Whose parlor they are going to go to and who they are going to be wanting to sit with. Or who do you sit with at the lunch table. Or all these kinds of things become very crucial to those who are very aware of their bigness, of their standing up above.  And people will very rarely say, How are you doing, brother? Just a nameless connection—How are you, my friend? You don't talk like that when you are up on the ladder. But as you go down, you get to the shuk, that's how the guys talk to each other. When there's a context when there's no real status demands, everyone is like down at the bottom of the heap. So down at the bottom of the heap, there is a great deal of fraternity, a sense of we're all like in a kinship together, where all the things that would separate between us and divide us by virtue of the status we've achieved or the names that we've got or the appelations that we own, all those things are, you don't have them, or if you have them, they drop away. So the more down there, so the less those things are of concern. And it doesn't make any difference. So if there's a guy down in the dumps, so you're with the guy down in the dumps.

      Now the reason for this is, the more a person becomes stripped of the naming and the particular and specific identity which they own, so the more they are able to live in fraternity with others without seeking what it is that would establish them as separate, as greater, as more important. There's a deep spiritual root in that. And that is called being pashut. Now literally, in Hebrew, pashit means to be simple, and to be undressed. And the depiction of an anav is someone who is pashut. Now the one who is ultimately pashut, so to speak, who is ultimately without forms and specific manifestation which is his only identity is: G-d. In a sense, all we can say of His divinity is pashut b'tachlit hapshitut, that He is simple in the very ultimate simplicity. That he's undressed in the ultimate undressed, in a sense, that there is absolutely nothing that is a specific identity that can be applied to Him because He is simply the ground of being. And the name which is the highest name for G-d is yud-key-vav-key, which means that He simply is. It's not something that we're used to thinking about, because you can't think about it. Because as soon as you’re in thought, so already you're in a world of levushim, the clothing, because clothing that we wear, but clothing that we wear is our body itself. And clothing that we wear is also our emotions and our speech and our actions. And our minds, and what we think. Those are also clothing. What I mean by clothing, is the way in which we come to be manifest. So the way that I'm moving my hands, the clothing that I'm dressed in, so to speak, is the movement of my hand. Now that I'm speaking, so the clothing that I'm dressed in is the words that I'm speaking. And it's also so that even if I were silent and just thinking, the clothing that I, whatever that “I” is, that mysterious and unidentifiable I, that I would be the clothing of my thinking in my thoughts. Meaning that it's coming to manifestation in a way in which it's realized through that particular reflection, that particular becoming clothed. But if I were able to access the pashut, the pashut b'tachlit hapshitut of myself, so to speak, if there is such a thing, and to be able talk about myself, so then there wouldn’t be thought or speak, or action. There would simply be simplicity. And we're really referring to that when we talk of this name of G-d, yud-key-vav-kay, which has no time, no particular manifestation. I mean the word itself, is the closest word we have in Hebrew meaning "being."

      What would it be like to be there in simple being? We can't—except by quieting everything—touch anything of that, except in terms of how we might look toward it, by asking the question, mah? And not expecting an answer. That state of openness is, in a sense, one significant access point to that. Now G-d, Rebbe Yochanan teaches, His greatness expresses itself in His being with the lowliest of people. And the reason is—and this is the explanation that the Maharal gives—is because He doesn't have any particular form. He is pashut. So when you are pashut, so you are able to hang out, so to speak, with the low guys in the shuk. And hey, what's going on, brother? G-d is the One Who is able to do that more than any other being, because every time you find His greatness, you find His lowliness; meaning, every time you find His transcendence, or his grandeur and greatness, which then becomes translated in this verse as transcendence, you're not finding something which takes Him away and out; but rather you're connecting to He Who is everywhere and is everything. This is called in the language of Chassidut, hashvaato. His equalness, in the sense that He is everywhere equally and at once. And it is the secret of the verse shiviti Hashem l'negdi tamid. That I, with equanimity, have yud-key-vav-key always. Meaning, when I am in connection with the shem havayah, then I will be in the state of equanimity which is not a numbness, it's a connectivity to all by sharing its primary and most basic being.

And that is what we mean when we talk about an anav. Anavah will be reflected in activities like, if you're praising me, I'll say, No, it's G-d that gave me this gift. And it's true. A person who is an anav will associate whatever gifts he has to being a gift of G-d. Or an anav, when he sees another person, will not feel more than, haughtier. So it might come to expression, being able to say about them, Wow, they have all these great things, that I'm looking at and seeing, and paying attention to, and I'm giving them their level, even though it looks like this guy's a real shlump, and there's not much to him. But look at the way he talks to people, etc. (sic) where we seek to find ways to recognize the good that the other person has. And then relate to that. And those two aspects of things. One where, I'm not taking as my personal possession the gifts that I’ve been given, but rather, knowing that they are completely and utterly G-d's doing, and the other, when I relate to another, I don’t relate to them in a fashion where I look down upon them, but rather, I seek where their greatness is. These two elements of anavah are rooted in the primary one. There is a third one, by the way, and that is, when a person insults you, and I'm going to use a terminology that the Rambam talks about, when a person pishes on you. He tells a story about a person who was working to develop his shiflut in anavah and was once lying in the bowels of a ship in the most filthy situation. And someone comes along and looks down and actually sees him and actually pishes on him. And this pious person looked up and saw that and he felt the greatest joy he'd ever expereinced, that this is not something that he held against the person who had pished on him.

      So sometimes we look at those things and we kind of wonder at them. But I want to put that in also, and that is, as it's taught in another place by the Rabbis, that when someone is attacking and belittling and denigrating you, that you know how to be silent before that. And the way the Rabbis talk about that is that the entire planet stand on those who, when they're being fought against, know how to practice blimah. Toleh eretz al blimah. The practice of blimah, of restraint. But the depth of blimah is rooted in the mah. When you have to restrain yourself, then at a certain level, you're bli mah, you're without the what. But the higher level is to be in the mah.

So these are three reflections of how you would manifest anavah in relation to what you've been given, in relating to what others are, and recognizing their greatness, and in not reacting by insisting on holding your place when you're under attack. We'll come back to them and none of them is easy. For me, the important point is that we recognize that these are all expressions of something else, and that's rarely spoken of. I believe the Maharal is the greatest teacher of that. And that is that all of these are rooted in a divine experience, a divine connectivity of being just as it is. It's a root for everything else. What I mean by that is a person who is gifted by simply relating to whatever it is as it is and appreciating its "isness"—it just is—and that is good. Like when G-d first saw the Creation, and He saw that it was good. So the Maharal teaches on that, what He saw was that it is. Its goodness is in its being. When one can strip himself from all of the demands and expectations and insistences on reality and what it owes him and his insistence on his standing in it and simply touch the is-ness of being. So then he is in havayah.         

      And this is why G-d is, in His greatness, with everyone. Of course. And it is especially noticeable with the ones that nobody else wants to hang out with because it takes away from their status. It's the almanah, the ger, and the dakah, even the completely downtrodden one. Now this is described in another statement by the Rabbis where they say: bo uray shelo midat basar vadam bmidat Hakadosh baruch Hu. Take a look. It's not the way for people who live in flesh in blood the way it is with G-d., Midat basar vadam gavoah v'roeh gavoah. You know, if you're tall, you see tall, v'ein gavoah et hashafel. And the one who's tall and high doesn't see the one who's lowly. But with G-d, it's the opposite. The higher he is, the lower He looks. Ki ram Hashem vshafel yireh. That's because highness is expansiveness. The higher you are, the broader you see. We experience this to a certain extent. That's what we mean when we talk about high. The higher you are, the broader you see. The more you're in touch with. The lower you are, the more particular and specific you become. But when it’s highness, which is of a physical sort, so in addition to being higher and being able to see more, you actually lose contact with it, on two counts: physically, of course, and spiritually, in that you're becoming more and more of your own special thing. So you actually lose contact, even though can see more, so to speak, physically. But spiritually, the higher you are means that you are less and less particular and specific and more in touch with all.

Now imagine maintaining and being in that. So of course, what you would say of yourself, to give a mashal to it, that is anochi afar v'efer, I'm nothing but dust and ashes. But if you're coming to speak to G-d about preserving the lives of those who are evil, so the aspect of Him who you will want to arouse, by you yourself attuning to that and becoming an expression of that, is anochi afar v'efer. I'm but dust and ashes, What is there of me, after all, it's just a piece of being. And I'm the simplest and most base, in this consciousness, connection to that. Even connection to that isn't even appropraite terminology. From there, everything else is born. But it's the deepest kinship of all, because there's nothing with which you're not in kin. There's nothing which you stand apart from . And this is the great knowing of Avraham of the oneness of G-d, which is the same knowing of oneness which is his great love of Him in perfect and utter communion.

      One of the beautiful things that the Rabbis teach us about Avraham is in a mishnah which describes him and invites us to become a student of him. But if you're going to become a student of Avraham, what I'm speaking of is very deeply in the root. But there are behaviors, which are the three behaviors of Avraham which set him apart from his most evil opposite. And that is where the Rabbis teach us in perek heh, chapter five, mishnah nineteen in Pirkei Avot. (42: 45) Kol [?not clear] she yesh shlosha devarim halalu hu talmid av shel avraham avinu That someone who has these three things he's from Avraham's studnets. What are the three things? Ayin tovah, a good eye, ruach nemucha, a lowly spirit, and nefesh shefelah, I'm not sure how to distinguish in English the difference between low, namuch, and low, shefel. It's his nefesh which is his physical energy.

      So, what is the ayin tovah? The ability to always see good in the other. And to be clean of jealousy. A ruach nemucha, a lowly spirit, is to not be seeking one's own honor and the nefesh shefelah, is to not run after one's appetite to get more. And these three are reflections of Avraham in his anavah. Whereas, Bilam, his opposite, is always the opposite of these. He's always seeking out what's wrong, with the other; he's running after his honor all the time, and can't get enough of anything. And this is played out in the narrative about him. But the one leads to one who is a source of blessing, which is Avraham, and the other leads to a source of curse, which is Bilam. One leads to become the source of all unfolding, which is v'hi baram Avraham, and the other leads to become the source of all swallowing up, which is Bilam, which is literally his name—Baal-am, the swallower. One leads to a very profound and marvelous connection with all that is in a place of bliss and wonder, and the other leads to a very troubled personality that's always afraid of losing and not having enough. And so Bilam becomes the one who is ayin raah, ruach gvohah, and nefesh rechavah. He seeks out the evil with his eye, in order to undo what others have; he has a haughty spirit where he says to the people who have been sent to him, G-d has not let me come with people like you, implying that there were others that he was waiting to be sent; and a nefesh rechavah, couldn't get enough money. He says to the person who invites him, to curse the Jewish people, you know, if you would fill my house with gold and silver, I would be able to violate G-d's word, which is a pretty clear indication that that's what he's got his mind on, gold and silver, that's the nefesh gevohah. Now these three characteristics are derived from a being always in the levushim, being always in the clothing of existence, and never touching the experience of what it is to be at stillness in being. Without that starting point, so all the other work on character traits, it'll always remain very external, especially when it comes to anavah as the root of love. You can't—if all you're caught up in is your separateness and uniqueness and all the other things which are so important, which we'll see, and we have seen how important they are—but you will not be able to experience any of those rightly unless they're rooted in the reality of Avraham's consciousness of all is one in its ground of being. When all flows from there, so then the midot are right. And they flow from there—they don't stay there—and they become a flowing spring, which ends with David.

      But the same meod, which is the Adam, which is the ultimate expression of the unique purpose that we're each are sent here with, must begin with the same gematria of mah of I am what? What are you? I am what. That's the most I can say of it. I am what, I am what. This is also Adam, and the ever mah of Avraham. And the Rabbis go on to say a most astounding thing: Those who have this the Talmidim of Avraham, the students of Avraham, they eat both of this world, and they inherit the world to come, as it says, lhanchil ohavah yesh b'otsroteyhem amaley (50:26).

I give inheritence, or a holding of yesh to those who love Me. Now, in modern Hebrew, when you want to say, Wow! Unbelievable—yesh! It's like yesh! It's in the context of "it's for real!" Like now, I don't even know what the colloquialisms in English are, it's like "awesome!" It's for real! So that's the best way that the prophet could say that. The ones who love Me? You know what they get? They get yesh! They get real! Get real! b'otsroteyhem amaley, and I fill their treasures, their treasuries, their containers, vessels. Yesh! Who gets yesh? Ohavai, the ones who love Me. What are you talking about? When we looked at the mishnah, we weren't talking about those who love Me, were we? Weren't we talking about Avraham, who's got an ayin tovah, who's got a ruach nemucha, a nefesh shefaylah, that's what we were talking about. Who mentioned love? But what's clear in this mishnah is that the root of Avraham's teaching, which is Avraham the lover, is in his anavah. It's in his true and profound openness to see the good in another.  Because he's not in contest with them. And to experience the sufficiency of what he has. Because he has it all. In his is-ness. I don't need to be chasing after you providing me with something that will add to the reality of being. I don’t need that. I might choose to grow beyond this, of course, and I am centered to grow beyond that to become from the ever mah, to the hibaram, the one who is origin of unfolding and manifestation, yes. But not out of neediness, that you will provide me with the wealtht that I need so that I sense significance. Not at all. Of course, you will have a henefesh shefaylah, and you will have a ruach nemucha that is not seeking any honor for himself. What honor could you give me, that is more than the honor of just being?

      It comes from a different place, but I have the sense that it's related, but I'm reminded of a story that my Rosh Yeshiva told, Rav Gustman, who was one of the few gedolim that survived the Holocaust, and he was really considered one of the greatest Talmidei Chachimi who came out of Europe from Vilna. Went through tremendous suffering in passing through the Holocaust. When he was eighteen, he was already on the Beis Din of Vilnah, which, if anyone knows anything of what was once in Europe, I mean that was a profound expression of conviction of greatness. So when the war came, he escaped from the Vilna ghetto, and he fought with the Partisans against the Nazis, and suffered all kinds of suffering, including losing his son right in front of him. But he told us once a story of when he lost any taste for honor. He was invited with the other important Rabbis to a meeting of the Agudat Yisrael in Vilna. That meant that the Chofetz Chaim was there, and Rav Ozer, Rav Shcup, and other great names that you know if you live in yeshivish circle, all sitting up there at the front table. And it's a room of hundreds of people, and he came late. So when he walked in, so the Chofetz Chaim saw him and stood up. And he was a yungeleit. I think he was twenty or something. Rav Chaim Moses stood up for him. Everyone at his table stood up for him. It was like he was so totally “not mine.” And he walked up to the front and he sat down. From then on, he told us, it didn’t matter anything about that. Now, when he told it, I think the way he experienced it on one level, I mean, once you've been honored on that level, what could possibly be left? But I know, knowing him, having known him for the years that I did, I think there was something far more pneimiut there. That he didn't have a language to express. And that is, when that happened, then it opened up, there's no difference. Not “no difference” in the sense that there are no hierarchies—there are. But on the base level, there's no difference. If they stood up for me, it can't be something that I would claim for myself. It's just by virtue of being. It's a sense I have with him and the way he told the story. I'm not sure that I can give it over because the story sounds so much the opposite in a sense. Maybe not, I hope not. It's a realization like that, or living that, which is the starting point of everything else. It's the shiviti hashem lnegdi tamid, it’s the havayah always being before me, which is the beginning of everything else. And the Rabbis, incredibly, without explaining themselves, tell you that that is the experience of real, and it's the gift to those who love Me, and who live at one with Me. The gift of those whose lives are not caught up in all of the external trappings, but start with first knowing G-d. All of this as being. And from there whatever that will become expressed, derives and spells out from that.

      You're welcome to ask questions.

(You mentioned a topic of blimah. So this is a very confusing point for me. On the one hand, I see and appreciate the wholenss and transcendence of restraint. On the other hand it seem that as Jews we have a responsibility to battle evil. I'm not clear what that is. Not even in the sense of Amalek, but even in a fellow Jew who is very destructive, even wicked, probably not conscious of it. At one point, by restraining yourself, are you giving them leeway, to even hurt themselves and you and others? So how do you deal with that? What is that separation, that line, if there is one?)

      It's a wonderful question and I apprreciate it. You are asking about blimah.

I respect someone who has the power of restraint when they're under attack. And I recognize the place of that and the value of that. But you're wondering how does that jive, especially to use Jews that are committed to justice and righteousness and seeing to it that that comes about in the world, and battling evil, and fighting against it. How does that work? How do those two things connect? The statement of toleh eretz al blimah is translated in other language as shomeah bizyono v'shitek. A person is able to hear their denigration and to be silent in the face of that. And there is a great deal to learn and teach about that. But that has to do with this being a reactive response of seeking to defend and protect myself from denigration. As opposed to a response which is built on the commitment to the beauty of creation and the realization of G-d in the world, and commitment to what G-d is committed to, which is righteousness and justice, and right living. See, one place that it can come from is I'm getting obliterated by this person. They're putting me down, they're saying bad things about me, etc. (sic) And when it comes from there, then it's an ego-based reaction, which is not what the world stands on. Because what the world stands on is simple being.

(But people have the power to obliterate)

Wait. But when it comes from the response which is, What you're doing is wrong, and this is something which needs to be responded to and stopped, because this is evil, and what you are doing is acutally undermining the goodness of existence by seeking to pull it apart and rip it up. So the response there, and this will be the telling point, the response there will not be from anger; it will be surprisingly, very strong and powerful, but it will have within the power, what Rashi says is the power of the person who has a ruach nemucha, the power of patience. Of savlanut, which is Hebrew it also means the hold it, sabal. See, what I’m fighting is the evil. And therefore I can have – and savlanut doesn't mean you wait with it, and are okay with it and just let it slide, but the patience is—and it's so appropriate to Rosh Chodesh Adar today, it's the patience of the Megillah and of Purim. Purim is the holiday of patience, and if you look in the Megillah, it's interesting that there are more references to getting angry than in any other book. Haman's getting angry, the king's getting angry, and then his anger subsides, and then this one and that one, and Bigtan and Teresh, the people who are working for the king, they are getting angry, and everyone's getting angry all the time. What are they all getting angry about? Because they're living in the short face, an insistence of ruling over things that they should be as I insist upon them being, and they're living in our context right now, entirely in the levushim. You're going to take it away from me. Because when you live in the externals of things only, so of course, the ultimate of external is that it's all by happenstance and by chance. There's no organization, no life force which is guiding or directing this. So then you try to step in and take control. Then all the anger starts coming from that. But the patience, which is really in the story, and the midrash describes it, you know how Mordechai was outside, wondering where this is going to go, that Esther's been taken into the kings' harem, and then becomes the queen. Months, and months, and months, the midrash describes, he waited outside. So that ultimately, Purim becomes the holiday that lasts forever. Because it's waiting and waiting. Now, waiting, and the ability to wait, is derived in this anavah.

(Waiting for what?)

Waiting for what will unfold to unfold. And so you wonder and I'm hearing in your wondering, and correctly, what are you telling me to do? Shouldn't I participate in it? So what your participation will be whatever it needs to be and whatever you choose it to be. But if its righteousness comes from it deriving from patience—and not patience in the sense of qué será será, whatever will be will be, but more along the lines of "I'll get to it." Mordechai speaks to Esther, and it's the only line he speaks in the whole megillah, Mordechai says to Esther, Listen, this is going to work out. But you and your place in it will be place, if you don't step up now. Now imagine stepping up now, with that ultimate sense of patience that comes from "It'll work out" but I choose now to be part of that working out. But I choose now to be a part of that working out and stepping up to that challenge. But that won't be in anger and that won't be in fear, but in love of the opportunity that's been given, to participate in the unfolding of reality. In the hibaram of eleh hatoldot ba shamayim v'aretz. This is a moment of birthing, right now, that I'm participating in. And that comes deeply, ultimately, from the sense of oneness of all being, which has—I've gone back to the beginning. We've seen how much of participation in reality we're called upon to have—but it is only going to really be in love, when it comes with the anavah and the savlanut which is the first and most significant feature of Avraham, the lover of G-d.

(I'm connecting the way you're defining patience, with emunah—big buzz word now--, but is that faith? To me, patience is to wait but you're not just saying, “wait.” You're saying, “Wait in the trust that ultimately Hashem has a hand and what will happen will happen.” So it's not just a straining; it's a straining with a mission in mind.)

Doing with restraint.

(Because there's not enough information?)

Because I'm always living knowing on one level I know it's not upon me—it's life coming through and that is because my beginning point is that it's all right here. And that it's good, I'm sufficient in what I have. And you can't take that away from me. Is that in its ground of being.

(The hostility comes from fear. And if that fear can be overcome, and that solidity is coming directly from Hashem, even though we might react in the same way as the other person, we're coming from a place that is powerful as opposed to a place that is fearful and therefore vulnerable to destruction.)

I agree. It is and it isn't. As an experience it's not complicated. The intellectuation around it is complicated.

(Even though it can be experienced very quickly as emotion, it can jump levels as a reaction from anyone is to perceive danger and react to danger in some protective way.)

And you should. You have a mitzvah to protect your life. But a relation with that will be very different if it's coming out of a loving experience of the divine gift of being which no one can take away from you. And nevertheless, you're commanded to protect your body. It's wise to protect your name.

(This can be information. If one person attacks another person who is focused on serving Hashem, so yes, the person is being attacked. But something else is being attacked, and it's okay to respond to the physical threat... Especially the Jewish people are supposed to be the target from the nations every time they have an issue with Hashem. So, even though it is about them, it's about something bigger than them, so reacting to the attack is about defending themselves, but not just from an ego level.)

Not at all from an ego level. Not at all. 

(When you restrain, it doesn't need to be passive. It's an active act. You're in tune with the here and now, you're making not a connection of passivity of being defeated or something, but counteracting it with an active intention of, call it goodness. To stay in that goodness, but not reacting to the outside. Not reacting to what is around you. It's an activity. You can be very active in your restraint.)

What we're describing is like a re-rooting. That's what I experience.

(Choosing life instead of death.)

Choosing life, and that has a great deal to do, and that has something we saw way back, in a Rashi that says that the first thing that man is to do is makir b'tovatam shel g'shamim. To see the good and connect to it.

(I think that if harm is happening and you don't respond to it, then you're participating in that.)

I agree, and no one here is saying to be passive in the face of evil. But blimah is someone who in that face of the attack on him, he's silent to the attack on him, that's not what it's about. There's something here that needs responding to, and that's because there's a path of bringing correction to the world, and on that ground I'm going to respond to it. The Rambam says when you give someone reproof, the test of its truth is whether you say it b'nachat, with calm, or not. The calm that comes with the authority. It might mean that you need to act in a way that is vociferous. The calm is not a decibel level. It's a power that comes from being rooted in being. 

(So in my life it's a big issue, I struggle with it and when I hear a teaching like this, it reminds me that I shouldn't feel that way, and when I do, I need to fight against it, and I'm sinning, and I appreciate the teaching  and that's right. I shouldn't feel that way, and it's almost a balm. But instead of it being where I actively experience G-d, at those times when I'm feeling so nebuch, instead of expereince G-d, it's a “should.” For you, have you ever had an experience where you're hanging out in the lowly places and you say, this is G-d?)

This is a great question and I'm going to adjust the language to share how I experience where it comes from for me. It's a teaching that I began the morning with, in the contemplation of G-d's greatness, so one experiences a great pleasure in that. Which leads to love. I really do not know personally of a path that does not involve returning to that and it's a live experience. It's not just a matter of how I think about things. When it becomes a matter of how I think about things, then it becomes I should, I need to, it must. Becomes very vociferous. But when it's not from there, but I maintain a practice of connecting to G-d's greatness and connecting to the pleasure in that, and becoming saturated by that, that's very important. We Jews unfortunately don't hold that in enough regard to give it the time that it takes, but it is the base, is what I'm teaching this morning, how we connect to just the what-ness of what is before you begin the language of describing it.  It's not not Jewish, it's Jewish. What's Jewish about it is where it goes, as opposed to other traditions where they go with other paths with that. But it's important to begin in there with that pleasure in G-d's presence. And to have that as a centered experience which allows one to act from that place. This is a very deep thing about why Shabbat is important to us about what it is; it's not only the end point of the week, it's the beginning point of the week. It's the beginning of all activity. In the very beginning when G-d blessed Shabbat, Rashi says what the blessing was: they got a double portion of mannah the day before. So the Zohar which speaks out this midrash which Rashi is quoting, how is that the blessing of Shabbat if it happens during the week? So the Zohar answers that the blessing of Shabbat is the root of all blessing. So is stasis the root of all blessing? Yes, when stasis is experienced as communing with G-d. So, for a person to hit themselves and say, I shouldn't be reacting that way, I am getting angry and I shouldn't be getting angry, will usually get more angry, exacerbate yourself, and disempower you from responding rightly, because it becomes an undermining of the power. Even a simple shift toward rootedness in G-d: Who is it now not wanting to get angry. Oh, that's me. As opposed to: Who is getting angry again? Me again. Wack! See? But then, to shift into like, even asking that question, Who is it now not wanting to get angry. Oh, that's me, that wonderful blessed person I am who doesn't want to be getting angry now. And why don't I want to be getting angry now? Becase I am rooted in righteousness. And what does it mean to be rooted in righteousness? It means that I am rooted in the being in G-d, who is a righteous G-d. Who else would I come to desire righteousness from? And to desire that I not react in anger and in impatience, if not that that is the gift that G-d has given me. And that is my deeper want than getting angry now. So clearly, I'm closer to my essence when I'm relating back to who I am as the one who doesn't want to be getting angry, as opposed to the one who does want to be getting angry. Because what do I want? I want to not get angry now? I want this person to stop doing this to me, and I'm going to act upon that, but I want to be doing it from a place of authority and strength. And where does that want come from? That want is coming from my better side. And what is that better side? That's my soul. And where does your soul have that from? It's rooted in Him. And where is He? He is the beginning point of being. And I can be in the calm of that and in the confidence of that strength and what grows from that. Saturating ourselves with that is the derech I know, it's the teachings of the Alter Rebbe. As we see, the Rambam places it as the third commandment, to saturate yourself with the love of G-d. Avraham is the beginning of that, it's really important in the way the Rambam describes it. That means that the beginning of all avodah is Avraham.

And I believe that the root of it is in the anavah.  And this, the Rabbis actually teach, they say, What wisdom made a crown for her head, anavah has as its heel. What does that mean? If we look at a hierarchy, we have wisdom, and something that is a crown for wisdom, that is a crown for the end of anavah's shoe, so to speak, so anavah is all the way on the top. And what is that? The verse says, Reshit chochmah yirat Hashem, the beginning of wisdom is standing in awe of G-d, because my ability to receive reality is in it not being about me. So in standing in awe of him, I know that there is One Who is beyond me. And He's source, and because He's source, then I stand in awe of Him, not because I'm in fear of what He's going to do to me, but I’m in ultimate awe of Him, because I know that He is the source of my being. That is the heel at the end of the leg of anavha, so to speak, that standing in awe. Why? Because the anavah is the simple communing where there is just the equanimity of there are no levushim there. There are no manifestations. And that's the root. That's the higher state, so to speak. And that state, I believe, and based on the description in the Kabbalah, that state is a state of perfect pleasure. It's not a pleasure which is a self-conscious pleasure in which there is an awareness of pleasure. It's just an awareness of  blissful being which comes when the levushim are stripped away. So it's called in the Kabbalah atik.  And in Chassidut, coach hashva'ato. The equanimity of it, of simple being. And then when you step out of there, so you begin to look at that, so you begin to feel tremedous awe, so you become aware of yourself, you realize it's all from Him, so you completely depend upon—now you're in fear. But in the level of fear which is high fear. And then from there you move to wisdom, to what is this? Remaining still in openness, which is abnegation, but already beginning to relate to his wisdom. In the Kabbalah, Avraham is both chesed, and a higher feature, which is wisdom, but he's deriving from a place of anavah. It's an ongoing pragmatic. It's a technique. When you're getting angry, and you say, Oh, I can't believe that I'm doing this to myself again. And to ask yourself, Well, who is this that is not wanting to be doing this again? Then you say, oh, I'm okay. That to go back into the tov, and seeing the tov, if you continue to follow that will reroot you in your divine origin. That's on the level of technique. On the level of practice, it's very important to be resaturating ourselves all the time with the oneg that the Rambam describes that leads to love, and that has to do with yesh, the goodness of being. By its definition, being is goodness.

(Rebbe Nachman also says about chochmah, if you switch the letters—)

Yeah, coach mah.

(Sometimes when I'm able to do it, is to keep a notebook of anything that comes up that puts me in the place of oh, I just did that. Instead of spending the next two hours in my head with that energy and then responding to my kids in that energy space, I can put it down and put it inside, and at night before bed I take it out again and say, okay, what took me there? What was the thing or moment that pushed me there, so that maybe next time I can catch it before it triggers my system. And for me, I found it's much more effective, because it's coming from a place that's reaction in the moment, and taking it to the place of okay, so let me look at that, instead of wasting so much energy in, like, and take that energy into like, you're so rotten, just taking that energy, it's the same thing, into like turning this energy that could be this into that and use it for empowerment and say, okay I'm b'seder.)

(When negativity comes over me and I don't know what to do with it, I go and sit right in it. I put myself right in it. Because you're not giving it power, you're actually saying it from a good  place of you, who you are, which is truth and connecting with G-d.  You say, how bad really am I? And it dissipates the power of it completely, because you're not going to accpet it. You're not willing to say that this is what you are, because you're not, and it works because it's not who I am. It's not accepting it, as you said. I think.)

Series: Be'erot, Love & Relationship with God.

Synopsis:  The time-bound specific self vs. simple beingness.

Episode Transcript:

(After singing a niggun) It's a niggun about things that we are learning. It's set to the pasuk that David Halmelech says, Yamin Haromema…asaseh yah, which means: the right hand of G-d is raised up. It's the higher power in relationship to the power of din and of justice and judgment, and the right hand is the hand which enables Hashem to do chayil--He has the power to create hosts, and create many wondrous and myriad expressions of life… David Hamelech declares about himself, I will not die, but I will live. I will tell the story of the doings of yud key--an abbreviation of one of the names of G-d-- and it has a very powerful connection to what I want to explore today, regarding David and his expression of the love of G-d that we began to see last time.

Here is the context: We saw in Rashi's divinely inspired perush on the pasuk v'ahavta hashem elokecha… that you love G-d with all of your heart, and all of your force or soul, and with all of your meod, that Rashi told us about meod, that the highest level of this love of G-d is expressed through mamoncha-- through your creative investment in life, your possessions-- and then Rashi told us that the other person who is present at the end of this process is King David, who we've been following the emergence of (since we saw the dudaim with Leah, which is in reference to his name) and now David actually turns out to be the one who is the final expression of love of G-d. His name "dod" actually means the loved, and the lover, and therefore Shlomo Hamelech, when he begins Shir Hashirim asher l'shlomo yishakeini m'neshikot pihu, he said, Kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, ki tovim dodecha miyayin, that your dodim are more dear to me than wine is. So he is referring here to his father, dodecha, davidecha, your David, who the kisses of Your mouth, G-d, are expressed through David, and they are more worthy and valuable to me than any of the wine of Your direct and expressed revelation. That there is something that happens between us, Shlomo haMelech says, that happens in a kiss, that can't happen if all there is is just wine. And this we understood with the help of Chazal; it was a reference to the incredible power that G-d has given by virtue of coming into unity with Him through the kisses of the mouth, which are teachings of the Torah she b'al peh and the halachah, and we saw how that becomes realized in this world with the halachah also being hakalah, the bridemaid who is where all of G-d's teaching and revelation arrive in that act , that one act of love towards him in fulfilling His will, which is our way of kissing Him. And the other aspect is the kiss of the Torah she b'al peh, the creative involvement in the revelation of His word, and a new element which I want to also refer to today, is something else about these neshikim.

But the transpersonality, the power in the world which is embodied in David, is a kind of power of love which comes to realization in the bechol meodecha. And what was the bchol meodecha?  That David becomes the one who expresses at the meeting of all of the various and sometimes trying meetings with life, is the one who achieves the level of bchol midah u midah she moded lecha, that with every measuring out that G-d sends to you, that He measures out to you, haveh modeh lo, so acquiesce to Him. And I believe that's the correct translation here, as opposed to hodaya, with giving thanks. Here it's--in a sense--surrender, it's an acceptance of, it's a being whole with that, David says. And Rashi goes on and says that David is the one who says: kos yeshuot esah, uv'shem adonai ekrah, that I raise up the cup of salvation and I call out the name of G-d. Tzara v'yagon emtza. I find difficulty and travail, uvshem adonai ekrah, and I call out the name of G-d. Whether it's kos yeshuot, whether it's tzarah v'yagon, whether it's salvation, or it's travail, bshem hashem ekrah. And I want to point out that bshem hashem ekrah, doesn't seem to be an expression of thanks. Hes not thanking G-d. He's not saying, uvashem odeh, that I will give thanks to G-d. He says that in many other places-- it's not that David is short on giving hodaya. But here, in meodecha, what he is doing is being modeh. How? By calling out G-d's name. And this is a very powerful and crucial element in all of the work that we have been doing in the love of G-d. And especially in the aspect of the creative force which we explored last week in the lev tov, which is the heart of creativity, the pounding life-giving force, which a person, in his right purity, becomes that. That lev tov is rooted in that maayan mitgaber, in a spring that is overcoming all kinds of obstacles, whether it be fear, whether it be self-denigration, or--but that the maayan comes to be expressed in the lev tov, and in attaching oneself to that, so one learns to be modeh.

How is one modeh? So we saw last time, in telling a tale of someone who had a tremendously liberating breakthrough in a certain context that we were together, that breakthrough for instance may even be the kind of plug that is in the neck of the bottle, that's the plug of his own self-hatred, or self-denigration, or calling into question his ability to be an expression of all of those but block the expression of the maayan mitgaber which flows out. And the incredible thing is then when a person becomes modeh--meaning accepts--and here I'm giving the explanation of what the modeh is, he accepts the reality as it's being given to him. He accepts that and he is modeh to it. That's the first stage. He is at one with the is-ness of things, just as they are. Without all of the lies and blockages. Just as they are, that's the first stage. Just with the is-ness of things just as they are which attaches them to, as we've explained in the past, to the Tree of Life, as opposed to the Tree of Judgment of Good and Evil. And now that he is attached to that place, there is a marvelous thing: and that is, that there is a life-force which in a sense protects from becoming complacent when you're modeh, a life-force that pushes ahead to evolve further and grow creatively into more.

                Now I want to look at u'vshem hashem ekrah, that he's calling out G-d's name. So we saw profoundly last time that this is actually a reflection of the love of G-d which the Maharal taught us; it was a reflection of it's ahavah she aina t'luyah b'davar, it's a love which doesn't depend on anything, meaning it's not a matter of whether G-d's doing good things to me  or things that I don't like. Because I'm so at one with Him, and so connected to Him, and all of life is experienced as the wellspring of G-d bubbling up through reality, so that actually pushes us ahead in our growth in the participation of that. That, the Maharal taught us is love, because love is the deepest communing of our soul with G-d. And already at this point, the love that we are describing is really in a sense vaguely connected to the lover and the beloved as two separate entities. It's devotion to expression, it's connectivity of all, and it's a process of birthing, which is what life then becomes about.

                So something very powerful which the Rabbis tell us and actually has a lot to do with the day which is coming out, Tu B'shvat, Rosh Hashanah la ilan, and the way in which we're always called upon to live our lives of creativity and action in this world. And that is, I would say, the most important contemplation that we have in our literature, which is the shliuv of shem yud kay vav key and alef dalet nun yud, that those two names be ever intertwined. And there is a way of writing them which is intertwined, which you've seen in certain siddurim, and it is encouraged, when a person is praying, to have either in imagination, or on the print in front, the shiluv of these two names. And the reason for that is because, the shem Adny, is the most dear

--and dangerous--place. It's most dear, because it's the place of our realization and creativity, because shem Adny is a reference to the soul as it becomes expressed in the world as an Adan. An aden in Hebrew is a socket. Like the sockets that were holding the tabernacle in its place. Life is Adny, life is My aden, G-d expresses through that name. Your life is My adan, Your life is holding all of this divine influx. That it should have a place to stand. That's shem Adny.

But shem Adny has a profound danger, and is most present specifically in our creative moments, which are so endeared and we've given so much space to in our teachings. That is because the experience of creativity can become a profoundly separating one. We saw this in the trial of Yaakov, who remains lvado, alone, for the small shards and the image of him being alone (and the first time of his being talked about being alone.) It's very painful--it's painful, in a sense, to be a creative person. The artist's life is a trying one, and I think anyone who has any kind of creative realization that is personal and dear to them knows that there is a very curious path that seems to be followed in that there is--maybe it's not that way for everyone--but my sense of it is that there is a period of sorrow or trial, which then leads to a realization that I'm not about these trials and sorrows;  they are what I am experiencing, but there is a depth to my selfhood and my being that is beyond the depth of my sorrows and my trials. There is something that actually the pain brings about by virtue of being a tzarah, which is the word that means a narrow straight, and somehow that narrow straight--like water that flows through that narrow straight--becomes energized, where there must be a great word like impetuized--empowered--by passing through that straight.

And then there is this opening that happens; this is a pathway of creative output which is a trying one, a very difficult and lonely one. But in that loneliness, there is a tremendous meeting that we saw that Yaakov has with, so to speak, the lonely one. The lonely one being Hashem Himself, Who, no thing, no one, is like. And it's very important to maintain a consciousness of the shiluv between the place of the outer expression and personal and specific and unique creator, and the one who is simply a mouthpiece for the G-d who is speaking through me. And I don't say that lightly, but that is indeed what we call upon G-d to do. Every time we pray, we say Hashem sfatati tiftach, You G-d open up my mouth. So that is a shiluv of Havayah and Adny. How so? Because the name Havayah is the name of simple being, as we've seen from the Grah and other places. It has no time frame, no future, no past, there is only present in shem Havayah. That's the meaning of that name. And even present is a misnomer, because there really is no present that's just simply being. That's shem Havayah. And Adny is, as we said, a place where there is a specific casing for the appearance of being in the form which is time-bound, time involved, specific, and seems to be putting out its own stuff. This is why, the name Adny--alef dalet nun yud-- is the word ani, alef nun yud, with a dalet in it. And this isn't just a word game, this is very important, because in the Kabbalah, shem Adny is actually called ani. It's me. The I, the place of the I, I am, and the place of the I is the deep experience of being able to stand up to, being able to assert, be an act, or in life. That's the place of ani. But it only connects to Adny when the letter dalet is there. Literally, the letter dalet, as we saw, is so important in the name Yehudah, for instance, which is also a connecting of the dalet from Adny into the yud key vav key. G-d's name is the yud key vav key with the dalet from Adny, so that the ani can appear, which will be David Hamelech, who comes out of Yehudah, so that the ani of David Hamelech can appear. The dalet remains bound to yud key vav key, so that the consciousness of being connected to simple being, and G-d in His own changing presence will not be lost

 But then David comes down as the ani, the I who is the creative output, and this then becomes revealed in the world, through the specific and creative activities which were so dear and about which we say ki tovim dodecha mi yayin, that your dodim are so dear, they are deeper than all of the wine, which is the place of the place right now. There are higher worlds than this, but [this is] the place of statis, the secret place. Yayin is gematria sod, which is the secret place of being, which is always a secret because we're always in the world of doing. So, it can't be spoken--it's an essential secret, in the sense of as soon as you begin to speak it, so then it is no longer being. It's already doing language, letters, forms, etc. so it’s a perfect secret.

                For us, the David has to become a right reflection, with the dalet --and the dalet, David-- right? The dalet and the dalet has to have the clear and powerful--  powerful is the wrong word, but the very clear and zach, clean, transculent awareness of him being an expression of being, a mouthpiece for being. Very hard to hold that together. You could see why every time you say G-d's name you have to create a shiluv, a merging of these two names together. Very hard to hold that because as soon as you become creative, a new creativity, wow! you're excited and there's energy and there you are, and unbelievable, and even if it's not egotistical and self-centered, but the experience of it--it's me, it's happening to me and then you have to pull back and oscillate back to it's G-d, it's pure being, and go back there. When you're there it's a statis and there's all kinds of creative movement, so then you begin again and it becomes this oscillation which is indeed the oscillation of the shir which we spoke of once. It's the oscillation also between Havayah and Adny, which creates by virtue of its movement back and forth the song, which is the song that Shlomo Hamelech sings, the Shir Hashirim asher l'Shlomo.

But this very crucial holding is actually what we are referring to every time we say amen, every time we say a bracha. So in the bracha, he's brought it down from the highest shefa into this piece of fruit, or this piece of bread, or whatever it is, and then it has created this yichud, and then the person answering amen is actually saying something that is completely faithful and integrous. That's what amen means: Be faithful and integrous. And I'm connected by asserting that this is faithful and integrous. This world is indeed nothing but Him in His expression. And that is why the word amen itself is the numerical value of these two names of G-d, yud key vav key and Adny, because that is what needs to be established by the person who has heard the bracha, Amen. It's Adny and Havayah together. This is the real ne'emanut, the faithfulness that one's creativity is not experienced which is ajar from  or [inaud—revert/overt?]  from.

I must say a little bit of a digression, but it is important, too, because I would really like to see this more clearly, but I have a sense that eating fruits on Tu B'shvat isn't really--excuse me for bringing up my penchants. I am not so convinced that it's such a good idea to be so focused on the fruits on Tu B'shvat. Because it's about the tree, it's Rosh Hashanah ilan, and the word ilan is the same gematria of these two names. It's the same numerical value. Because the ilan is the place which is the connector between the ground and the fruit, or as the Maharchu of Reb Chaim Vital explains it, that there's a soul root which is in the higher worlds. And it's rooted and comes down through the tree and then it blossoms and becomes a fruit in this world. But lo! to the one who decides it's only the fruit. Has v'shalom. On Sukkot, which is the only holiday on which we deal with fruit, it's very important to keep connected to the lulav. Because the lulav connects it back up to the tree-ness of it and we're never supposed to be separated when they're being held. Because the most powerful and significant downfall is when the fruit is pulled away from the tree, and in fact has a great deal, --as we've explained in other contexts--, a great deal to do with eating only the product and not of the one who is its source and so we'll put that aside, but I will point out that historically, it's fairly late that we Jews are eating fruits on Tu B'shvat. It's mentioned in the Magen Avraham, 1600s, and there's good reason to believe that the source of having a seder Tu B'shvat with all these fruits is not a particular holy one. I'll put that aside…

                In terms of our lives, it's very much that way. It's very easy to become fruit-oriented, because you're very much oriented around the productivity and the produce and the output and just in terms of personal terms, forget about what am I becoming and how am I connecting to Source. Who is producing this fruit? I mean, it's all a bunch of great words, but what is your life? Who are you? We live in a society which is so divorced from Source. Just give me the stuff! Go into the store and pull it off the shelf. I don't want to deal with mechanism. I don’t want to deal with process. I just want to have the stuff at the end. And our personalities become that way, where it becomes like our personality culture or persona-culture, which is what you're projecting, which is far more important than who you've become.

So you get these things, you know, like learning ways to get people to like you, or to make a certain impression without the transformation itself. So that's on the level of our humanity. But on the level of our divinity, it's the same way. In a creative mode it becomes disconnected from that first origin of expression. You know that one of the great and most important contemplations that we have is the knowing that all of this is always in becoming; it's always being made by G-d, He's always speaking this. You can even imagine in a mediation, the emergence of a thought; just watch the emergence of a thought which comes from perfect at-oneness with that which that thought is emerging. Where did that thought come from? What was the nature of it, that thought, a moment before you thought it? Certainly it was there in thought, in mind, somewhere, it didn't come from nowhere. Well, that is the very beginnings of contemplation of unity coming into manifestation in a very mysterious, wondrous way in which that thought is not in your mind before you think it, it's not there. You can't find it, identify it, but it is there.

Now that is a low level example of, if we imagine it as far more supernal that (33:24) all is present within G-d before it becomes manifest and real, or is it, or in what sense is it there before it becomes manifest and real? It is there and it's not, and there's this wonderous transition. I'm teaching you this because it's very important for us as Jews to always be attentive to that transition point, that we become creative and expressed, but we know it was a thought that was thunk by G-d. And that's what it is and that's what our lives are. It's His thinking it.  Even though we experience it, and we have to experience it, the Adanim which is the hard socket that holds it, and if we don't experience ourselves with substance, so then we're not going to do anything.

  But the ani must always be connected or expressed through the dalet, which is a delet, which I began to explain twenty minutes ago, the letter dalet in Hebrew is a delet, [a door], a passageway, and so in the ani has a passageway that it's adni,  and then when it connects up to yud key vav key, and its dalet becomes interpenetrated into the yud key vav key, then it becomes Yehudah, who is able to both acquiesce to and surrender to and give thanks for--and only from there can David our King emerge. And only from there can a true, redemptive consciousness emerge. And only from there can come true song and speaking of Torah and prayer, almost ironically, and prayer. And this David says about himself: v'ani tefilah. My selfhood is prayer. And the reason why he says that--it's so important-- is because--well, (hesitating) the prayers we say, in the Kabbalah, the Arizal, the prayers that we say, are kisses. This is the profound terminology of our teachings which must be taken with a right orientation of zakut, of non-materiality, but in the prayers we pray, so the first three brahcot are the chibuk, the hug, and the request we make of G-d are the kisses, so the Arizal teaches. What, the kisses? That yeshakeni m'neshikot pihu. Because when we pray, so there's a mixing of our breath with His breath, and this in the Kabbalah is a very high place of unification. The prayers are actually His voice speaking through us, and that's the only way to truly pray, which is with an awareness that it's Havayah who's speaking through my Adny, my Ani.

And I'll say it in simpler terminology. It's His will and desire which I seek to align myself with in my prayers, and to speak His word, so that I will be speaking what it is which He Himself desires and it will never be anything else other than that. Just like it should never be anything other than His Torah that I speak when I say something which is a chiddush, something new. What does that mean something that is new? Is it not what G-d Himself thought? Of course it is! If it's new and disaligned from He, then it is nothing. And when it is very ancient, only then is it something, but in its being ancient, and the more ancient it is, the newer it is when it is received in this world, and in this body. It's this profound paradox that we live. We only want to say the most ancient thing, the ones that are the deepest thoughts of His will.

The Zohar teaches that when a person says a chiddush, the angels raise it up and bring it to G-d, because He asks that a chiddush come to Him so that He might kiss it, and He kisses every chiddush. That's yeshakeni m'neshikot pihu, we're asking Him to kiss us with the kisses of His mouth. Pihu, which is the peh of yud key vav, with us providing the final heh, which is the soul's return up to Him to be kissed by Him and rejoined with Him, and then His breath becomes at one with our breath-- through a teaching which is a true teaching. This is what we really long for, and this is where love becomes so deeply at one with Him that in the end, David Hamelech himself says, it doesn't matter what you send my way, I am in full at-oneness with it. The Rabbis say that at the end of time, and I say this with trepidation and had it not been printed in the Talmud, then I wouldn't, but as you'll hear, because as the verse says in Zacharia, in chapter fourteen, v'hayah adny hamelech al kol ha'aretx, v'yom hahu….ushmo echad, that it will be that G-d will be King over all the earth, and on that day G-d will be one and His name one.

So the Rabbis say….(40:49) what , today he is not one?… Amar… so Rebbe acha bar chaninah, his name is like the fraternerous one, his name is the binding one who is the son of the one who has chen…. The World to Come is not like this one. In this world, when something good happens, we say, baruch hatov v' hamativ, blessed is the One Who is good and Who does good, but when bad news comes, so we say baruch dayan haemet, blessed is the True Judge…. In the World to Come, the only thing will be hatov v'hamativ, there only will be good and the good one. Shmo echad, so that was He will be one, and His name one. What? His name now is not one? ,…. Rebbe Nachman bar Yitzchak, not like this world, but in the World to Come. In this world, My name is written yud key but is read aleph dalet. In this world, it is written yud key vav key but we don't say that, we don’t pronounce that, we only pronounce the aleph dalet nun yud. But in olam habah, kulo echad, but in the World to Come, He will be called yud hey and he will be written yud heh. We will call Him by His real name. Because in the World to Come the simple being of all will be so present and apparent, that the experience will not be of things will are antithetical to or in favor of. It will only be Him. That's what David is calling to, when it says ubhem hashem ekrah, I call out His name, Havayah. B'shem havayah ekrah. Calling upon that His name should become One.

                But we should experience life that way and indeed he is the one who is raising that cup at the end of the feast, at the end of time, at the end of G-d's sustenance for creation to give Him this blessing, which is this odecha of the final and most intimate love with Him which it's no longer a calling out of His name, it's a being to being with. This love, which is one which is-- there's glimmerings available to us in this world, glimmerings of it whenever we accept life, when we accept what G-d gives us, when we know it as good what He has sent us and what we have faced in our lives.

And I want to tell you something that is a great secret. And so much so that the Gemara goes on and says, Ravah, who was one of the greatest teachers of the Talmud, wanted to give over this teaching in a very public place, in the pirchah. The pirchah is when there would be very large masses of people that would gather for the teachings of the Rabbis. So amar le ha husaba (44:47) so there was an old man there, who said to him, l'olam ktiv, it says, ze shmi l'olam. This is My name to be hidden. This is to be hidden. So he didn't. (That's what I meant when I said I would give it over, it wasn't printed.) But the truth is, it's a secret whether you've heard it or not. It forever remains a secret, because it stands as an antithesis to our primary experience of life, which is of the ani, and the transition all the time from the ani back into Adny, through Havayah and Yehudah back up into the ayin, is one which is an ongoing oscillation and flux, which is truly the song of life, and the great love song, which is the Shir Hashirim asher l'Shlomo.

                (46:12) There was once a man who lived something of  this. He was the great teacher of Rebbe Akiva, who is of all the tanaim, is the most primary origin of Torah sheba'al peh. In fact, so much so that when Moshe saw Rebbe Akiva, he said, "You have Rebbe Akiva. What are You giving the Torah through me for?" I could go on and on about Rebbe Akiva…His name is actually the ending letters of a verse which is big important verse about our lines: Or zarua l'tzaddik uv'yisreh lev simchah. If you take the ending letters of each word, it spells out Rebbe Akiva. Or--resh, zarua--ayin,   l'tzaddik--kuf, uv'yishrey--yud, lev--vet, simchah--hey. And Rebbe Akiva is the expression of the Torah she b'al peh, who lives his life in oneness, as we know that's how he indeed ended his life.

He had a teacher, whose name was--we only know his first name--and apparently, both the place he came from, and the way he lived life. And the name of his teacher was Nachman Ish Gamzu, the consoled one who was of Gam Zu. What is Gamzu? This, too. Why was he called Nachman of Gamzu? (48:28) Because kol milte de hava salka le, On everything that would happen to him, he would say of it, gam zu l'tovah. This is also good. This is also for the good. Gamzu l'tovah. Fantastic.

So, there was actually something here that could be put to use, a guy like this. You could send him to all kinds of situations, and he would say, gamzu l'tovah. Nice, but will it always work out? I guess, he'll always see it as working out, so I guess it's okay. I guess it's kind of like a no-risk thing. So the Rabbis needed someone to go speak to the Caeser, who was going to or had made a bad declaration against the Jews. So they wanted to send him a package of a bribe, of extravagant and precious stones. So they said, who can we send this with? So they said, well, let's send it with Nachum Ish Ganzu-- d'iluma b'nisim, miracles are always happening with him. He's learned of miracles. Actually an interesting phrase, because it doesn't acutally mean always happening with him, it means he's learned of them. Already you have a sense that miracles that happen to him don't just happen to him, they're related to somethng about his consciousness about life and the world. He's learning. His learning is a miraculous learning. So, what do they do? They sent him a suitcase of precious stones. On his way to Rome, or wherever he was going, he had to sleep over somewhere. So he put it wherever he put it, he went to sleep, and in the nighttime, the owners of this little rest spot came in his room, took the suitcase, emptied all of the stones out of it, put them in their bag, and filled it with dirt.

                Now there are two versions of this story. In the one version, in the morning he saw it, and said, gamzu l'tovah. Another version has this in parenthesis, that dar , I don't know. In any case, (51:12) kimatva hatam, when he arrived in Rome or wherever he was going, sharinu l'sifta, so he presented the suitcase to the Caesar, they opened it up, and they saw it was full of dirt. The King wanted to kill him and all the Jews. They're making fun of me, those Jews. Nachum Ish Gamzu said, gamzu l'tovah. Eliyahu appeared, he looked like he was one of the king's advisors, and he said, maybe this is the dirt of Avraham, their father. You know, when he took dirt, he would throw it and it would turn into arrows, knives and swords, there's even a verse in their prophets that their swords are turned into dust. And the archer's bow is turned into chaff, actually the direction in the prophet, of course. There was this one that they couldn't overcome --lo matmu lmichtma she (52:41)-- So they checked it out, and they threw this dirt at the capital city, or at the country, and they were able to capture the country! Whoa!

So they came back and they went into the King's treasury and they brought out all kinds of precious stones and they give them to Nachum Ish Gamzu, and they said, Here, take this back and give this to your people. They were thrilled. Okay, so on his way back, so he goes and he sleeps in this place. I don't know, good things seem to happen in this place, so he goes and sleeps there again. So they asked him, What happened with your mission?  How did things work out? So he told them what happened. They said, Well, what did you bring? He said, What I took from here I brought to there.

Okay, as soon as he left, they pulled down their house, dug up all the dirt, put it into big boxes, and they brought it to the Caesar. And they said, this is it! This is the stuff! We are the owners, we're the ones he brought it from. So, they said, okay, let's check it out. Of course they checked it out and it didn't do anything. And so these scoundrals had an unhappy end. And that's was the story of Nachu, Ish Gamzu, teacher of Rabbi Avika. What's this Nachum Ish Gamzu? Gamzu l'tovah.

                So the Maharal says a deep thing, "What did Nachum Ish Gamzu always say "gamzu l'tovah"? He was always saying "Gamzu l'tovah." As if it needs to be enunciated. It couldn't be, so to speak, just an attitude. So he says the following crucial teaching: It says that everything that comes from G-d is coming from His good, and when something comes upon a person which seems to be bad, listen carefully, (55:41) hu boteach bo… yitbarach. That he completely relies on G-d. Hashem Yitbarach…tovah. G-d turns it to good… by virtue of his reliance on Him.  Vey interesting--listen carefully. Everything which comes from G-d is good. When it comes, trust Him. And if You trust Him, he turns it to good. Huh? Wait a minute. Is it good, or isn't it good? What are you telling me? Is it good, or isn't it good? Why are you telling me that my trust will determine whether it's good or not good? You just told me that everything that comes from G-d is good. Yeah. But its goodness depends on your reliance, bitachon, betach, is your ability to cling. In Hebrew, tiach is what clings to, rest in Him. Boteach bo. It's like sitting on the floor now. Let your weight be in it. Cling to Him, be davek in Him. And then He turns it to good. That's not to say that if I didn't, then it wouldn't be good? Well, you know what? Yeah. Because then you'd be living a lie, you'd be living the lie of your interpretive and judgmental mind which is pushing it off and not willing to be modeh to.  But when you are boteach and modeh to, then the good comes.

                Now I want to warn you.  Don't try to make sense of this, because it's a tautology. It's not like I'm proving to you that what G-d is sending you is good, the proof being when you accept it, it's good. It's not a proof of anything. It's an experience of life. We could never prove such a thing, because we can't stand outside saying, it should be this way, or it should be that way, if you remember the young man from last week. You can't say it should be this way or it should be that way. You should be standing outside the whole system to determine such a thing, so shut up. Just shut up. Shtok. Ki kachah lah b'machshavah. You can't say what it should be, shouldn't be.

But what you can become is an experiencer of life as it is. And you can know, thanks to G-d having revealed Himself to us, that He made this world and held it because He saw that it was good. And when he saw the suffering and travail, the midrash says, that came about on yom sheni, on the second day, which is the introduction of duality. He didn't say tov about that. That if you look on the second day of Creation, He doesn't say tov, because it's the day when duality is created. But on the day of tov meod, He interincluded all the elements into one. And then even yisurim--which are the experiences of life which are antagonistic to what it is that we enjoy or like--becomes included, the midrash says, in the tov meod. And so it is that as long as we stay in the place of claiming omniscience, so forget it. What are you proving to me? That G-d is good because when I accepted what happened to me, that it turned out for the good? What, are you trying to trick me into believing in G-d? No, I'm not trying to trick anyone. I'm just trying to describe an experience and that's what the Maharal is doing for us; he describes the experience when you're boteach, he's m'hapech it l'tovah. But I'm telling you it's good. So if you're telling me it's good, it's good, even if I don't accept it--No, it doesn't work that way, sorry!

                Here, give Me a kiss. Can you give Me a kiss, G-d says, can you become at one with Me? Ki tovim dodecha m'yayin, it's better than all of the joys which you could have thought to experience had you not come into being and stayed the simple wine in the place of the secret. If you can, then you've entered the moed . Meod? Like more than? More than. More than what? How could there be more than? You're right, there isn't. It's all Me. But know that meod is the same letters as Adam. Because you are the meod, if you live your life right.  And the way to live your life right is when the meod becomes mah, which is the same numeric value, the question of what. The statement of we are what, which was Moshe, who said about himself, and Aharon, anachu mah. We are meod realized as mah. And that's when the ani becomes ayin , and the Talmud says that you should know the whole world stands on that, the mah of Moshe, as it says: toleh eretz al limah, that he hangs the whole of reality on li mah. On the ones who say the li mah, for me, it's what. And I'm complete bitul to Him, I'm complete abnegation to Him, it's only Him. (1:02:39)

                The beautiful thing is, when that mah has the beginnings of ani added to it, the aleph, so it becomes meah, the one hundred brachot that a person is meant to say every day. But it's Moshe and the power of his humility which allows this to be, it's his power of humility which allows for the yichud for the connection of shem Adny and shem havayah as one, that the ani never lose its awareness of where it is always, and who is always thinking it and who is always speaking it, and who is always expressing it, and that is ultimate love and ultimate communion in a way that, in the end of time, will be expressed by the meodecha of acceptance.

                (1:04:30) You're welcome to ask questions…

We discussed creativity in the beginning, and you talked about creativity in the sense of aloneness. How do you define creativity? Because you're not really defining it in a purely artistic sense, obviously.

I really appreciate your asking that. Because it's not always that way, and the truth is, when it's a true creation, there's always people together in it. Nevertheless, I don't know exactly how to explain what's lonely about it. In the end nobody can know your heart. They bring five things--I need to find this Gemara again--five things that no one can ever really know, and one of them is the heart of another person.

So that's creativity? The heart?

Creativity is-- the lev tov is the creative origin of the life-giving force which is creative power.

But creative power means what? That you're bringing something new to the world? It's something from you?

Life-giving. I mean, one one level, it's life-giving. When it's new life-giving, so it's even more joyuous?

So life-giving is a lonesome process?

No, that I don't think. The amazing thing is the way that G-d made it is that the only way to give life is with another person. Until technologically came along and tried to rake that up too. But the incredible thing is, the creation of a child, the creation of anything, really, always involves another person. If you remember, we saw (1:06:34)  ashrei yulad'to, it says, happy is the one who gives birth to him, is the one who teaches be a chaver tov, know how to connect. So I'm contradicting myself, because I'm exploring different aspects of it. I'll try to say it as succinctly as possible. On the one hand, creation is always a co-opting activity, really, deeply. Creation is always cooperative. But there are moments in Creation that are experienced as just me doing it. Just me. And not only that: how could I possibly share this? Who would understand me? --on the one hand. On the other hand, of course it's with others and with all of reality and the whole world and G-d who is speaking it through me. And that is experienced very intimately. But I may be wrong, and I'm not the cleanest in the world. But I have the sense, at least this is where my madrega is, I have the sense that it shifts back and forth. And then you just want to share it, and then you realize: This isn't my doing, it's like everything and every person I've come into contact with and all life experience, this is reality. And then you're not alone at all.

So does the loneliness—is the loneliness not knowing if the-whatever the creative item is--is going to be received? Is that what the loneliness is?

Never able to fully share. One. And on the other, it's an expression of my utter and complete uniqueness.

Right. So that's not knowing if it will be received or not.

Not only the question of knowing if it will be received . It's unreceivable, because it's utterly unique. It didn't come from anyone else, it came from me. On the one hand. On the other hand, it's a very tameh place that I'm describing. Meaning, it's a very impure and incorrect. It's not right. The truth is, the whole of reality is participating in this and taking pleasure in it and contributing to it. And being part of it. That's the truth. Halevai that we hold that in the creative.  But, nevertheless, it is still l'vado. Because this particular expression is so unique and different that it's really alone. I'm kind of like trying to draw for you the shiluv for you of shem yud key vav key, and Adny. You can hold it in a picture, with a yud and an aleph and a hey and a dalet and a vav, etc.

                What I also want to say, it's the deepest love when it's experienced as something which is what I just described. We're all together in this. But who could you love more than someone who's participating in that with you?

Also you said that it doesn't really come from you. So if you're not really alone, then what you're doing is tapping into Hashem.

Right.

So then is it an illusion, then, the (inaud) (1:10:51) ?

Yeah, on a certain level, yeah. The class is over..and I'll continue to take questions.

I'm always very wary of the word "illusion".

False understanding.

It's called, like I like it better, in the non-judgemental that's called da'at tachton. It's lower consciousness. The reason why I prefer that is because lower consciousness is crucial. The Rabbis said, when they tried to get rid of the yetzer harah, they looked around the kingdom and they locked it up. For three days, the yetzer harah, and they looked around the kingdom and they didn't find one egg that had been laid by a hen. Not one egg. You know, no fruit. Sad to say, but you need a lower consciousness. Then you catch yourself, and then like-- I know, high souls, maybe, I don't know, but it doesn't oscillate that way. But it's good to always have someone who reminds you. I have a dear I guess former talmid and friend. He reminds me, It's good to have someone who reminds you, when you're in your LOW! G-d. Because you can really only sort of hold it pictorially with a shiluv of Havayah and Adni and to be in the ilan. Was that helpful?

It is, but I don't want to continue, because I could do it for two hours.

(Continuing) Amanut, omanut in Hebrew, craftmanship and artistry, has its root as amen; aman has its root as shiluv. Because real craftsmanship, which is the creative output, is always with this kind of consciousness. When you're purely in it, when the creative inflow happens, so then it's from G-d. Then you start working it out, thinking about it, presenting it, getting it into how it's going to look, packaging it, etc. But the real moment of omanut, is very much like that.

I'm just going to say one other thing. We're just referring back to our learning in the Rambam. (1:14:28) about Simcha bmitzvotav ahavat hakel shetzivah bahem. And David and his dancing and letting go, and it's all flowing through him, and Michal trying to stop that and etc. So the Rambam learned his teachings about simcha shel mitzvah from a sugiah that in a sense doesn't make any sense at all. Listen to this piece of Talmud. It says, Kohelet said two things. One thing he said was simchah--ech! It's a bunch of trash! As Ecclesiastes talks. And the other one says, Eshabeach ani et hasimchah. I praise nothing other than simchah. So the Rabbis say, What are you going to do with this contridiction? So they say, one is simchah, and the other is simchah shel mitzvah. And where do we learn simchah shel mitzvah, the joy of a mitzvah? So here's their proof. They say, well, you know, it says, that when Shaul was troubled and crazy, so his advisor said, We need to bring someone who can play you music. And, of course, they bring him no other than David Hamelech.(1:15:46) Vayehi knagen hamenagen, And then, when he played him the music, so his spirit was calmed. It's the same language which is used when the prophets would play and prophecy would begin. Huh? That's the proof that simchah she b'mitzvah, that's something. Now you look at that piece of the Talmud and you say, What? I mean if you had said, He brought him a lulav and he shook the lulav in joy, or if he had brought his tefillin and it said, He put on his tefillin in joy, then it would have been a mitzvah, right? Then it would have been the joy of doing a mitzvah, right? No. That's not simchah shel mitzvah. Simchah shel mitzvah is the joy in the joining. That's mamash, it's the only way to explain the Gemara. When he played the music, so he joined Him, G-d's spirit was resting upon him. That's simchah she b'mitzvah. The joy is in the joining. And Rashi says, well, it's a mitzvah to have G-d's spirit rest upon you, that's how Rashi, what they say in yeshivish, "tyches it up." But that's the point. That's simchah she b'mitzvah. The joy is in the joining. And that's music. The music is there. And that's David who plays the music for Shaul.

Can you tell me more about the day of tov meod?

It says that at the end of Creation on the sixth day, that G-d looked at everything, V'hiney, tov meod. Up until that day he looked at the particular creation of that day and He saw that it was good. He looked at the light, He saw that it was good. He looked at the plants, He saw that they were good. He looked at the orbs, He looked at the animals, etc. And then at the end, He looks at it all and says, it's tov meod, the allness of it that's malchut, the entirety of it. So the Rabbis said, You know what He saw when He said tov meod? He saw death. He saw suffering, pain, hell. Gehenom. And He said, tov meod. Gey shteis. Go understand that. That was the tov meod. I'm kind of loath to explain these kinds of things, but they have everything to do with what we've been talking about. Because that's the root for that pain and travail, as painful as that is, if you ask me, I don't know if I'd ever make the world like this, don't ask me, but that's the pathway that takes us to the meod. It's just that way, and when you're modeh to that, then it is that. Is that helpful for you? There's a number of midrashim on that, quite astounding.

(1:19:55) You're describing the oscillation. You see, it's very much like whiplash, like I'm hearing you say oscillation, and I'm thinking halivay, to be in some kind of like sweet oscillation..

 Thank you, I'm being, I'm sweetening it.

 And that in that, I guess, I'm not sure what the question is, I think maybe that sitting in the reality in the Adny of it, say, how to sit in that and feel it and accept it, without feeling the need to push it off and say, no,but I'm really bitul and I'm really gamzu l'tovah, even if there's a deep emunah in the gamzu l'tovah, in the moment, how do you experience it and feel it and love it?

How do you have both the gam, which reflects an awareness of my needing to see it, experience it, with all of its difficulty, how do you hold the gam, this too, is good.

Both the trial and the l'tovah. Right now, I think I've described as best I can in a different plane. If you try to step over that experience of trial and tribulation, than the zu l'tovah won't happen either. You can't walk out on it, it's a perversion. It's a disgusting perversion--is the word that comes to mind-- it's a disgusting perversion of life, to G-d's gift of life, to try to not be in that. If it's just your thoughts, drop them. I have this, I'll think all kinds of bad things, or regrets about, or judgments of, etc. You don't have to walk through those. You can just lay those aside, you don't have to think about those, because it's not more real than the reality you're investing it with now. So drop that. That's not G-d sending that to you. Put that aside, think of Him, think of something good, etc. But when it's in life, person got his leg chopped off, or a child hurt, or whatever, things that we share, just like, oh, it's okay, it's G-d and it's good, that's a bunch of crap--that's a bunch of crap, and I specifically call it that, because I have something in mind, but I have like someone shared with me a lecture that he heard from a professor of philosophy from Berkley. And among the garbage in the lecture there was a good scene he described. When he was in the 1960s in an ashram, a a Buddhist teacher was telling the people there: So what would it be for you to have this rose without the thorns? That's enlightment. And they went around the circle and everyone said, Yes! And they got to this professor, who said, "What are you talking about? That's not life!" Jewish guy. "Where would love be? Where would growth be? Where would trials be? What are you talking about?" 

And it's not that we don't know this, and in the end the Gemara says, ubayom hahuh yiyeh Hashem echad u'shmo echad. That, by the way, is what we started with, with the niggun (1:24:17) Yemim Hashem romema…ma'aseh ya. I am telling the story of yed keh Because in the end, yud key will be G-d's name: yihyah. Yud key yud key, which is just the mochin, just the higher consciousenss, not the lower consciousnes, that will be in the end of time, but that's not now.  But when you try to pretend that it's now, then sort of like jump the gun, then it's a short circuit. That's what the Rabbis say to people who try to go the long path through a short cut. Like in the famous mashal that the Tanya brings, that there's a longer shorter path and a short longer path. When you try to take the long path as if it's a shorter path, then you don't end up at the palace, you're just pretending. This has everything to do with what you were saying before about illusion. G-d created it, see that's where we're different from the Buddhists. G-d made this, that we should see things this way. What are you going to do with that? So if you live in a will-less reality, so then all you're going to focus on is, this is all illusion, maya, higher consciousness. But if you live in a reality which is willed by a loving G-d Who is good, and Who has made this in His goodness, well, then, don't skip it over, it's the meod and the tov. Love me. If you experience G-d as a loving G-d, so He made this not as some perverse and false image, illusion, but He made it as a reality that's meant to be lived. And then when you pass through it, and you do pass through it, what comes out at the other end, is the chelah yeterah, that the Zohar says, is the chelah yeterah of tshuvah and other things that what life is here on this planet for, you passed through the narrow path of mitzraim. You had to go there, the metzar hagaron, the narrow path, between your heart and your mind. Was that helpful, was I relating to you, Debbie?

Yeah.

Chaya, what's…?

Still breathing.

Okay.

Gam zu l'tovah does that mean, this is wonderful?

Pleasant and good are two different things.

Yeah, Gam zu l'tovah. I don't know that it always means, to enjoy, it's to have a consciousness and awareness that it's not happening without reason, that there's a higher course

It's going for the good.

 and you're a part of that, and that's way it's good. But it doesn't mean that--

It's is l'tovah  "l" tovah.

Yeah, it's for the good, it doesn't mean that it's good for you

Correct. Gam zu l'tovah. I think Rebbe Akiva has a higher consciousness, and more geuladic consciousness, and ultimately there's even more, but he's the beginning --Nachum ish Gamzu, of this kind of consciousness, that's expressed in Rebbe Akiva in the great love of G-d that he lives. But you're right, and there's another story, which is a counterpart story of Nachum Ish Gamzu, if you remember where he meets a poor person, and the poor person asks him to --are you familiar with this story?

There's a story about Nachum ish Gamzu, I don't know if I really want to tell the story, it's painful but it's important to see the other side, the Rabbis came to him once, he was ill, he was lying on the bed, he had no arms, no legs, and he was blind, the house was falling down. So they came to visit him, and the legs of the bed were sitting in pools of water so that the ants wouldn't climb up on the bed and gnaw at him. So he said to the Rabbis, First take all of the stuff out of the house, and then take me out, so they took all the stuff out and they took him out, and of course, as soon as they took him out, the house fell down. Because it was only in his merit that the house was still standing. So they said to him, How did this happen to you? So he said, Once I was walking on the way, and I had a load on my donkey, and a poor man came up to me and said, Could you give me some food, and he said, I will give it to you as soon as I unload. It's like the equivalent of I guess, like you're taking a hitchhiker. You'd like to stop here and the other one would like to stop ahead, I'll stop over there, and you'll get out and walk back. Something like that, I guess, so he said, I'll unload, and then I'll give you. In the meantime, the poor man died. So then, Nachum Ish Gamzu said: these hands that did not move quickly for him should no longer be, these legs that didn't run or him should no longer be. These eyes that didn't see his suffering and compassion should no longer see.  Wait a minute, why didn't he say Gamzu l'tovah? Well, apparently, it's not so simple. I don't have an answer, just leave that as paradox. But it's not so simple.

Is that in the Gemara?

That story appears right before the one I told. Because then the Gemara says, so why did they call him Nachum Ish Gamzu? Well, because he always said Gamzu l'tovah. What? And there he is, with the earth of Avraham, the man of love of G-d. It was his love of G-d, the earth of Avraham. It's not simple to be Jewish, you don't have the thorns, you want to go on a different path. Yeah, we have thorns and roses together. Because it's not an illusion, and your choices matter, and your response before them. And they have consequences. That's the next series. About fear of G-d.

Oh yeah?

No! Have a good day, bye!

Series: Be'erot, Love & Relationship with God.

Episode Transcript:

This is the day before a yarzeit and a day that has importance to me personally because it involves the whole continuation of the teachings of the Admor Hazakeyn in the world throught the movement which became Chabad, the last Rebbe of the path the was established by him, Menachem mendel Schneerson became a Rebbe on yud shvat and so we're in that moment now. Tomorrow is yud shvat.

One of the teachings we've been with is a path that we saw began in Moshe Rabbeinu's command to us V’ahavta et Hashem elokecha b’chal lvavcha b'chol nefshecha, u'bchol m’odecha. And we've been following that as it's become expressed through Avraham, through Yitzchak and Yaakov. And especially seeing Yaakov coming to his realization through Leah, and from there we saw how birth of Leah, and especially of her realization of Hodaya, came David. The amazing thing is, that the Chachamim teach us that V’ahavta et Hashem elokecha b’chal lvavcha, b'chol nefshecha, u'bchol m’odecha is parallel to these three, actually four great teachers, and the sifri, which is a midrash in the Chachamim. B'chol l'vavcha is Avraham Avinu, whose attachment to G-d was with all of his heart, all of his begin was given over to Him in his being drawn to Him with all of his heart; B'chol nafsecha, who is the o ne whose very life was given up to G-d, who is Yitzchak, ready to be sacrified and was to a certain extent, completely sacrificed to G-d, burned on the altar, his ashes remaining there, and b'chol m'eodecha, was Yaakov. So the Chachamim teach. And the Maharal explains that he was b'chol me'odecha, because his great teaching to us was in being modeh, and b'chol me'odecha is what happens, in giving G-d thanks, as the Torah teaches us about him, b'chol medoecha, have mode lo k'Yaakov, sheamar katonti m' kol hachasadim. He said, I have become so small by virtue of all the good things that you've done for me. Meaning, I've realized how much all that I am is this one point in Your great universe, which is a unique point, and there is no other one like it, but is completely and utterly given over to you, in gratitude to You and in acknowledgement of all You have done for me.

                But we saw that b'chol me'odecha has another very profound significance when it comes to Yaakov, and that is b'chol mamoncha. With all of your money, all of your creativity, all of your uniqueness, becomes a focal point of love. And what I want to share with you today is something of a continuation of where we had been last week with Daivd Hamelech. If you take a look at Rashi on that pasuk, parshat V'etchanan, it's a very brief passage but it's an unbelievable passage, to convince you that it's right there.  (9:46) Rashi says on b'chol me'odecha, he says, this is two different people: one is bchol mamoncha, the one who loves G-d even more than his money and the other one is he is willing to give over all of his money over to G-d, the one who loves his money more than his body, but then he gives another perush, davar acher, he says, b'chol me'odecha, what is that? B'chol midah umidha she moded lecha. Whatever G-d sends your way. Whatever He measures out to do, ben b'midat hatov, ben b'midat haporanut. Whether He sends you something you like, or that He sends you something which you experience as a punishment or some kind of trial; whether it's this or that, love Him, love Him. And who do we learn that from? None other than David Hamelech. Rashi goes on and says, b'chen David, hu omer, kos yeshuot esah, uv'shem adonai ekrah, tzarah v'yagon emtzah, uv'shem adonai ekrah, I raise up the cup of salvation, and I call out to the name of G-d, I have been in trials and sufferings, and I call out to G-d, and in the name of G-d I call. So then David Hamelech becomes the ultimate expression in Rashi's teaching here, of love of G-d, and he is the one, no matter what G-d sends, he experiences it as G-d's love and calls his name. Calls his name that he attaches himself to shem Havaya, in His most perfect name, the explicit name, the shem ham'furash of yud key vav key.

                So that David Hamelech is b'chol me'odecha, who comes out of Yaakov and indeed they share this ultimate expression of love of G-d which is in that.

                So what I want to give over today is something of what I believe that looks like in terms of the experience of life and what life is and from there, B"H to take this into our practice, because it is so crucial and basic in terms of what it means to live our lives in full and realized relationship with G-d. because everything else, anything else will not be love, I mean it may be love in terms of what the Rabbis call ahavah t'luyah badavar. A love which relies on something. It needs the constant feeding of my experience of you overtly being good to me and kind to me, but there is another kind of love which is aynat t'luyah badavar, a love which doesn't depend on any overt expression of caring or doing good for me for whch I'm grateful, and that is accessible, if one is able to live the b'chol me'odecha of b'chol midah u'midah she moded lecha, that no matter what it is that He sends, I remain in love with Him. And I believe that the reason for this has to do with the nature of what it means to live in a loving relationship. And that is always to remain connected. But in the deepest, deepest sense.

                Listen to some of the teachings of the Maharal of Prague, who was a great ancestor of the Ba'al Hatanya, and one of the greatest teachers that we've had of what a spritiual life for Jews is meant to be. He tells us that the teaching of Moshe Rabbeinu, of Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad, must come along with V'ahvata et Hashem Elokecha, meaning that you can't have "Love G-d" unless your experience of G-d is some way a reality of unity. And that's to say the following: Da ki avaha hazot she ha'adam nimshat el hashem yitbarach, you should know that the love that a person has that he is drawn to G-d through, hu mitsad atzmo. It's just the way it is, meaning, bli shum tachlit. It doesn't have some ulterior purpose. It's something that's just the way it is. Rak mitsad atzmo shel ha'adam. It's just what we are as human beings. (15:25? Bfreshesh ben ahavah u'yirah, you should know there is a big difference between love and fear. Hareh hayirah hu hamelech, a fear that a person might have of a king, she rau yirah bapanav, who it's appropraite to be in fear of, ze eyno mistad atzmo shel adam, that's not coming from the person, that's coming formt he circumstances that he's standing in. Meaning, he's so to speak, reacting to something outside of him, and feeling in fear of it. Aval ha'ahavah, hi mitsad atzmo shel ha'adam. But love, that comes from the person himself. Now this is something that, when you first read it, doesn't totally make sense, I mean, love is something that is felt towards someone. What does it mean that the love here is something which comes from the person himself as opposed to the fear, that's a fear of someone. But a love, is that not also a love of? No, it says a fear is something which is created by something external, which you're standing in fear of, but love is something which is derived from the inner being of the person. And the proof being, it says, after all, it says about our love of G-d, V'ahavta et hashem elokecha b'chol l'vavcha, you are to love G-d with all of your being. It never says to fear G-d, that you are to fear G-d with all of your being. And then he goes on, lifnei ki ha'ahavah m'kubelet yoter, ha'adam efshar she tihyeh b'chol l'vavo. It's something which is totally in the person and can't be separated from him. Even if all of the sufferings that can come in the world, come upon this person, af im baim kol hayisurim baolam, ha'ahava she hi b'etzem, eyn kan bitul. A love which is essential can never be broken, ki eyn inyan ha'ahavah, because the love of G-d is nothing but the deveikut bo b'tsad atzmo (17:58) but the complete communion with Him from his own selfhood. [hebrew text]…. This is something which is essential to who we are as human beings, so it doesn't matter how much suffering and travail come upon a person, it cannot destroy something which is the essence of who we are. I'll give you a mashal, because he knows that this is something which is kind of hard to align yourself with. It's like fire. You know, fire always rises. That's the way fire is. Fire rises, and fire is hot. Now you could bring as much as you want against the fire to make it stop rising and stop being hot. Go ahead, do whatever you want to make it stop rising and stop being hot. You can put it in a very cold place. You can run something on it, so that it's not going up but that it's going down somehow, but it's not going to work. The reason why it's not going to work is because the minute it stops doing what it does as fire, it stops being fire. You can't make fire that's not hot. Fire in its essence is hot. That's just what it is. So, too, says, the Maharal, we are in our essence, lovers. Whatever you want to do to us, whatever you might do, and indeed it's done, you can't take that away from us. Because it is an existential definition of what it menas to be a human being. You can't get rid of that. And the reason you can't take it away, he explains, is because G-d is one. And that is to say the following. As one is relating to that which is coming upon him as something which is outside of him, separate and different to him, antithetical to him, and standing against him, so one is not experiencing the life which is the essential life of who we are . Because the truth of who we are is that we are at one with G-d. That's shema yisrael, hashem elokeynu hashem echad. There is only He, there is no other. And once you know that there is only He, there is no other, then whatever comes your way, there's only He, there is no other. And whatever you're experiencing, there's only He, there is no other. And not only that, but that's true of you, too! There's only He, there is no other. Living in a consciousness like that is a consciousness which denies the dichotomy of us and some kind of world that might be functioning antithetical to us. But rather, life becomes something that is rather than lived in dichotomy, life is lived in unity. And when life is lived in unity, then it's all experienced, and this is a true experienced of how it is—as a wellspring that is always flowing. And you yourself is part of that wellspring. It's not like there's you and there's stuff that's working on you, we're all part of the wellspring.

                Now there are interactions between the elements so to speak of that wellspring. The unity that we experience is not as one which is experienced as one which doesn’t have differentiation and distinction. But nevertheless, we're all the wellspring that is flowing. The reason that I'm using this image, which is the image that the Rabbis teach is to bring us back to what we were touching upon last week and that was exactly as we were taught it. Because if you remember, the mishnah teaches in the pirkey avot, that there were these five wise men. There was the man whose ability was to hold any water put into him. His teaching was to always have a good eye. See things as good, see things as postivity, as a recipient--as he is. Because he is. And then there was the man who ashrei yulad'to. Who was the son of the joyous mother, who taught always seek to connect to others so that the two of you can birth something new in the synthesis which comes of having a chaver tov. And then there was the great teacher who was called a chassid, who taught not only those who you can birth something together with, but be a shachen tov. Those who live in physical proximity, even though you don't experience your life as being shared with them. That's okay, you're next to each other? Be good to that person, be a shachen tov. And then there was the man who was a yareh chet, who always lived in powerful fear and awareness of the boundaries. And he taught, always pay attnetion to the consequences, roeh et hanolad, always pay attnetion in this world. Make sure that where you invest is where you're going to receive. But the final statement, which Rebbe Yochanan ben Zakkai accepted as being the most powerful, was spoken in the most inclusive and the deepest of all of them as the path that man is to walk was the one taught by Reb Eliezer Ben Arach, which was taught by the man who was an overflowing wellspring, a ma'ayan mitgaber, an overcoming wellspring, and his teaching was, have a lev tov, have a good heart. And we realized in understanding him and his teaching, Reb Eliezer Ben Arach is actually teaching that if you experience life as I do, as an overflowing well, so then your heart becomes one that pounds with all of existence in a way in which everythign you come in contact with, you're actually giving life to. You're always beating a heart which is a heart which is giving life to whatever it is that you come in contact with because you are living the wellspring of life. That's what it menas to have a lev tov.

                But here's the deeper teaching. And this is the one which is teaching, which Rashi says, is the meaning of b'chol me'odecha. And that is to say that to have the lev tov, which is Malchut, which is David, to have the lev tov, which includes them all, is the heart which really can include it all, because everything it experiences, everything it's connected to is part of this flowing wellsrping of life. That means, that when something comes against you, when something comes not for you, antithetical to what it is that you were hoping for. So if you're attached to the lev tov, and if you're attached to the ma'ayan bitgaber, so then it will be transformed. It doesn't have to be transformed—it is! Something which is moving things forward in a way in which the evolving relation of G-d's life, of which you're a part and which is not coming to you is a part, all become participant in bringing life to all.

                David Hamelech actually says, kos yeshuot esah, v'shem hashem ekrah, I raise up this cup and in raising up the cup, he's describing I raise up the cup, whatever it is that has been given me in it, and I call out in G-d's name.

                So actually I want to share something with you which I feel is a demonstration of this, that I experienced the other evening with a group that I'm workign with, in which we're basically working in a personal process in maintaining deveikut. And someone was sharing a particular event that happened to him in which he lost it. Basically, what happens in the group at this point, people are sharing moments that hit them, when they experience emotional drop, in which they become disconnected, Pushing it off. "Pushing it off" means emotionally angry, frustrated, disappointed, sad, disconnected, numb, any one of these emotions which are basically, I can't do it, don't want to deal with it.Since you can't own, can't deal with it, don't want to deal with it, so you get angry, or you get frustrated or have all kinds of emotive reactions that are basically a way of saying, this is not for me.

                So, we've been more and more attentive to that kind of shift, when it becomes, this is not for me. So one of the people in the group told a tale of how he's been spending studying a particular section of the Shulchan Aruch, that has to do with Shabbos, and last Shabbos, he was coming home from shul, and he was with these guests also that he was holing to show a beautiful Shabbos to, and the truth is, before he went to shul, that the gate to the apartment building area where he lives was a little but stuck, so he called up to his wife, you know, to see if someone could take care of this before Shabbos comes. So, gate closed, went to shul, nice davening, the whole thing, and on his way back, he's walking up the street with these people who he's showing this great Shabbos to, and he sees ahead of him at the gate, the Ba'al Habayit, who's not shomer Shabbos observer, standing there with a flashlight, and there's someone there from the building who is a Shabbos observer with a screwdriver, tinkering with the gate trying to get the thing open. Now the particualr section of the Shulchan Aruch that he is learning is all about fixing things on Shabbos and not fixing things on Shabbos. So he's walkign up the street, and he's watching this scene, and starts getting angry, frustrated, disappointed, et cetera. So, there's a whole process around this, but we wanted to look at this, what went on there. Initially his feeling was, initially I was angry, but I caught it, and let go, and it was okay. But as we explored more deeply, and went back to the scene, so the moment that everything dropped out for him, was the moment that he saw (laughing) the screwdriver. That was it. There's this picture of a screwdriver. And he sees this person holding the screwdriver. Like that's it. Right? So we just kind of hold on that, what's going on with the screwdriver, and goes into the emotions there. It's like he's really disappointed, angrier, and angrier. What's the anger saying—which is the next step. He says, "How could you not know what to tell them? How could you not know what the rule is? How could you not speak up? What's the matter with you? Why don't you ever speak up? You never speak up!" And as we turned the questions into statements, which is what they really are—in asking the question, Why don't you know? You're not really disappointed. It's really a statement of You ought to know. You should know the answer to this question. You should know what needs to be done here. You should be speaking up. What's the matter with you? You never speak up! And all the accusations and then going deeper into that, and if you don't speak up, that means you're weak—just asking him: And if you don't speak up, what does that mean?

–Weak. And what happens to people who are weak? –People who are weak, nobody ever listens to! And if nobody ever listens to you, then? –Then I'm worthless? All of us have this. It's not any different for him than it is for any of us. I should know. I should speak up. Which is of course, a bunch of malarky. You should know? Well, if you should know, why don't you? I guess, it's not that you should know, it's that you want to know.  Ah, you want to know, well, that's something else entirely. But should know is generating exactly the kind of push-off which turns him into the kind of angry, disconnecting, experiencer reacting to this situation which is one which "I'm not going to take this. I can't take this." And ultimately, I can't take myself. I can't take myself.

                So this passage, which as became clearer to him, these kinds of lies that he's telling himself, and it became clearer and clearer to him that it's a lie to say I should have known what to say. That's not true, that he should know what to say. It's that he would want to know what to say. And as, one by one, he went down and realized he became released of that activity, which is completely been built out of his unwillingness to accept life  as a flowing well which is bubbling up with a new life form, which is him responding to this circumstance in a way in which he, and all, will grow from. You see, to be there with a lev tov, which is to be as one who is in the spring and life flowing now into its next realization through him, It's all one, this is where it's taking me, this is where it's going, it's to be modeh and take you to the meod. Because this is how deep Chazal are. That to be modeh, no matter what G-d sends your way, is to achieve and connect with the meod. Because, what is the meod? The meod is the more than what already is. And this it the new level. The meod is the more than what already is. And in order for us to move to the more than what already is, you have to be willing to shake loose of what already is.  And the way that happens is when you get hit by those events which are initially experienced as being antithetical to us, because of course they are—they are antithetical to the way we already are. But if you experience them as being part of the ma'ayan mitbgabeir, so then you'll experience them as taking you to the meod. That's why the rabbis say that meodecha is someone who's modeh ben b'midah tovah, ben b'midat puranut. Makes no difference, because he's living the meod, he's living the more than what already is. What stands in the way is the self-depreciating belittling voice which accusees you of not having the stuff to live up to the realization. That's what that accusation is. You should have known, you should have spoken up, you should have done this, you should have done that. You're wrong for that, it's no good because they're doing it the way I've told them a thousand times that they shouldn't, blablablablablabla, you can say it as many ways as you want, you don’t' have what it takes to live what is now here. You don't have what it takes, And it will take whatever voice which will be the one which is your smallness speaking, it'll be whatever voice you can train, or you've trained yourself to bespeak your miniscule nothingness in the face of what life is sending you. His voice was I'm weak, and the way he kept weak in place was Weak people, no one hears, and they're basically worthless. That's the lock.

                That's why, by the way, the ma'ayan has to be a ma'ayan mitgaber. It has to be an overcoming spring because what it needs to overcome are the fears of our worthlessness and our smallness that we're not up to the task. That's why it had to be Rabbi Eliezer ben Arach, whose name literally means G-d is my help, I'm the son of worht. Arach, Ayin reish chaf. I'm the son of worth, because he experiences full worthiness and worthfulness by always experiencing life as being a ma'ayan mitgaber. And he is always able to be experiencing life as being a ma'ayan mitgaber because he's always attached to worth. Well, when this person came to this realization and was able to clear away the garbage that was holding him in his disconnected, disassociating exiled consciousness—exiled in the deepest sense of he can't be in the world The world is just against him, hitting against him, against him, against him (sounds of a fist and hand together) all the time. Well, when that cleared, the one word which he had to describe it was cheirut—I'm released. And I want to tell you something. It was very beautiful because it was in the context of the group.

                Now one of the members of the group was sitting like, quietly, while other people were responding to what was going on for them, until at the end when he said, well, I was there. He was physically there that Friday night, when this happened. And I want to tell you that even though you didn't say a word, you pushed everyone off. I could not relate to you at all. You were just completely push-off energy. And I want to tell you now, now I feel so close to you. Because what had shifted, and this is really what happens, what had shifted is that the reality that he was now living was of connectivity, because he had cleared away all the voice of denigration and was now able to live life as the ma'ayan mitgaber. And attachment to it. So now everyone aronud him felt close to him, because that's what happens. Because when you live your life as a ma'ayan mitgaber, you become a lev tov. You become a beating good heart, And now everyone is drawing life sustenance with you, and even from you. When you have moved into that enlightened place, which is the truth of who you are. This is really the root of it all. And living a life of deveikut, as the Maharal says, and the reason it's so important to tell us here that it's all one, and that it's the essence of who you are because any slivering of a hair-space miss that it's all one and this is my essence of being a loving, communing being with G-d and the life he is living thorugh me and everything around me, so as much as you'll be missing that, so you'll be missing love. And as much as you'll be missing that, you'll be missing the ability to be in meodecha. To be in the moment when G-d becomes, ki v'yachol, more than He was before. So to speak. But it's ouronly place on the planet is in making life more than it was before And the only way we can make life more than it was before is when we leave behind all of the deprecations that we have speaking to us saying, Not for you, baby, not for you. That's the creativty, which is a joined co-creating with the Creator of the Universe. And it's why we saw—the Torah is built on this—as we saw the first thirty-two words, Bereshit barah elokim, et cetera, the first thirty-two words, which is the gematria of lev, have the word following them, the thirty-third word, tov. So that the whole Creation is lev tov. That's what it is, it's a pounding heart beating with sourcing of life and of the waters of goodness which are always bubbling up with new and ever-changing forms, which as much as you are relating in unity to the source of that wellspring, all of those changing forms will be possibilities for you of growing  into your meod. And this requires the direction that meod has, of clarity of purpose, and it requires an attachment always to the essence of who we are as beings of G-d.      This is why it derives from Yaakov, it's the same word. But it comes to its expression in David. In the "practics" of it—whatever you send my way, kod yeshuot esah, whatever you send my way, I’m raising up the cup of salvation. It's all salvation, I'm raising it up. Kos, by the way, is the same gematria as the word elokim, Elokim being the aspect of divine justice. So that David Hamelech is saying, I'm raising up the kos, which is elokim, which is your judgements, as yeshuot, as salvations. And I'll tell you why, because Yesha, is yesh ayin, seventy. That's what David says, those are my seventy years. And you know what my seventy years are? My seventy years are, indeed, the years I was never menat to have. If you remember, he was meant to not be born, until Adam Harishon donated seventy years. Which is to say, because David experience his life, not as some separate phenomenon, so he is always living life as a wellsrping flowing through him. It's not my particular life. I am a mouthpiece for all of life. Yesh Ayin, Yesh ayin, which is the ma'ayan. That's yechuot, kos yeshuot esah.

                 (Someone passing out tissues/ "It's the flowing ma'ayan," the tearful participant says) And I want to tell you something. It's a most beautiful thing. Which is also about Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and David. And that is that the Gemara in kuf tet vav in Masechet Pesachim, says in the end of time, G-d's goin to make a great feast. And when everyone's done eating this great feast at the end of time, there's going to be the question of who is going to be mechubik with the benching. Who is going to lead the birkat hamazon, the blessing after the meal. So G-d's going to turn to Avraham, and say, "Avraham, maybe you? Would you like to take the cup for bentching?" So Avraham's says, "No, no, out of me came Yitzchak, it's true, but also Yishmael."  "Oh, okay, Yitzchak, how about you, will you be mechubik with the benching? Yitzchak ben Avraham." Now, Yitzchak says, "No it can't be me, because from me came Yaakov, but also came Esav." So now He turns to Yaakov, and he says, "Yaakov, please, would you please bentch for all of Life?" So Yaakov says, "You know, I can't. You know, I married two sisters, and the Torah prohibits marrying two sisters." So He turns to David, and David says, "Kos yeshuot esah, ub'sem adon-ai ekrah. Tsarah v'yagon emtsah. Ub'shem ado-nai ekrah." So he takes the cup and leads the final, closing blessing to G-d for all of the sustenance that life has provided. It was the final bentching. But you see, only David could because only he lived out of the dichotomy. It's for me, you know, G-d, it's not either, or. For me, it's not either Yishmael or Yitzchak. For me, it's not Esav or Yaakov, For me it's not two wives. For me, whatever has been has been, whatever is, is, and it's all You and Your name, which I now bless. That's how it ends. That's how existence ends. With that final bentching. Taking all of how life has sustained us with. And putting it into that one cup, that specifically David will be the one who can bless. And that's because it's exactly what the Rambam taught us about David, it's the truth—he's never cholek kavod l'atsmo. He is never separating himself out to give himself honor. Because as soon as you do that, you cease to be a participant and mouthpiece for the wellspring which is life. And it's exacltly the way it works.

                I have another story. I was walking through the Old City yesterday morning. I go sometimes early in the morning. And there was a group of people, let's put it this way: clearly bigger, clearly stronger than me walking by in one of the alleyways which weren't necessarily one of the better places to be hanging out early in the morning. So I'm looking at this and all of a sudden it it became clear to me, that maybe they'd be bigger than me in this form, but they're not bigger than what I really am. Nothing could possibly be. And that's the truth. Because there is nothing bigger than what we really are. And soon as you're attached to it, there's nothing that could overcome that, because it's a ma'ayan mitgaber.  The primary overcoming that the ma'ayan must overcome is your own fears. And your own fears rooted in your experience of yourself as a separate, small, inconsequential speck that can't stand up to it.

Could you repeat the translation of what David says?

I'd love to. What King David speaks are the verses in the chapter of 166 in Tehillim. G-d, I love You, that begins, You always hear my voice. You turn Your ear towards me, as I call out to you with all of my life in all of my days. Even when the pangs of death surrounded me and the narrow straights of hell found me, and I found trials and tribulations, I called out in Your name. Please, G-d, redeem, save my soul. Oh, G-d, you're always merciful. You always have compassion. You guard the fools, you raise them up, You save me. Bring me to my resting because you have brought upon me. You have saved me from death. You have taken my eyes away from tear and my legs from falling. I always walk before You, G-d, these are the lands of life. Asd I speak, I believe. Even though I've suffered. I once said people are false, but now I know and can return to You, G-d, the great cup of salvation, which I raise up as I call Your name.

                So what the Rabbis teach of David's song here is that he raises up the cup whether it's tsarah b'yagon, whether it's gifts that are overtly and apparently for his beneft. He raises up the cup. Kos yehuot esah. Because he's always calling G-d's name. That's his communing with G-d which is a communing of meodecha. A communing of the more than was. The more than was. This is why the Rabbis also teach, the way in which G-d saw it all—if you  remember at the very beginning, we saw that the first thing that G-d does after He creates is that He looks at it all with an ayin tovah. He created the light, it was good, He created the this, and it was good. Then he looks at it all and He says it's tov meod. On tov meod. On tov meod, the Rabbis say, What's tov meod? That's suffering. Oh my G-d. What's wrong with them? What? Tov meod is suffering? Yeah. Tov meod is suffering. And I'll tell you what I think is happening there. It's very simple. When you look at it all, vayar et kol asher asah. When He saw everything He had made, only when He saw everything that He had made could He say that suffering is tov meod. That, what it does is it pushes everythign to the next level. If you're not seeing everything, if all you're seeing is the pieces, so then just have an ayin tovah. Try to look at it with a good attitude and find what's good in it. But if you can see it all, then you'll see that the yisurim are the meod of creation, they're when it's moving beyond what it already is. That's loving G-d b'chol meodecha, that's the tov meod of creation and it's David Hamelech who brings that.

Why does it have to be Daivd? I believe it's rooted in what the Rambam tells us about his joy. David is the one who "lets loose." And stops worrying about himself.

(59:13 inaudible question) Oh, we could never know that. We can explain it within our context. We can talk about it in our experience of having been that way. But we can never explain why it is that G-d made a world in which that would be the mechanism through which the meod would come into realization. We could never explain or know that. That's something which we just have to surrender to. Because to know and understand that would be to step out of the very consciousness which we've been created with. And to look from the outside at the other possibilities for what could have been, such that there would be a world in which there would be growth without suffering, in which there would be a growth without first there having been a lack which then the grower grows into. Could there be a world in which there would be no lack, but that everything would be growing? Could there be such a world? It's unimaginable to us. You can't have growing without there having been lack that proceded the growing that you grew into. There must have been an empty space that you grew into and filled by virtue of your growth. See, you can't imagine a world in which there would be a growing light without there having previously been darkness.              So to ask the question would require of us that we'd somehow have access to the infinite possibilties of what could have been and then wonder, well, why'd you chose this one? But we can't see that, because we're trapped by the consciousness which we have been created with/trapped with/gifted with—the consciousness that G-d has given us. So what we can do is live that to its fullest. In full acceptance. And this is the full resignation—not in the negative sense of giving up, but resignation in the sense of  the softness of the touch that we need to live life with.

                There is a beautiful teaching that the Rabbis teach us, that Achiya Hashiloni, Achiya was a great prophet of Israel, living in the time of Yiravam. So he gives a prophesy to Yiravam and he says, the kingdom of Israel is going to be destroyed, like a kaneh, a reed on the waters, like a reed is blown on the waters. So the Rabbis say, Boy, look at what Bilaam said, who was such a big rashah. Bilaam who blessed the people, he said that we would be like strong-standing cedars, k'arazim nitayu. The prophet of Israel talks about us being like a reed? And Bilaam, our greatest hater talks about us as being a cedar? What's going on? So they say, well, better the curses of the lovers than the blessings of the haters, because when the winds come, the cedar is toppled. But the reed knows to bend.

                So as long as we are standing up strong against—why does it have to be this way? Should have been different! If we stand outside reality, say how it should be, we'll forever be living the accusations which disconnect us from life and block us from the growth that's offered. But if we can surrender in the most beautiful and creative way. I don't know why he made the world this way, I mamash don't know. But I know one thing: You saw it and declared that it was good. And if You saw it and declared that it was good, and therefore kept it, so You're good. And I know that though I can't outside of it and judge it, I can live within it and know that it's all Your lev tov. Once I know that, I can live the fountain. And I can be with what life sends me in its meod. And then we join David in giving a bracha to all that life has sent us, given us, us sustained us with. And can say kos yeshuot esah, in full love of Him. But anything else, the Maharal says, will not be love. Because love is communion and at-oneness with. The full heart.

                Questions:

Am I hearing it correctly that there is lev tov and ayin tov? And ayin tov is when you try to experience everything as good as opposed to lev tov is seeing the bad also and you approach it with equanimity?

Not only equanimity, but also creativity. Creativity as in ma'ayan mitgaber. It's nt really equanimity. The equanimity, so to speak, is the root of the creativity. Equanimity means that I am able to equally be present to it as it is, whether it is negative or positive. I am not buffeted around by it all the time. In kabbalistic terminology—its also in the mishne brurah—equanimity has to do with shem havayah, yud jey vav key, shivit hashem l'negdi tamid, whatever's coming against me, so to speak, l'negdi, I always put the name of G-d there. Yud key vav key, which the Gra, the Gaon of Vilna says, has as its main meaning, heyo numtsa ? (1:07:45) it simply is. When you are attached to G-d as "simply is" then you are "simply is." And when you are "simply is", whatever life hits you with, I simply am. That's equanimity. Did I get it right? And elokim, the name of G-d which is the kos, the cup, which holds Him, is the judgemnts and the differences, and the distinctions and the differentiations, which are what we must also relate to in a way in which we creatively respond to them

                But what I want to tell you Jackie, and this is crucial, the ability to creatively respond to them is rooted in how much you have the equanimity of shem havayah. And I'll say it in simple language. That when you're hit and buffeted around by all of what life sends you, if you remain rooted in It's all G-d Who is simply being, then whatever hits you becomes a creative opportunity for bringing out the meod. The enxt evlving step. That's the parable of the kane suf, of the reed that remains rooted, and therfore is able to be with what is in a way that is not disconnecting and antagonizing in reactivity, but is rooted in the deep waters and is not prone to topple over as is the angry erez.

I just wanted to hear what the difference practically was, like and how we experinece. Creativity versus--.

Yes, creativity versus equanimity. Creativity is rooted in equanimity. Creativity which is shem elokim, which is the creative force—bereshit barah elokim—has to be rooted in shem havaya in order to relate creatively to the tribulations.

So meaning that when we face a tribulation we don't just say, wow , this is a tribulation; we say, how can I creatively face this?

Absolutely. Now the only way for that to happen is exactly in the kind of process that I describe before. Like in the story. He saw the screwdriver, felt a little angry, he was sure hed taken care of it. But the person who was there witnessing what was happening, threw out the entire event, completely repulsed by this person. Because if you try to skip steps and don’t try to travel through the intensity of the feelings it's arousing. And the intensity of the lies you're telling yourself, so then you will not be guided by the event to what the next growth-filled expression is going to be. You won't grow from it. You'll be like, yeah, I dealt with it. What do you mean, I dealt with it? This is an offering from G-d, from where His life is now opening up to. What do you mean, you dealt with it? Be in it. And hear all the reactivity which is the way of seeing where you are now so that now from there you can move into the meod of where you're next to go to. That's the way you get your guidance. But it has to be rooted in the yud of yud key vav key. You know the process begins with the bottom hey, life as it is. Moves to the vav, my emotive experience of it. Then it leads to the hey, the upper hey, which is your ability to think and cognate around it, these are the reactive thoughts still. Then still in the hey, moves to evaluating true or false. Then moves up to the yud, I receive your wisdom, G-d. And I'm a receptacle for it. And now I’m going to follow Your name down. Into the hey, a new perspective. Down to the vav, an emotively responding to and relating to and the down to the bottom hey which is David choosing to be modeh to whatever You sent me and to creatively produce to that by being attached to, in Chassidic teachings, that upper wellspring which is the upper yud, which travells down, the source of the spring, which is the yud, and then the spreading of the spring which is the hey, and then the river that follows down through the vav and then down into the bottom hey which is your creative choice to where you will direct that river to. Where is life going? It travels through you in your choosing, if you are modeh to whatever it sends you, and then you become co-creator of the meod, which is both the specific individuality which is yours, as we saw in Yaakov, and the divine connection of that, which was Leah, and the realization of it, through David, by accepting whatever life sends in real and true equanimity and surrender to it as it is, which then breathes and births the choice of where you will go and where it is to go now. It's a paradoxical spiritual condition that requires of that first the surrender, which sounds so passive, and therefore it seems like like I'm just going to accept it and be with it and quiet down and and basically die in peace. No, its not that way at all. You don't die there at all. You know why you don't die there? Because life is an effervescent wellspring bubbling up through you. All you have to do is there is you shake off the shackles, of the Michal, who is looking out the window of your self-consciousness, saying, Get back to the way you're supposed to be.  Get back to the way you are, have been, David, what are you making such a scene for? There the Rambam says if you would have been cholek kavod l'atsmo, you would have immediately gone into Galut. Because it would have been moneh for himself, the simchah and the love, the joy and the love which that moment was bubbling up for him. Mamash would have been the end of malchut, the end of everything. But instead, he's dancing it up like crazy. Almost as if the scene needed all of the elements of it. It needed Michal looking out the window, and it needed David being misgaber on that . It needed all of it for that life force to flow, but anything else would have been galut, like the Rambam says. The galut would have been the galut of life, detachment from G-d. These aren't easy spaces. They require meditative conditions. They require anchoring yourself all the time in this. This isn't something that once you've got it, you've got it. Not all all, We've got to say Shema Yisrael at least. Some people say it five times a day. They get up, they say, Shema Yisrael, and then during korbanos, they say it again during Shacharis. Then they say it again at Maariv, then you say it again before you go to sleep, then you say it again before you die. Just like, Shema Yisrael, all the time you have to be saying it. It's not so to speak our natural condition in the sense of the externalities of the forms that we live. It's got to be reawakened. Because to function we're always functioning in a consciousness of separateness. You always have to be reconnecting yourself, consciously choosing it. That's the way G-d made his world, Jackie, whether we like it or not. Why didn't He just make a world where we'd all be enlightened, where we'd just know this all of the time? Why did it have to be like the Rambam says, and avodah gedolah, a very great work, which is stop stopping yourself, as the Rambam says. Stop stopping yourself from connecting to this. Why? We can never know. But it's the great work of meod.

So the medo and the lev to, it's not like the placidness of equanimity, it's the flowing joy of really being alive.

Creative joy, that's why I was emphasizing last week: eym habanim smecha, that's flowing through it. In fact, the kabbalah says that the wine that is in the cup that David is holding is the wine of the happy mother who is birthing, because yayin is gematria shivim, it's also seventy. And it relates both ot the malchut and also to binah. It's joyous wine. He has to be holding up a cup of joyous wine.  There's also a drunken wine, which in the kabbalah is evil wine. This the Ba'al Hatanya talks about. The drunken wine is when you just disconnect and cop out. The joyous wine is an opening to creativity.

I'm wondering with the ayin tov. 1) If you see things with an ayin tov, so how can you deal with things that are not tov, in the sense that, what if something needs to be addressed.

This is not pacific, in the sense of just accept it as it is. There is a difference between reactively fighting and responding appropraitely . Reactive fighting comes from anger: this is not the way it should be.  Responding rightly is rooted in the equanimity of shem havayah. This is exactly what should be right now. But part of what should be is me in the picture, called upon to fight this evil, if that's what it is.

But how do you fight if not in a reactive way, and by calling it evil are you not having an ayin lo tov.

No, in calling it evil, you're describing that this is something which is a lack in creation that I am hear now to fill. It might involve chasing down the person doing evil. It might involve taking him to court. It might involve responding right on the spot physically.

You don't call that reacting?

In English, it's hard to make that havchanah, but in a language which we'll kind of agree to semantically, if it's angry, pushing away, then that's a reactivity, which is not rooted in the equanimity of shem havayah. And therefore, I'm not creatively focusing on what this growing in creation is meant to happen now—I'm just pushing it off. But you might have to shoot. You might have to deveop a tank to fight these people. We're not talking about something which, not necessarily mean action.

Can you give an example, like the story you told. How could the passerby have dealt with the situation in a different way. I'm not talking about the internal dialogue. I'm talking about—

Exactly. I asked him. How would you have liked to respond now? Imagine that you have returned to the scene, and choose how you want to be there. So what did you choose? He chose to see the screwdriver, breathe and feel calm. Consider whether he knew whether this was permitted or not, and to go over to the person with a smile and say, Remember, it's Shabbos, and I think there's a question about what you're doing. What I learned is this. Shabbat Shalom.

I did something similar and the other person's reaction was very. I understand that if someone makes Kiddush and they don't keep Shabbat, whether it's kosher.

Whether you can be exempted by it. Whether you can fulfill your obligation through it.

So I went up to someone who made Kiddush at a meal where I was. So I mentioned it. I said, you know, I didn't make it as an attack, I said I'm just saying this because I’m concerned for myself… but it didn't feel like the next step was connection, and I don't know if I was looking at it from a negative eye. Maybe I could have said, well, he's trying. How would you interpret that situation, applying the logic of the class.

It's possible that you did the right thing.

But you said that the next step was like ayin tov, which is good eye, and then you connect with others. I don't know if it did, but on a certain level it did, because we ended up having a two hour conversation about halachah, but—

And I want to tell you something else. It's not the end of the story. The story didn't end at that moment. Who knows where the person went with that and what you set in motion.

How do you know?

You don't. Unless you trust.

So you don't think that me seeing the situation with an ayin tov—

There's no guarantee that in the moment the person is going to say, thank you, you enlightened being, for that truth.

I don't know if in that moment I had an ayin tov.

I don't know either. But I'm saying you can't judge yourself in that particular moment of time. Again, for many reasons, one of them being, the story's not over. It will only be over when David raises the cup at the end of creation and says, I see it, kos yeshuot ekrah ub'shem ado-nai ekrah.

David Hamelech hu achi meluchlach.

Because his hands are full of blood, and Elishevah. That's what the Rabbis said, David did it so that the pathway would be open for us as individuals to do teshuvah.

It's impossible to imagine that the one who would raise that cup would never made a mistake even once. You wouldn't say, ah, the one who's raising the cup, he never made a mistake even once. What does that have to do with what we've been through?

Series: Be'erot, Love & Relationship with God.

Episode Transcript:

I walked into a friend's birthday party, who's the Rosh Yeshiva up the hill at Makor Chaim, David Zinger. It's like a whole yeshiva up there, like three hundred guys, they're all dancing, you know, this and that, we'd hang out together to ferbreng with the kids. Well he says, What are you thinking about? I said, I'm thinking about simcha b'tuv layvav. He said, That's great, because that''s shvat. That's just what I was thinking about, simchah b'tuv layvav. Shvat.

(What does that mean?)

                It means joy with a good heart. And I wanted to continue the exploration from last time, if you remember that the Rambam teaches about some crucial things for us in terms of our work in coming to understand the nature of love, and it feels like something of a summary of where we've travelled to see this Rambam. I'll just remind you, he brings it at the end of the year; basically, he brings it at the end of his halachas that have to do with Sukkot, being the tekufot hashanah, being the time that that year turns around—which is why we turn around so much on Sukkot and on Simchat Torah. Because it's called in the Torah the tekufat hashanah, it's the surrounding of the year and it has to do both with the fact that the year has come to an end and also with surrounding light, which is called in Kabbalah the mafikim, the surrounding light, hakafah. And so we do all kinds of hakafos on Simchas Torah. And we sit inside something which is maykif upon us, we sit inside a Sukkah, which surrounds us, and those makifim and considered to have their origin in a world called as we've come to know as binah, the mother world of joyous birthing—aym habanim smeachah, which is why, of course, Sukkot is such as holiday of joy. Vayhitah ach sameach is spoken about Sukkot specifically, because Sukkot is the holiday of the time of the deep expression of the joy of birthing, the joy of giving.

                And in fact, the teachings of Chassidut have it that, in looking at the paradigm of Torah, avodah and gemilut chassidim—that is, the three pillars that the world stands on—so the standing pillar of Sukkot is gemilut chassidim, when you stand outside of your boundaries and become a giver. You stand outside of the confines of your house, and you become a giver. And there is the transition in the teachings of Chassidut, that is the transition into the world of binah, which is the transition of the ability and the actualization of birthing. That's why it has eight days—if you remember when we talked about Chanukah, which is the eigth sefirah down from the top—this eight-day phenomenon of Sukkah is also a reference to its aspect of being the eighth sefirah up from the bottom. And that's why Sukkot has these eight days.

                But the point is, and what is most precious for us, is that it is the time when we enter into the birthing mother who holds within her the potentialities, and most importantly, the fountain of life—the fountain of giving—and the powerful ability to overcome those things which come in the way of sharing. And I speak of this with such significance because binah, as we've seen in the Zohar, is the origin of love. And even though we're used to chesed being the place from which love originates, the truth is that it's binah, and we came to understand that chesed is really the origin of the love of G-d, and chochmah and chesed are the origin of the love of G-d, which have to do with a more static state of being, which is wisdom of what is, and chesed, which is the connection to what is. Remember that we explained that gemilut chassidim, the giving of chesed, always requires the injection of the aspect of gevurah, of power, of something that recognizes distinction and delineation and therefore has an other to give to (whereas chesed belongs really in the world of bitul, on the level of abnegation on the level of being a static principal.) This is the opposite of what most people think, but we spent time explaining this at one point. That it is a being in existence and in chochmah, it's a being in being, meaning that there is no other than His being.

                Binah, so she is the one who turns outwards, and she becomes the ma'ayan . She becomes the lev haolam and the ma'ayan, she becomes the heart of the world, and the spring from which giving springs forth. And so we find, interestingly, that the other theme of Sukkot is the Simcha Beit Hashoevah, the great, joyous event of the water drawing, which was the special event once a year in the Beit Hamikdash when the Cohen Gadol would go down to the spring that is at he bottom of Har Habayit. You can still visit there today—it's a very striking place, you can go there through the tunnel. Chiskiyahu, that's the mea ha gichon. He would go down and draw up waters, and then trek back up the hill with these waters and go up on the mizbeach, and pour these waters down so that they would return to the depths of where they would come from. Basically, doing nothing. (Laughing) He'd draw them up, he'd bring them up to the top, and everyone would be in tremendous joyous extasy, then he would spill them out, and they would do back down into the tehom, so that I suppose that next year, he would draw them up again. And this happened during the seven days of Hag HaSukkot, during the primary cyclical phenomenon, which is the water cycle, which is the first thing you learn about when you learn about environmental phenomena, that there is an ecological phenomenon as a system which replenishes itself. This cycle is generally most available to us in terms of visualizing it and realizing it as this water cycle, the basic cycle that is celebrated at Sukkot—tekufot hashanah—which is the time of the cyclical aspect of the year, when the birthing is the birthing and then it returns to its place of reorigination, down into the tehom, to be drawn again. And man has the one and simple function of being he who transfers it where it has come to, up through some raising, which will then return into its bed of primary beginning existence. And this is what it looks like, and it brings people such tremendous joy. Dancing like crazy, and we talked last week about Hillel HaZakeyn, dancing, saying, Im ani kan hakol kan, if ani is here, then everything is here, and it really is an image of that, like all of the world is being passed through me as I draw the waters and pour them down.

                And this is the consciousness of binah, meaning that she is the life-giving force, but she comes with a consciousness of that life being flowed through me, and it needs that—otherwise it becomes a most disoriented and disconnected phenomenon, like it did for Chava, when she said, Kaniti ish et hashem, that I had made a man like G-d, really the way most of the mefarshim read it, although really you could read it "with G-d," but the sense of it is that she had done like G-d, which is true, but she had done it from a disconnected place, having already eaten of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so that her name, which was Chaya, became Chava, which in Arameic actually means "the snake," a problematic name. And in giving birth to Cain from there, Cain and Hevel, brought the first fraternal strife into the world, because their life's playing out really was an expression of a consciousness of binah that had been separated from the originator of life, so their reality is one of contest and of jealousy, which we looked at.

                But the point is, when the consciousness is right, so it's very joyous. So today I want to get a more of a look at this, as we began to explore last week in the Rambam, because this simcha is not only the place of birthing that we're describing, but it's also the place of love, which the Rambam taught us that the simcha, she yismach adam basiyata mitzvah ahava ahavta hakel shetziva bahem avodah gedolah hi. Put them together, joy and love. So I want to contemplate some of that with you today. That introduction is a way of getting you oriented in terms of what kind of a spiritual reality we're orienting ourselves toward and referring to, and to also remind you that it has to do with this aspect of surrounding, holding us, containing us, makif.

                I don't expect you to understand everything; this orientation is just to give us an alignment with something so that we can explore it together in terms of how it comes down into actual halacha that the Rambam poskins at the end of Hilchos Sukkah, and tells us there's this great avodah of asiat hamitzvah v'avodat hakel.

So last time, we saw that the Rambam told us that the great avodah and of love is to not get in the way. And he said that kol hamoneah atzmo mesimchah, reui lhiparah mimeno. That this person becomes like a Pharoah, basically, becomnes a separater. And he told us later, How does it happen that you are going to get in the way of this. The phenomenon of getting in the way is called neges da'ato, and kavod l'atzmo. His consciousness, his da'at, awareness, becomes bloated and coarse, and he separates himself out for his honor. So if someone were to ask you, how do you get in the way of love and joy? So I'll tell you. Become stuck-up with yourself, egoically involved, bloated in your da'at. And the reason for this is because the function of da'at is connection. As in vayedah Adam et ishto, that he connected to her in terms of carnal knowledge, which is an unfair translation of what the Torah means when it says knowledge, It's not really talking about the physical aspect of the knowledge, although that's clearly participant, but it's talking about the mentalities merged, it's talking about the personhood merged, and that's what da'at does. As soon as you're neges da'at, so then your da'at becomes coarse and bounded and blocks the ability to merge with another, because you've become basically stuck up with yourself, rather than being in a connective mode.

                The other reflection of that, as it comes down in terms of personality, is this person will be cholek kavod l'atzmo. You'll see him standing on the side. Not necessarily standing on the side like the wallflower at a party. He might be standing in the middle of the party. But he's basically being cholek kavod l'atzmo.  Meaning that his orientation is that he should be able to establish his honor and recognition in the world, in a way in which people will provide him with the worth that he so is desperately speaking. Or by simply wanting to experience life intensely, and so his orientation is attempting to get a hold of life, get a touch of life. That's cholek kavod l'atzmo. These are the reflections of how a person will block the simchah and tuv levav, and the simchah and the ahavah that are meant to flow through him. Imagine the Cohen going down to draw the waters and then coming up onto the mizbeach, saying, This is stupid, man, I just drew them up, and now I’m going to throw them down again? What are we doing here? We're not doing anything. We're just drawing the waters and pouring them back down, and then they get buried back down into the ground, go intot the tehom and then literally flow back down through the underground channel back into the gichon. As soon as he becomes self-conscious about that, and demands for himself that he should have significant place, then he's going to step down off that altar and not be interested in that process at all. It's only as much as he's in joy involved. It would be really like a mother whose in the birthpangs saying, this is stupid, this child is coming down into the world, and he's just going to be buried again in a couple of years, I mean, what the heck am I doing? It's really like that, that's what you're doing, I mean, how long is the kid going to live? Seventy, eighty, ninety years? A hundert und tsvantsik. In the end he's going to be back in the ground.

                But it's only when a mother selflessly becomes a mother of life, that she allows that to pass through her and the more selfless she is about it, in the sense of I see this as a flow and a fountain which is coming through me, so the more she'll be able really to be joyous in giving that birth. Chazal actually say this. They say that the passage in the Torah which describes G-d getting sad that He's made man, v'yitazev el libo, He got sad in his heart. It's at the end of Parshat Bereshit. This marvelous Parshat Bereshit, it all starts to fall apart fairly early on, and by the end of Parshat Bereshit,

G-d is sad about the whole thing. So there is a midrash that asks, He's sad at the end, but wasn't He happy at the beginning—yismach Hashem b'ma'asav? He happy at the beginning? Didn't he see what was going to be? Didn't he forsee it? So the midrash answers, of course He forsaw it, just like a mother and a father forsee the death of their child. And nevertheless, they are joyous in celebrating his coming into the world. Now that's a deep thing, it's not just a trip people are playing. I am joyous in what is, and I celebrate it as it is, by being a place through which it will pass. And that's fine, and that's mamash the only way to live a kind of a life which remains connected to the eim habanim smecha.

                So binah is actually called l'hotsi davar mitoch davar, the power of drawing out one thing from another. And it's the origin of creativity, and interestingly, the origin of joy and of love. They all begin there and they all, so to speak, get divvied out along the way. So one thing that I can certainly say practically is being attentive to that is really the place.

                And I want to tell you a story, and it's a little bit embarrassing, but that's okay, because we're all friends already, and that is that mamash the Torah that I'm teaching you right now is derived from what I'm going to tell you about. And that is that there is a group of boys from this yeshiva up the hill, that had for some time been coming to learn with me Sunday mornings. I was sending sort of confusing messages whether it was happening or not happening. And they have to come special from home in order to get into Bat Ayin on time for us to learn together. So it came down to that I had said it wasn't going to happen and one of the guys shows up. So at that point, I'm like open the door, and I watch myself going into this space of mamash cholek kavod l'atzmo. Like, here's this one high school kid, he's a tenth grader, and I finally had a morning opened up for me to do the things that I want to do. To learn the things I want to learn. And so he comes in the door, and I feel myself, it's like an old pattern of I don't have time for you, so I basically say to him, I don't have time for this right now, I'm busy. You know, when you get it together, and it will be a group, so then we'll talk again. So, what am I doing? So if you want, we'll talk for ten minutes. Just won't have another chance to meet him. So he comes in and mamash, I just went into this space of lev tov and this Torah opened up. This Torah opened up in a way that I want to share with you this morning, thanks to him, I mean the kid is not only brilliant, but spiritually very sensitive, and was just the right person for me to be learning with. It's great, we had a great time, and he got to school late but it's their problem.

                So I'll tell you what opened up and it's very dear to me. I can't say that it's entirely worked out and it's a most marvelous teaching of the Rambam. To be honest, I don't remember if I said it to you last week or not, but I hope it will be okay.

The Rambam, in teaching the way he did here, hinted to us that he's got a secret that he wants to share. And that is, when the Rambam brings a verse, he intends for you to know that the verse is the origin of what he's teaching. And I'll remind you that the verse he brings is the one that teaches us that we are going to go into exile because we have not served G-d b'simcha ub'tuv levav. In joy, and with a good heart. So you look at that and you say, Joy, I know what that is, but what is tuv levav? What does it mean to have a good heart? Am I a nice guy? Okay, but there is something deeper here. The Rambam is telling it to us in his delineation which is a tremendous chiddush; it didn't have to be this way. That at the end of Sukkot, the place you arrive at is simchah and ahavah, joy and love. How do I know this the Rambam says? Because that's the ultimate achievement in the work of G-d, proof being, it comes at the end of the year, the whole process is ending at tkufat hashanah, and I know it because the ability to return from galut, and here's a deep irony—involves going into the galut which is called Sukkot. The ability to return from or not go into Galut, to be more precise, involves going into the galut, which is Sukkot. You leave your house and you go out into these ephemeral, practically non-existant boundaries of the Sukkah. And we say, let this be a kapara, if I needed to go into galut. And here the Rambam says, that's about the simchah and tuv levav, about which the Torah said, if you are going to lose it, you are going to go into galut. So what you're telling me is that I need to leave and go into galut, so that I will not go into galut.

(What is galut?)

                Galut is exile, separation, losing your embeddedness in the place that is meant to be yours. In other words, the simchah v'tuv levav which comes out of Sukkot, or is the reality of Sukkot, is that which goes into these ephemeral boundaries which are called the Sukkah, and only when one is able to be there, only then will one not become disconnected from his earthly root of the land of Israel and the place from which he is drawing the wellsprings of his existence. That's what the Torah is teaching us. So now, the Torah is telling us, I have two things to teach you. Namely, needs to be b'simchah, if you're going to stay here, and it needs to be b'tuv levav, with a good heart. So the Rambam tells you, What's the tuv lev? Tuv lev is love. Otherwise, where does he get his proof from? Tuv lev is love. And then he goes on and says, Merov kol.

                If you did not worship G-d with joy and in love, with the awareness that you have bountiful sources, a bountiful source, merov kol. From what would the word be? Exuberant everything? You can't really have rov kol, because kol is everything. You can't really have rov of everything, a lot of everything. It's like the best we can do for abundance in Hebrew is beyond everything. Merov kol, and I do want to check the kabbalah on this but I'm sure that rov kol is a reference back up to binah. Because kol is generally malchut, where it comes down to, so rov kol, is like the sourcing of that.

                So this tuv lev what is that? What does it look like in life, and what is the consciousness that it holds such that it should be? I want to show you a teaching in the mishnah which you can actually see yourselves. I want to tell you that one of our greatest teachers, Yochanan Ben Zakkai, whose name means "the man of chen," "the chen man, who is the son of the Zakkai, of the pure one, the zach one." So Yochanan Ben Zakkai had five students. And in a very unusual mishnah, in Pirkey Avot, chapter two, number nine, rather than starting with what he teaches and what his students taught, he tells us about his students, who there were, before he asks them the question which is the life question of what is the good way for a person to be davek. Or ayzeh derech hi tovah, what is the good path she yidbak b'haadam, that a person cling to in his life. So we're going to get a very important teaching from these five studetns. But before he gives us the five studnets, and their teachings, he first tells us who they are. Now that is interesting and unusual. He tells us that I have these five students and they have these five different qualities to them. The first one, anything I say, sticks. He stays with it. He doesn't lose a drop of water. The second one, happy is the mother who gave birth to him. The third one, he is a chassid. The fourth one, he fears sin. The fifth one, he is a flowing wellspring. Or more literally, a maayan mitgabeir, an everflowing, ever able to overcome wellspring. His name is Elazar ben Arach. So have the picture?

(Could you repeat?)

We have Eliezer ben Hurchenus, he's a plastered pit who doesn't lose a drop. The second, Rebbe Yehoshua, happy is the mother who gave birth to him; the third one, Rebbe Yossi HaCohen, he's a chassid; the fourth one, Shimon ben Netanel, he's a yireh chet. He fears sin. And the fifth one, he's a ma'ayan mitgabeir. He is a spring, which is overcoming anything that would standing the way of it. Beautiful, huh? And it's so interesting when you look at these, because he began with a pit that holds the water. Doesn't lose anything. And you end with the one who is the spring who's losing everything, and of course gaining everything by it. And then you have these other three in between who are amazingly enough just who you would expect them to be. Meaning, if it were so, that the first one is actually a holding of what is, well, then that would be wisdom, chochmah. The holding of what is. We're even treated to a color of it being a plastered pit with the translucent waters in it. Exactly the way it's described in the pardes of the Ramak that it was like a sapphire. And then the second: how happy is the mother who gave birth to him. Well, that's binah. Then the third, he didn't have anything to tell you about him, except that he's a chassid. The fourth is a yireh chet. He lives in fear of sin, in fear of the lack, chet. And the fifth, Ah. He's a ma'ayan mitgabeir, he's the wellsprings flowing out. He goes all the way down through the bottom. Getting to understand a little of Reb Yochanan wanted us to know who they are. (36:21)

(That's malchut?)

                I'm not sure where that is, I think, yeah. I mean, Let's see, let's be open to what he teaches us. Now we're ready to ask each of them from his place, from consciousness, tzu ur'uh eyzeh hu derech she yidbak b'hadam. So the first one says, what is the good way, the way of goodness that a person should cleave to and cling to in his life? What is the best way to be? Now, in having introduced these five men, and their reality, so an attuned reader will of course understand that we are going to get five different perspectives. Well, so the first one's perspective is ayin tovah. Look from a place of goodness. Seeing the good. Not telling you to do anything. Just contemplate the good. Be in the good. That's what yous hould see. See the light. Ki tov. See the light. See it as it is, with an uncritical mind, not judging. That's what really is an ayin tovah. Judgmental capacity is already getting you into ayin harah. Just see it as it is, it's always good.

                Rebbe Yehoshua, who is ashrei yoludat'do, how happy is the mother who gave birth to him; the chassid, chaver tov. Be a good friend. What's a good friend? A good friend, I suppose, is one who is good to the one who is close to him. He may have many chaverim, but he is good to the one who is close to him. Okay. Rebbe Yossi says, be a shachen tov. Who is Rebbe Yossi? He is the chassid. Be a good neighbor. Meaning, you are in close proximity. There is a sense of fraternity in that. Close proximity. Be good to your neighbor. Rebbe Shimon says, Be careful, he's the yireh chet. Be careful and be aware of consequences. Haroeh et hanolad. The one who sees what will come of what he does. He's aware of consequences. Careful person, which is specifically referring to don't lend money unless you know you're going to get it back. And don't borrow money unless you know you're going to pay it back. It's all very bounded.

                And then comes Rebbe Eliezer. And each one of these needs its own exploration, clearly, and understanding of how they are associated. But Rebbe Eliezer says the most amazing thing. He says, Lev tov. Now remember who Rebbe Eliezer is. He is the man who is spring which is ever-flowing, overcoming all obstacles. His heart is open. He is creatively producing. It's coming out of him. It does have an association with binah, but the place where I think we are in terms of the hishtalshelut, coming down to things, is this is actually where it begins to become real in the world. The Maharal says, If you look at it, he's the only one who is doing it selflessly. The ayin tovah, he's not really doing anything at all, he's just observing but observing with goodness. But the rest of them, they all have something going on for them. If you are a chaver tov, if you are a shachen tov, if you are a roeh et hanolad. Lev tov, just the flow of life coming through him. Hmm. So from Rebbe Eliezer ben Arach, we're finding out what the lover looks like. And the lover has to be the one who is drawing life from a spring that is flowing. So if you're seeking a loving consciousness, so then a loving consciousness will be in which you experience life in its source as being a spring that is giving out its waters. The more you experience life as being a spring that is giving out its waters, the more tuv lev you will have, and the more tuv lev you will have then the more in love you will be.

                I don't know how to explain this, and I'm not sure if this can be explained. But I think that's when  people are happy. I think the experience of joy is always like that. It's like creative life is flowing through you and you just want to give it out. People who are really b'simchah, they are not cholek l'atzmam. They are not cutting themselves off from others. They are not in risk at giving life to others. (sic) They are not at loss for sharing what's coming through them, because it is a ma'ayan mitgabeir. That's literally what that is, an ongoing flow that is overcoming everything else. That kind of a consciousness is a consciousness of tuv lev and a consciousness of simchah. But it's almost as if there's a heart is a good heart (sic) if it's good enough to pump life into everything it comes into contact with. That's what a good heart is. (44:27)

                By the way, if you count the letters in the words in the Torah, so there are thirty-two letters, the numerical value of the word tov. Tov is the thiry-third word of the Torah, mamash. Bereshit barah elokim, etc. (sic) Because the whole reality of G-d's giving us life and existence is a reality which is one of His giving us ki v'yachol his lev tov. And yes, His lev tov, where binah comes down to, is the malchut. Because there is a lev which is the lev of binah, and she is the feminine of the upper supernal consciousness, and there is a lower lev, the lev of malchut, the actualization of bringing into reality and shraring of the fountain, which is David. So it would seem. I would really find support. I have seen in the Maharal who teaches the teaching but he gives it very subtley, because he doesn't like to teach kabbalah, but it says that any wise person who knows how to be mayvin, will understand how exact the order of these chachamim is. That's as much of an indication of what we are saying is right on. It feels right on. And indeed, when malchut is in tikkun, in leit lah migar mash, she's not seeking it for herself. It's like David says to Michal, You're trying to keep it all in kelim, you're worrying about my honor, Michal otiot keli. Looking out the window, being upset about me letting go in front of everyone. I'm telling you, that's the only way to be a king. And David says in fact, about himself, all the kings like to sit around and have high-falutent conversations that make them look good and important. You know how I spend my day? he says to G-d. Looking at women's bedikah cloths  (which you may know this or not, but it's a way of establishing whether a woman is pure for her husband or not pure for her husband—whether they can live together.) What are you spending your time with? any other king would say. V'yadayim m'luchlachut b'dam, he says, My hands are dirty with blood. But it's not the blood of the wars which he had to fight. It's the blood of establishing if people can live together. Because the entire orientation of and purpose of the malchut is to be a blood that flows through the bodies of the people who are in the malchut, in a way that they are held together so that they be given life, unity and connection. He has such a wild way of saying things: Lo chasid ani? Aren't I a chasid, if that's what I spend my day doing?

                Someone asked me, so is it simchah that leads to love or love that leads to simchah? I'm not sure it's a fair question. I mean loving people seem to be very full of joy. I'm not sure that all joyous people are full of love.

(I think truly joyous people. There can be fake joyous people that aren't full of love. If it's real joy then they have real love. And when you have real love, you have real joy.)

                See, inour teachings, so the eim habaim smecha, the joyous mother of creative giving, is indeed the origin of love. And it all depends on how you see it. Because on the one hand, so love is born of heri chesed as the origin of the love of G-d and on the other hand love is born of her, just by virtue of her, with again the Zohar teaching that the love has its origin in bunah, eim habanim smecha.

(Inaudible)

I'd like to, I'm just kind of listening right now. But what seems, if we're correct in our model, that to love another human being, which comes out of binah, and down the left side so to speak to Aharon HaCohen,who is the hod, so the love of another human being comes out of joyousness. We seek to share it. It's really a weird thing. Seek to share it. You see, wisdom, which is on the right side, and shared that with chesed, is the pleasure and blissful consciousness with what is. And so the blissful consciousness and just what is is a very deep connection to G-d and produces, as the Rambam taught us love of G-d. So when you have a blissful connection of G-d and just being just as it is, then you have love of G-d. He says, You're just going to have to be in love with G-d. That's just what happens when you are in bliss with Him. But you will not necessarily come to be in love with people. They can actually be quite annoying to that state. That's why wisdom is supernal aspect, is a most marvelous reality of communion with him, but in a ceratin sense, you have to get your distance in order that it become love of people. I don't think that they're one and the same. And it’s a mysterious transition, one to the other. And in fact, the Zohar teaches that if chochmah and binah are not forever attached in loving embrace, then the world just collapses. Which is sort of what happens is a meditation that just leaves you in the being of what is, so you're out of the world. And in bliss with G-d. But if that is the consciousness of reality, then the world ends. That's literally what the Zohar says, they have to be tre reh d'lo mispar they have to be two lovers that hold themselves together. But in loving embrace, so the blissful connection with G-d and the joyous mother of children, they create a world in which the emotive qualities of the planet, which you experience in your emotions, the emotive qualities of the cosmos, again, which reverberate through you in your emotions, they become the devotion to G-d in all of His goodness, in all of His life-sourcing reality. In Kabbalah this is called the z'er anpin. The yichud of the miniature face, which means that there is an experience in all of life in miniature, which you get in your emotional experience. The large face, the arich anpin, is the consciousness of mentalities, the condition of the attachment with him, everything is there, but it's not in an emotive reality. But when it comes down in to the world of midot, by which I mean your love, fear, beauty, ability to overcome challenge, and desire to acquiesce and give thanks, and your connectedness to life, those are the six primary traits. So when all of those are in rapture with G-d, and unified towards Him this is what's called yichud hailahah, this is one of the aspects of higher unification. Which comes by virtue of the relationship between wisdom and understnading, chochmah and binah. This is what's born of that when that consciousness is right. And it will produce a love both of G-d and of all of the disparate aspects of reality. But that finally comes to expression in the malchut when I'm holding it all here, down here. I'm holding it all.  It's not about my emotive integration into my devotion to G-d, I'm outwardly turned towards that which is and in love with it and participating together in this great unity. That's the lev tov. That's a good heart. You can have a heart, but it's not a good heart unless it's a connective heart .

                Remember, we learned about lev tov as being the aspect of connecting out. I don't know exactly I can answer the question in a succinct fashion. We can say stuff. What you say is true. A loving person is a joyous person, a joyous person is a loving person, but they are not one and the same. They might be different things. One seems to birth the other. And what it sounds like is that the joy is what births the love. The joy having to do with the consciousness of ma'ayan, of life in its goodness of flow, I am attached to and have flowing through me.

(In couples work literature, I know studies have been done that couples that have four pleasurable experiences together to every one bad experience together are couples that thrive, as opposed to couples that have three or two pleasurable experiences as opposed to every bad experience together. There is some math that comes out. If you have this particular ratio of experiences together, then you will have a loving relationship, as opposed to if you have too many non-pleasurable experiences together, then love kind of fades out of the relationship.)

                They have actually made it into a statistic. But it's pleasure. It's interesting to look at the numerology. Love is generated by pleasure. It doesn't have to be. We have to be careful because we are so used to translating pleasure into some selfish activity. But that's not what we're talking about. It's a communing experience by a joint and shared pleasure. That is what I would think is what generates the love. I mean, you might be a chaver tov by pleasure that your partner has given you. You might even be a shachen tov. Or you might have a relationship that is roeh et hanolad, you might be aware of the consequences, you might lose it. But none of those will in any way compare to what is the real love, which is the ma'ayan mitgabeir. It's not because of good neighborly relations we provide each other with what we need, like chaver tov, which might be more of an abstraction of that we feel a certain affinity to each other, or just on pragmatics of roeh et hanolad like, listen, if you don’t behave nice, she's going to walk out on you. That level, which also is generated by the pleasure of her company. What do you care whether he or she walks out on you? But the true consciousness in which it comes purely through you, which is the ma'ayan mitgabeir, which is, Life is coming through me and I'm together with you in it, and we're actually have one heart which is a good heart, beating life through all of us together. That's the deep knowing of the malchut, of someone who's not cholek kavod latzmo, it's not about my game, my honor, my ego—it's one heart that's beating for all. And then that's simchah, which is rooted in a communing oneg.

(It's that the difference between simchah and joy?)

                That's the difference between pleasure and joy. Pleasure, like on Shabbat, is a blissful statis. Joy, which is on the moadim, on the hagim, is a joyous outburst and receiving of life and giving of life. That's why the Zohar says that anyone who has a meal on Yom Tov, where there aren't any poor or needy people at his table, is like he's eating the most distusting and decrepit thing. It doesn't say that about Shabbat, although we all like having guests on Shabbat. Everyone understands that if it's just Shabbat in the family, okay. Or even if it is Shabbat alone. There is something that's okay in that. But not about Yom Tov. Because simchah is the time, when it's like everyone dancing together. Simchah is the time when David HaMelech says, I don't care if I'm exposed. Adah rabah. V'nakolti ra mi zo.  I'm looking to be completely exposed, in the sense that I don't want to have blocks that stand in the way of this ma'ayan mitgabeir being able to be mitgabeir and flow out. I don't want to have anything that will be moeah this from me. Chas v'chalom. What are you talking about, Michal, what do you think you're going to gain from that? Live a life in which you're closed in and completely oriented on providing for yourself? And making sure that your standing is an accomplished one? No one really talks that way when they're in joy. And therefore, no one except through that pathway will really come to love. So without the joy, the effulgence of life is not providing you with the sourcing for being one who is giving it over. Otherwise, you go into galus. The only way to not go into galus is by being in galut in that sense. Being outside.

(I have an exerise idea, if you want to do at some point. )

…

(Can  you clarify the point you made about going into galus by being in galus?)

                I want to express appreciation of your asking questions, first of all. Second of all, can I clarify that more? It's an image. There's a certain kind of a being at home in yourself, where the established boundaries of what you know and are familiar with are what you become very invested in protecting and preserving. Like I see this with people who have a lot of trouble getting married. I'm comfortable with who I am, they say. I don't know if that's such a good thing. What do you mean, You're comfortable with who you are? What does that mean in terms of where change is going to come from? And growth. Life is always hitting you with the demand to grow. And being mistapek, having satisfaction with what you have, of yesh li kol, has nothing to do with being in the way of growth. Nor does it have to do with being comfortable with who you are; that's shalvah. Shalvah is a very bad state. Because that kind of complacence, it leads to keeping the home comfortable. Because I’m comfortable with who I am. That's a nefesh habehamit talk. So what is, then, the right consciousness? You could be happy with what you have. That's already a far more dynamic kind of langauge. But I’m happy already with what I have. But that joyousness already indicates a dynamic energy, like I could have more, I could grow into—but that already means that you have to go into galus from the confines of the personhood of who you have established as and become comfortable with. That's what I mean going into galus.

(Going out.)

                Yeah, going out. But if you don’t, then what happens is you become separated from the rest of life, because in becoming comfortable with what you are, you are unwilling and unable to accept what life keeps hitting you with, which is evolve, grow, this one's tough, there I am, here's someone else in your life, how are you going to deal with this? I'm comfortable with who I am, so I'm not going to deal with any of it. So that's the pnimi galus. That's an inner galus, in which you've separated and exiled yourself from the world. That's why the Rabbis say, ki nata v'an kavod, exile a person from the world, take you out of the world. What do you mean, Take you out of the world? There are very energetic and jealous people that I know and who seek their honor and are full of tyvah. They are really in the world. Those are the people really doing it, right? Those are the people that are in the world. The Rabbis say that's going to take you out of the world. What do you mean it takes you out of the world? What it means is that it's all about you, and your only interaction with the planet, is as one who is basically exiled from it. Because you don't really want to be living the life in connected with all, you only want to be providing yourself with the excitement and exhiliaration with the being that you're comfortable with. That stinks. You're totally out of the world. You may feel like you're totally alive, but you're totally out of the world. So you have to step out, go into the sukkah, loosen the boundaries and like welcome. So I said it in sort of like a paradox, because it's talking about two different kinds of galut, so it comes out as a paradoxical statements.

(You say go out of the boundaries, but the name that I was taught that was associated with Sukkah is Shakai. And isn't that davka a name of—)

I don't know. I was taught that it's the orot of ekyeh, so that would be different. Should get that one clearer. It's the ?? 1:11:54

(In terms of the going out in order to be able to come back in, I see in Sukkot the space of, after the yamim hanoraim, when we're really going inside, to see the habits or things that we really need to eke out and only a couple of years ago I started to understand and appreciate Sukkot I think because I could never walk back into my house and actually change. If after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I would have to go back into my dwelling place, I would be exactly the same. It's the ability to step out of that space and be told to sit. And when I sit, I sit with it, And after having those days to sit with it, I can walk back into my house and I'm totally changed. And it feels like, if I were not able to go into the Sukkah, we're going to get thrown out right away because we think we can hold it in our davening, but when we walk back into our house, we are too entrenched in it, so we need to break out of our space. So we have to embody it.) 

(In Sukkot, we can be safe in our vulnerability so when we can go back in it feels good that we let go.)

(Chaya: I was wondering, what is this lev tov? When do I experience that? Looking at, when does my heart feel good, and thinking that we could try and deepen into that experience of lev tov, to try to identify it in our lives, and when do we really feel that, and then even to do a mediation to identify lev tov experience or feeling, and see if it's connected to acts or moments in my life when I can generate that lev tov, or when that happens, and to write out a list of those moments of lev tov, and then to have the kavanah that we're going to go into life, trying to do those things a little bit more. Or in particular, if you look at certain relationships, such as with my husband, what are the things that create a lev tov, and write them out and be committed to try and do more things that generate pleasure, not just getting by every day. Because so much of relationship is like, marriage is like you're just trying to get by, and I feel that one of the point that you're saying is, raise up our life experience to pleasure, joy and happiness as opposed to that shalvah or getting by.)

I'd like to do that. How's the rest of the room doing?

(A comment. I'm seeing how joy and love and this important concept of to avoid going into galus you have to experience it yourself. I see love as joy that's giving, sharing with some other entity, and to continue to get out of ourselves. It appears to me that the ultimate galus is become exiled from the rest of the world. You are separated, so You have forgotten how to share and love, how to give, you've cut yourself off. So in order to continue to remain in the path of giving and attaining joy from giving and giving from a place of joy, you must contniue to exercise to do what a little difficult or scary, which is the galus, in order to improve and to continue to love and connect.)

                The transition point is letting go in trying, again, to hold on to what is comfortable and familiar and to risk by going out and giving. To take that risk. Your emphasis on giving is something that others share and it's important to recall it. And maybe in doing the work that Chaya is suggesting, so people will discover their points of maybe what am I thinking, what am feeling, what am I doing? In the realization of lev tov.

                What's missing a little for me here, and maybe it's missing for other people, is that we haven't really given a hard and fast definition of what lev tov is. I'm just sharing the Maharal, so the assumption is clearly that it has to do with giving. The Maharal says that all these other people are giving, but with some kind of self-interest. This one is just giving life, he's the ma'ayan mitgaber, he's giving life, he's a heart pulsing for all. So, but somehow, it seems different than gemilut chesed, in which I’m doing a good turn for someone. Here we're really sharing a life source, and that's a different experience. We're "life-ing" together. So if that helps in clarifying, for me it like—yeah, so let's take five minutes to honor that, and when have I experienced that? I guess you're asking? When has it been like that for me? What does it look like when it's happening?

(Well, first off, what is my definition of a lev tov, let me consult my heart for a minute: okay, heart—)

When are you good?

(When are you good? When do you feel good? What is my personal experience of lev tov. And trying to identify experiences where I've touched that. So let's ask our hearts.)