Do you control what enters your mind and your heart? How about your senses: Who or what stimulates your senses? Ostensibly, our knee-jerk response may be to simply wave off these questions as ridiculous. Who then controls my mind and senses if not I? I mean, we aren’t living in a “1984” world of mind control! We live in freedom and can think and do as we see fit.

But think again: Do you generate your own thoughts and feelings, or are they generated by things and events around you? When you walk down the street, even if you are engrossed in something important, what happens when you see a beautiful sight, or hear an exquisite song, or any of your other senses are being stimulated — are you able to ignore all that stimuli and maintain your focus? How are our minds and psyches impacted by advertising and the incessant media stream inundating our lives? Everywhere you go, wherever you may be, we are receiving messages, some more subliminal than others, that are shaping our beings. Do you still feel you are in control of your thoughts and feelings? The question may even be reversed: Do we have any senses that are ignited by inner rather than outer stimuli? Do we even know who we really are and what we really want without someone else giving us options? No wonder so many of us feel listless. Lacking an inner compass to guide us, the boundary dissolves between your “self” and your surroundings, between your individual identity and that of your environment.

Please join Rabbi Simon Jacobson in this Shoftim workshop and discover the seven gates that connect you with the world around you, and how you can learn to setup gatekeepers that control the flow of what enters your psyche and what doesn’t, of what comes in and what goes out. Learn how to take charge of your inner self, and how to be the captain of your own ship.