And then there comes a time when we have to grow up and do something." Jewish Spiritual Renewal teaches us to get off our pity-pot, realize the gifts that we still get daily, and not concentrate on what was taken away, and to live life with an attitude of gratitude.
'' Talmud Bavli Tractate Beracoth 10a . Things that mattered to us in the past, like people's opinions of us that had us doing people pleasing behaviors, will leave us. We will learn to be in a constant state of shalom even when things seem to be falling apart around us. We will no longer gossip, as jealousy has left us as we trust God. The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.
Rabbi Akiva was an ignorant shepherd who worked for Kalba Savua, one of the wealthiest men in Israel at that time. Kalba Savua had a beautiful and talented daughter, Rachel, who recognized Akiva's spiritual qualities. They married without her father's knowledge. When Kalba Savua found out, he drove the couple away from his home to live in great poverty. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Nedarim 50a).
Rachel encouraged her husband to study Torah. Akiva, who was 40 years old, didn't even know the Hebrew Aleph Bet! Our Sages tell us that Akiva was so sensitive about his ignorance that he actually hated Torah scholars! (Talmud Bavli Tractate Pesachim 49b). He once said "I wish I could find a Talmud sage and bite him like a donkey.''
Rachel, however, urged him to study Torah, but Akiva was hesitant. He didn't believe that at the age of forty he still had a chance.
One day, Akiva passed a large rock on which drops of water continuously fell. Upon closer examination, Akiva noticed that the water made an indentation in the rock. Akiva thought, "If water, which is so soft, can make an impression on a rock, surely the Torah can make an impression in my heart and mind!"
Akiva then decided to listen to his wife and left for the Yeshiva. Upon being accepted in the Yeshiva, he sat together with little children and learned the Aleph Bet. Akiva dedicated his entire being to studying Torah and excelled. He eventually became one of the leading Sages in Israel and had thousands of students.
Our Sages divide Rabbi Akiva's life in three stages: 40 years he was ignorant; 40 years he studied; and for 40 years, he was the great Sage and teacher. Traditionally speaking, Rabbi Akiva passed away at the age of 120 in 135 CE. He was tortured by the Romans.
Rabbi Akiva's student, Rabbi Yonatan says in Pirkei Avot: "Whoever fulfills the Torah even when in poverty, shall in the end fulfill it in the midst of wealth; but whoever neglects the Torah in the midst of wealth will in the end neglect it in poverty." Rabbi Akiva became wealthy in his later life.
The Talmud tells us that Rabbi Akiva's wife Rachel endured living in great poverty all the years which he spent studying Torah. In recognition for her self-sacrifice, Rabbi Akiva bought her a beautiful piece of jewelry upon which the city of Jerusalem was engraved in gold.
Rabbi Akiva always gave credit for all his accomplishments to his wife, Rachel. He told his students, "All my Torah and all the Torah which you have learned belongs to her!"
The story of Rabbi Akiva is an eminent example and inspiration of the value of determination for one who truly had complete Jewish Spiritual Renewal.
Tephila – Self-Judging Prayers
The last set of prayers that we will examine, tephila, are self-judging prayers. As King David said in Psalm 16:07: "I bless God who is my counselor, but in the night, my inmost self instructs me." We will start off a prayer of tephila, which is the prayer that the entire Talmud begins to study in its first Tractate, Beracoth. Judge yourself with the Shema:
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
Hear,
In an undertone:
Barukh sheim k'vod malkhuto l'olam va'ed.
Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever.
V'ahav'ta eit Adonai Elohekha b'khol l'vav'kha uv'khol naf'sh'kha uv'khol m'odekha.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
V'hayu had'varim ha'eileh asher anokhi m'tzav'kha hayom al l'vavekha.
And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart.
V'shinan'tam l'vanekha v'dibar'ta bam
And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them.
B'shiv't'kha b'veitekha uv'lekh't'kha vaderekh uv'shakh'b'kha uv'kumekha
When you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.
Uk'shar'tam l'ot al yadekha v'hayu l'totafot bein einekha.
And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
Ukh'tav'tam al m'zuzot beitekha uvish'arekha.
And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 11:13-21
V'hayah im shamo'a tish'm'u el mitz'votai
And it shall come to pass if you surely listen to the commandments
Asher anokhi m'tzaveh et'khem hayom
That I command you today
L'ahavah et Adonai Eloheikhem ul'av'do b'khol l'vav'khem uv'khol naf'sh'khem
To love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul,
V'natati m'tar ar'tz'khem b'ito yoreh umal'kosh
V'asaf'ta d'ganekha v'tirosh'kha v'yitz'harekha.
That I will give rain to your land, the early and the late rains,
That you may gather in your grain, your wine and your oil.
V'natati eisev b'sad'kha liv'hem'tekha v'akhal'ta v'sava'ta.
And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle and you will eat and you will be satisfied.
Hisham'ru lakhem pen yif'teh l'vav'khem
V'sar'tem va'avad'tem Elohim acheirim v'hish'tachavitem lahem
Beware, lest your heart be deceived
And you turn and serve other gods and worship them.
V'charah af Adonai bakhem v'atzar et hashamayim v'lo yih'yeh matar
V'ha'adamah lo titein et y'vulah
And anger of the Lord will blaze against you, and he will close the heavens and there will not be rain,
And the earth will not give you its fullness,
Va'avad'tem m'heirah mei'al ha'aretz hatovah asher Adonai notein lakhem.
And you will perish quickly from the good land that the Lord gives you.
V'sam'tem et d'varai eileh al l'vav'khem v'al naf'sh'khem
Uk'shar'tem otam l'ot al yed'khem v'hayu l'totafot bein eineikhem.
So you shall put these, my words, on your heart and on your soul;
And you shall bind them for signs on your hands, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
V'limad'tem otam et b'neikhem l'dabeir bam
And you shall teach them to your children, and you shall speak of them
B'shiv't'kha b'veitekha uv'lekh't'kha vaderekh uv'shakh'b'kha uv'kumekha.
When you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.
Ukh'tav'tam al m'zuzot beitekha uvish'arekha.
And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
L'ma'an yirbu y'maychem vi-y'may v'naychem al ha-adamah.
Asher nishba Adonai la-avotaychem latayt lahem ki-y'may ha-shamayim al ha-aretz.
In order to prolong your days and the days of your children on the land
That the Lord promised your fathers that he would give them, as long as the days that the heavens are over the earth.
Numbers 15:37-41
Vayo'mer Adonai el mosheh lei'mor
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying...
Dabeir el b'nei Yis'ra'eil v'amar'ta aleihem
Speak to the children of
V'asu lahem tzitzit al kan'fei vig'deihem l'dorotam
V'nat'nu al tzitzit hakanaf p'til t'kheilet.
They should make themselves tzitzit (fringes) on the corners of their clothing throughout their generations,
And give the tzitzit of each corner a thread of blue.
V'hayah lakhem l'tzitzit ur'item oto uz'khar'tem et kol mitz'vot Adonai
Va'asitem otam v'lo taturu acharei l'vav'khem v'acharei eineikhem
Asher atem zonim achareihem.
And they shall be tzitzit for you, and when you look at them you will remember all of the Lord's commandments
And do them and not follow after your heart and after your eyes, which lead you astray.
L'ma'an tiz'k'ru va'asitem et kol mitz'votai viyitem k'doshim lei'loheikhem
In order to remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God.
Ani Adonai Eloheikhem
Asher hotzei'ti et'khem mei'eretz Mitz'rayim lih'yot lakhhem leilohim
Ani Adonai Eloheikhem
I am the Lord, your God who led you from the
I am the Lord, your God.
Ask yourself, are you really doing the mitzvoth, the duties of the heart of loving God with all your heart, with all of your soul and with all your might? Do you sincerely try to do what is right and just while at home, at work, and on the street? Are you letting your eyes go astray and worshipping other gods, like the god of money, or the god of lust, or the god of ego? Do you try to keep God in your conscience throughout the day? Do your actions make you a good teacher to others?
The above is the way to say the prayer with kavenah. Saying it aloud with fellow congregants as if it were a mantra or some pledge of Jewish allegiance is not kavenah. Maimonides (in the Guide for the Perplexed, Part 3, Chapter 51) expresses this point directly: "Do not pray moving your lips with your face to the wall (as if you are engaged deeply in prayer) and all the while you are thinking of your business transactions . . . Do not think you have achieved anything (by doing these things)." My best prayers are not communal, but at home, in quiet, where God can hear me and I can hear Him.
You can say your tephila prayers silently if you wish. Psalm 65:2 says: "To You silence is praise." Each morning, you should consider the day ahead. If you know, for example, that you have a company office party to attend and the sin of gossip (lashon ha ra) is on your chesbon ha nefesh gadol, ask yourself how well you have been avoiding this defect and ask God to help you avoid this defect when you attend the party.
Speaking of gossip, the Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi I. Kagen teaches that lashon ha ra murders not only the subject of the gossip, but the one who gossips and those who listen as well. We have a prayer specifically for this sin in Talmud Tractate Beracoth 16b-17a: "May God guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile." This is also found is Psalm 34:14.
If ego and showing off are character defects of yours, ask God to "let your name be like dust to everyone." The less you concern yourself with prestige, the less you will let selfishness interfere with your service to God, to your fellows, and to daily spiritual growth and self-improvement. You will also be able to ignore barbs, snubs and insults from others, as they will mean nothing to you.
Remember, prayer is a lifelong process. You will find that the practice evolves over time. As you learn the prayers, you will find some that you like and stay with them. Others, you may not like as much and choose to not say them. This is fine, so long as you are saying your prayers with kavenah. You can pick prayers that you like from our prayer books, or from the TaNaK, especially psalms, or even other spiritual texts.
Rabbi Levy handed in his notice, left his synagogue and opened up a Jewish bookshop. He worked very hard for several years and then decided to buy a new car. He put on a dark suit and white shirt, which looked impressive with his long beard, and went to see John, the local car dealer.
As soon as John saw him, he said, "Have I got a car for you, Rabbi!"
Levy looked at John and said, "What do you mean?"
"I mean a Rolls Aviv," said John. "A British built car with Israeli designed computerized digital commands for the religious driver. Come over here and let me show you. You won't believe your eyes. It's unique."
John opened the door of the Rolls Aviv and Levy got in.
"Notice that it has no accelerator or brake pedal," said John.
"So how do you stop and start it?" asked Levy.
"Ah, that's the wonder of the Israeli computerized technology. It has digital voice recognition that converts words into instructions the car understands. All you have to do is to speak the right words and the car will know what to do."
"I don't believe it," said Levy.
"It's true. To begin driving the car, just say, "baruch ha'shem (thank God)."
And as John spoke those words, the car began to move.
Levy was frightened. "How do you stop it?"
"That's easy. Just say, 'Shema yisroel', and the car will stop," said John and as he spoke these words, the car braked to a halt.
"So there it is. Say, 'baruch ha'shem' to start and 'shema yisroel' to stop."
Levy was impressed and bought the car on the spot. He got in, said the words, baruch ha'shem' and soon the Rolls Aviv was heading out towards Route 95. Unfortunately, Levy failed to see a sign that said,
"Warning – unfinished bridge ahead. Take next left," so the car continued to move at speed towards the bridge.
"Oy Vay! I'm going to crash. How do I stop it?"
Panicking, he couldn't remember what John told him. His mind was a blank and the car was quickly approaching the end of the unfinished bridge.
"This is the end of me," Levy thought and, preparing for death, he started reciting the schema. Suddenly, the Rolls Aviv screeched to a halt with half of the car tilting over the bridge. Levy removed his trembling hand from his forehead, saw how close he had come to disaster and exclaimed with conviction, "Baruch ha'shem!"
One prayer, which to me is a combination of bakashah and tephila, as well as everything we should strive for as spiritual Jews, is:
Lord, make me a channel of thy shalom;
That where there is hatred, I may bring love;
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
That where there is error, I may bring truth;
That where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
That where there is despair, I may bring hope;
That where there are shadows, I may bring light;
That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by negating my ego that one becomes spiritually awakened.
Amen.
This prayer is attributed to Francis of Assisi born in 1182. A Catholic, by the way. Judaism is pluralistic and the sages teach that we can draw upon all wisdom, not only the wisdom of Jews.
As you develop your process of prayer, remember to set aside prayer time every day. I suggest that at a minimum you pray in the morning and in the evening before bedtime. I also do prayers around noon or 1 PM.
Rabbi Rich states this wondrously: "Many people today do not see the need for regular, formal prayer. 'I pray when I feel inspired to, when it is meaningful to me,' they say. This attitude overlooks two important things: the purpose of prayer, and the need for practice. One purpose of prayer is to increase your awareness of God and the role that He plays in your life. If you only pray when you feel inspired (that is, when you are already aware of God), then you will not increase your awareness of God."
"Additionally, if you want to do anything well, you have to practice continually, even when you don't feel like doing it. This is as true of prayer as it is of playing a sport, playing a musical instrument, or writing. The sense of humility and awe of God that is essential to proper prayer does not come easily to modern man, and will not simply come to you when you feel the need to pray. If you wait until inspiration strikes, you will not have the skills you need to pray effectively. Before I started praying regularly, I found that when I wanted to pray, I didn't know how. I didn't know what to say, or how to say it, or how to establish the proper frame of mind. If you pray regularly, you will learn how to express yourself in prayer."
The Kotzker Rebbe who lived from 1789 to 1859 was asked, "Where is God?" He responded: "Wherever you let God in." Martin Buber, the German Jewish philosopher, wrote that this is the "Ultimate Purpose: to let God in. But we can let God in only where we really stand, where we live, where we have a true life. If we maintain holy conversation with the little world entrusted to us, if we help the holy spiritual substance to accomplish itself in that section of Creation in which we are living, then we are establishing, in this our place, a dwelling for the Divine Presence."
Benjy and Sam were mischievous brothers aged 8 and 10. They always seemed to be around when things went wrong. As their parents were unable to control them, they went to the Rabbi for help.
The Rabbi said he wanted to talk to the boys and that he would see the younger one first…alone. So they sent Benjy to see the Rabbi.
The Rabbi sat Benjy down and for the next five minutes they just sat and stared at each other across the Rabbi's large mahogany desk. Finally, the Rabbi pointed his finger at Benjy and said, "Benjy, where is God?"
Benjy glanced around, but said nothing.
The Rabbi pointed at Benjy again and said, louder, "Where is God, Benjy?"
Again, Benjy glanced around but said nothing.
The Rabbi then leaned across the desk, put his finger on Benjy's nose and said, "Benjy, I ask you, where is God?"
At this point, Benjy got scared, got up and ran home. He dragged Sam upstairs to his room and said, "We're in deep trouble, Sam."
Sam asked, "What do you mean we're in deep trouble, Benjy?"
Benjy replied, "I'm telling you, Sam, we're in big trouble. God is missing and they are saying we did it!"
You have cleaned up your past with teshuvah and the work leading up to it. Now you are developing a relationship with God. God and the daily process of Jewish Spiritual Renewal will sustain you through life. Prayer is the first step. In the next chapter you will learn about another Jewish way, meditation.
A d'var Torah for the Shabbat of May 15, 2010 follows. It is the beginning of the 4th book of the Chumash, the 5 Books of Moses, known as Bamidbar, In the Wilderness, or Numbers.
Shalom U'vracha:
Rabbi Arthur Segal
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Jewish Renewal
Numbers
Parasha Ba-Midbar: Numbers 01:01-04:20
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Jewish Renewal
"One Is the Loneliest Number"
This Torah portion brings us to the fourth of the "Five Books of Moses," which we call the Chumash. This book takes its English name, Numbers, from the Greek and Latin translations, as the first chapters deal with the census of the twelve tribes and their encampment in Sinai. In Hebrew, the name of this book and its first chapter is Ba-midbar. This means "in the wilderness."
Shavuot usually falls around the time this parasha is read. This holiday commemorates the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Some 3,320 years ago, by traditional accounting, our people stood in the wilderness of Sinai in front of a small, humble-looking mountain. On this mountain, Moses, whom the Torah calls "the most humble man who ever lived" (Numbers 12:03), was given the Law.
We are taught in the Chumash that we accepted the Torah by saying, "we will do and we will listen." Traditionally, this means we accepted the Torah before we knew what it required of us. However, the Talmud Bavli in Tractate Shabbat 82A tells us that at Sinai "the mountain was poised over the Jews like a barrel." In other words, we Jews were forced into acceptance.
The Midrash tells us another allegory. When God was preparing to give the Torah, all the mountains stepped forward and declared why they thought the Torah should be given on them. One said he was the highest. Another said he was the steepest. In the end, God choose Mt. Sinai because it was the most humble. To quote Rabbi Shragas Simmons, humility to Jews is "living with the reality that nothing matters except doing the right thing."
Our Jewish religion, to paraphrase Herman Melville's view of freedom, is only good as a means; it is no end in itself. As Jews, our humility means that we are not dependent on the opinions of others. Sometimes doing the right thing is popular. Many times it is not. The humble Jew will set aside his ego and consistently strive for righteousness. Let us not confuse humility with arrogance. An arrogant man declares that he is all that matters. A humble man believes that what is greater than he is what counts.
Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Pshischa in nineteenth-century Europe always carried two slips of paper. One he placed in his right pocket, the other in his left. One piece had a quote from Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 38A: "The entire world was created just for me." On the other slip of paper was a quote from Abraham in Genesis 18:27" "I am but dust and ashes." A humble man knows when to act and when to be silent. A humble man knows when to lead and when to follow. A truly humble person says upon awakening, "Modeh Ani...Thank you God for returning my soul for yet another day."
We were in the wilderness of Sinai when we received the Torah. We received the Law there because a desert is empty. Also it belongs to no nation. In order to receive God's word, we had to be in a place that had room for it.
Every day we need to open our hearts and let God inside. Every day needs to be a Shavuot for us as individuals. We were not chosen by God, as the Midrash says that God offered the Torah to other nations before us, but they rejected it. We chose God. We need to continue to choose God through our daily behavior. The beginning of learning humility, willingness and the acceptance of God are the pre-requisites for Jewish Spiritual Renewal.
Not everyone at every time can achieve a higher level of contact with God through personal search. Nor will God reveal himself to every generation. But He does reveal Himself to us continually throughout the day if we learn to listen.
As Martin Buber wrote, we need to develop an I-Thou relationship with God on our own. We begin this by developing I-Thou relationships with those around us. We cannot have object relationships with our friends and loved ones. We cannot relate to others in I-It scenarios during the week and expect miraculously to have a spiritual I-Thou relationship with God on Shabbat or in times of personal crisis.
While the Torah indeed was given to us on Shavuot, we must learn to cling daily to the Torah (develikut b' Torah), as Rabbi Yehudah Loewe, known as the Maharal, of sixteenth-century Prague has written.
The Talmud also teaches that each child is taught the whole of Torah while in his mother's womb. An angel comes prior to birth and sucks that knowledge out of him, causing the mark we each find above our upper lip. The Talmud says that if we had not first known the Torah as a fetus, albeit to later forget it, we would not be able to relate to it later as an adult.
The Talmud Bavli in Tractate Shavuot 39A further states that all Jewish souls past, present and future were at Sinai. The memory of Sinai deep within each of us drives our continual search for God and meaning in our lives. Perhaps this is why we ask in our daily prayers to be guided "to know and understand, learn and teach, observe and uphold the Torah with love."
I think the authors of the Chumash knew life well enough to know that we would always be Ba-midbar. Some of us are in a wilderness of our own making. Others find themselves in a desert caused by situations out of their control.
The Talmud Bavli in Tractate Shabbat 33B tells us of two men who endured both types of situations. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was a student of Rabbi Akiva. He was one of five students who survived the plague. About 1,900 years ago he defied the Romans' ruling against Torah study. A death sentence was pronounced against him, and he went into hiding. Rabbi Shimon and his son Elazer fled to a cave in the Galilee. It is said that a carob tree and a well miraculously appeared in the cave to provide them sustenance.
Since they had only one set of clothes, they removed them so that the garments would not wear out, and they buried themselves in the sand except for their heads. They studied Torah all day and did not wish to be immodest while engaged in "God's words." Rabbi Shimon and Elazer studied and lived in this cave for twelve years. One day Elijah the prophet appeared to tell them that Caesar had died and the death sentence had been lifted. They left the cave and saw some Jewish farmers working. Rabbi Shimon was shocked that they were free, but were not studying Torah. He gave them the look of the evil eye and the farmers vaporized. God was upset at this and told the rabbi that His world is not to be destroyed and to return to his cave.
A year later, when Rabbi Shimon and his son emerged they again saw Jews involved in mundane worldly pursuits. He then realized that Torah study and religious pursuits were not enough in life, but that we need to balance them with worldly goals while still maintaining holiness. Rabbi Shimon went on to reveal the Zohar, a Kabbalistic text showing us how to "transform our material daily world into transcendent energy."
Zohar literally means, "shining light." His death is celebrated on Lag ba Omer, which occurs between Passover and Shavuot during the 7 weeks of counting the Omer. My wife Ellen and I had the occasion to visit Rabbi Shimon's tomb in Meiron, Israel, in the Galilee. Can our humility and our justice seeking help us through the daily wilderness encounters in our own lives? Certainly by walking humbly with God, as Micah suggests, will help us to avoid deserts of our own making.
In Pirkei Avot 4:17, which we read during the omer counting season between Pesach and Shavuot, Rabbi Shimon taught, "there are three crowns - the crowns of Torah, royalty and priesthood, but the crown of a good name is above them all."
While it is wonderful to study Torah and read about doing mitzvoth, it is the actual doing of these good deeds that will lead us out of the wilderness.
As the Tchortkover Rebbe, Nachum Friedman, wrote, "all of the Torah, royalty, and priestliness in the world are worthless if their owner does not earn a good name as well."
Rabbi Elazer taught in Pirkei Avot 3:21 that one whose wisdom exceeds his good deeds "shall be like an isolated tree in an arid land, dwelling on parched soil in the wilderness." As I wrote in a previous d'var Torah, the fifty-day period between Passover and Shavuot is the time to prepare for the Revelation by taking a good hard look at ourselves.
Rabbi ibn Paquda of eleventh-century Spain writes in his Duties of the Heart: "Are you to accept Jewish ideals on the authority of those rabbis learned in Torah and tradition and exclusively rely on their traditions? On the contrary! The Torah expressly bids you to reflect and exercise your intellect on such themes. 'Know this day and lay it on your heart, that the Lord, He is God.' (Deut. 4:39). This admonition refers to everything in which rational methods of investigation can be used."
We are obliged to study and to question. We are to each seek paths to "make our lives a blessing." We are not to waste life on the trivialities of a modern wasteland. Regardless of what we are doing, we need to clarify our spiritual relationship with God. Every day needs to be our Shavuot.
"Man is the creature created for the purpose of being drawn close to God," wrote the RaMChaL, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto of eighteenth-century Italy. As King David wrote in Psalm 6:4: "Save me if you love me God, for in death there is no remembrance of You. What do You gain by my death, as I go down to the pit? Can the dust praise you or proclaim your faithfulness?" (Ps. 30:09). David also penned in Psalm 115:17: "The dead cannot praise God, they have gone down to silence."
God gave us life so that we can sing His praises and work toward Tikun Olam (repair of the world). God needs us, in other words, to complete His plans for the world. We have to seek God continually. God is not something you find once and then stick in a drawer. Nor should we treat our relationships with each other in this fashion. They must be continually nurtured. The question, "what have you done for me lately?" is a valid one.
Martin Buber in his Instructions in Intercourse with God quotes the Bal Shem Tov as asking that we "Pray continually for God's Glory, that it may be redeemed from its exile." In doing Tikun Olam, we must also repair the face of God. We need to be Sha'ar Elohim (portals of God). We need to find daily ways to do "shikrur Elohim," actually liberate God. David asks us in Psalm 105:04 to "seek God's face untiringly."
This d'var's title is "One Is the Loneliest Number." As Jews believing in God, we are never truly alone. Our name comes from Yehudah meaning, 'he will give thanks." We are Yehudim because we always thank God for all of our blessings. He has given us more than we could ever deserve. Everything we have, including life itself, is an undeserved gift from God.
Who would wish human companionship when no human could compare to God's benevolence? Yet God Himself declared in Genesis 2:18 that it is "not good (lo tov) for man to be alone." This is the first thing in the universe that God created that was not "tov." It was lo tov to be alone.
The Oneness of God is crucial to our understanding of God. We declare God's Oneness multiple times each day in our Shema prayer. Maimonides wrote that the highest level of wisdom that a human can attain is to comprehend God's Oneness. By doing so, we then know that everything is God. This includes all of humankind and even both good and evil.
The yetzer ha ra is our self-destructive inclination to move away from God and goodness. God gave us free will. And God gave us the yetzer ha ra. It is our task to harness this energy and use it for goodness. Luzzatto, quoted earlier, says in his Path of the Just that creation's purpose is to earn us pleasure. He writes that the ultimate pleasure is attaching to God. So although the evil inclination (yetzer ha ra) seems to be leading us away from God, it provides us opportunities to come closer to God.
We get pleasure and satisfaction when we do not give in to our bad impulses. There is joy in not trapping ourselves in our self-made wildernesses. Yet we as humans can feel isolated when we are not in relationships with others. We are not meant to live in a cave like Rabbi Shimon and his son.
On Shabbat in the Mincha service, we traditionally praise God by saying, "You are One, Your Name is One, and who is like your people Israel." We are not only blessing God, but in the same breath blessing ourselves as a people. This prayer is part of the Menuchat Shalom (total peace). It implies that while we need to be one with God, we are not supposed to be one, solitary, like a lonely number.
Rabbi Tzadok taught in Chapter 4, Mishna 7, "Do not separate yourself from the community." We are taught to seek out loving, friendly relationships with others. In the Talmud Bavli Tractate Ta'anit 22A, the story is told of Rabbi Beroka who would visit the market in Bei Lefet. He would often have visions of the prophet Eliyahu. Once the rabbi said to the prophet, "Is there anyone in the marketplace who is destined to the World to Come?" Eliyahu pointed to two men. The rabbi asked them what they did. They replied that they were comedians and cheered up those who were depressed. They also said that whenever they saw two people involved in a quarrel, they strove hard to make peace between them. Rabbi Hillel said, "Be among the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them closer to Torah." (Pirkei Avot 1:12).
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