Chagigah and Obama

NBA Jordan Farmar at the Kotel.

In my study this morning, Chagigah 14b there was first a reference to Ov and Yidoni. Ov Ama, the people of the necromancers. These people are no longer alive on this planet. Obama's face looks to me like one of these people.

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So, what does this have to do with my study? Just a few inches down the Talmud discusses Is 3.

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I will go into this further when I have more time.

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So why Jordan Farmar and Tefillin? If the Jewish People step away from self and start learning Torah, and honor Shabbos, the whole scenario can change.

I have a very special turkey like this that frequents my backyard. The feathers are beautiful. There are down type feathers that have beautiful herringbone pattern and a copper colored belting.

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How amazing.

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Aside from that, my Shabbat was beautiful. I spend Fridays baking my Challah, and pies or cakes. I love to decorate cakes.

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This week we had a leg of lamb that was succulent because it wad cooked on my beloved Ron Popeil rotisserie. We had asparagus and Nishiki rice. My mouth is watering right now.

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Shabbat morning it is challah French toast like I used to enjoy at a placed called Kiev in Lower Manhattan.

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Y'all probably get sick of hearing me say I love life, but I do. Simcha is a choice and I spent years commanding myself to be joyful and now it is natural.

Rav Dessler Interesting Insights II

Rav Dessler/Strive for the Truth/Feldheim.

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This is a great book for those with no Hebrew, and also those who need a translation. If everyone in the world studied just this, the world would be a far better place.

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Rav Dessler on Free Choice: We know that every human being has free choice in whatever situation he may be. His free choice extends to the one point at which the forces of truth and falsehood are equally balanced in his mind.

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MH: My first question is, what the heck are the forces of truth and falsehood? How can these forces be balanced? Are these forces corrupted by external influences?

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Rav Dessler: It is here that free will comes into play. Areas above this point, and those below it, lie outside the range of his free will at that particular time.

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MH: So I think again, is this a spiritual point where my neshamah knows something beyond the intellect? When I study it and think about it (sometimes for years)I know there is a superficial meaning and a very deep meaning. The clue "that particular time,"refines the thought from the general to the particular. This is telling me that this is indeed a path, a derech replete with tests and situations. It is like a trip with clues along the pathway to lead you to the final destination. Without these clues, a person is blind and only goes around in circles. The mightiest clue with "that particular time" convinces me that I am a work in progress, mere potential.

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Rav Dessler: Areas above the free-will point" mean questions of right and wrong which a person's moral sense cannot yet grasp.

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MH: I understand this slightly. Before this path, I was a self-justification expert. I could come up with a viable answer to any blatant mistake that I made. Why? I ask myself today. What was I proving and to whom?

Perhaps I'm right, perhaps I'm wrong, I love rebuke, but I think Rav Dessler is saying that Truth is truly immutable. It is not open for discussion, or changeable to suit our needs, or era.

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Rav Dessler: Areas below the free-will point mean questions about matters which are already part of his established moral behavior-patterns, so that he would normally be relatively immune to temptation on these points.

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MH: Now here I am lost, not mature enough to understand the gravity of this point. Are these moral behavior-patterns apparently incorrect, corrupted? No, I think this is more like a good person who would never think of mugging an old lady, and so the temptation to mug an old lady is simple not in that person. The yetzer ha-ra will never be able to tempt me to mug an old lady.

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Before 2003 I loved baby back ribs, then all of a sudden they started smelling like a 4 day-old corpse. You talk about disgusting. My behiro point for pork was drastically altered and I haven't had pork since.

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So here I think I learned that sometimes Hashem intervenes and makes the behiro point change easier. I quit smoking over 8 years ago immediately. I know that Hashem was giving me a gift in this and so I ased him to respond and help me with the carbs and fat grams. No deal. So my behiro point has been lowered for cigarettes and pork, but the battle is on with food.

Note: behiro = choice.

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Rav Dessler: The situation is never static. It can change for the better, and then our free-will point will rise.

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MH:

If I buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke them tonight, my behiro point could possibly rise and I would be addicted again.

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Mitzvos goreros mitzvos, one good choice leads to the desire for more good choices. Aveiros goreros aveiros, one bad choice, not matter how insignificant leads to the desire for more bad choices.

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Hmm, so much to learn. So little time.

My Picture

This picture was taken January 24, 2007.

Free Will

What is free will? To me it is the choice I'm confronted with at every step along the pathway.

When is a choice truly free?

To me a choice is free only when a person gets rid of all the backwash from input, be it Familial, Sociological, or Psychological. Basically, it is when a person is freed from need to prove anything to anyone besides Ha Kodesh Baruch Hu. Primarily it is the self that is trying to dig itself out of its own low self-concept. But.....

Example One: You are faced with a situation where a clerk gives you more change than you deserve. Do you walk away gleeful at the pittance, or do you wonder about the consequences to the clerk? It depends on how much you have worked on your character.

What a beautiful day

I have so enjoyed every single second of this day. I have an extra dog, a Yorkie and usually that alone drives me nuts, but today, either he or I have mellowed out. Life is a beautiful thing.

I have swept up leaves from the carpet all day. This is a thing that I used to gripe and gripe about an now, its a pleasure.

Leaves are amazing, air is amazing, the sky, the wind and the hills are amazing.

What a beautiful life.

The Intricacies of Job / Iyov I

R' Eisemann / ArtScroll Tanach Series

http://www.artscroll.com/

The Intricacies of Job

R' Eisemann states: The one, mauor and unforgiveable error that Job - and indeed his three friends had made, was to trivialize God, to create Him, as it were, in their own image.

We are challenged by our own limitations by the events in this book. There is a world that surrounds us that is not apparent through our senses. Job had nothing physical to work with in understanding the problems that occurred.

If we could really grasp the message of Job, nothing would ever truly bother us again. This is a quest.

Job 1:1 There was a man....

This is not very descriptive. At least when we first hear of Abraham, we get his geneology. So we begin not knowing anything about the man. Was he a Jew? Was he a gentile? Besides this, we have chronology to tell us exactly when Avraham was born, 1948 years after the creation of Adam HaRishon.

Perhaps this cryptic beginning keeps the focus on Job alone? Bava Basra 15a tries to place Job in an historical context, but it doesn't resolve any maklokis. Rambam Moreh Nevuchim 22 discusses particular time-frames from Avraham to the return from Babylon.

Is it factual, is it a parable?

Rabbi Eisemann: Even though there seems much to commend the opinion that the book is a parable, such an assumption is not without difficulties. Chief among these is the argument that if indeed it is a tale with no basis in actual events, we would have expected the author (whom Bava Basra 14b amd 15a identifies as Moses) to have chosen Jews as Protagonists, and the Torah as the thought-world within which the ideas of Job and his friends are formed.

The main idea that place it preTorah is that nowhere is halacha, or Torah Instruction noted in the possible trangression that could have created the effects Job was realizing.

I've run out of time.

This is my world

This is my world. I have so little time and so much to learn.

Sukkot

My esrog this year is more fragrant than any other esrog I have ever received (Esrog Headquarters). It to me is the smell of Gan Eden. The pitum is like a fragrant wick of citrus, but not just any citrus, that esrogim citrus beauty that I have only a few weeks a year.

I have spent hours in my Sukkah. Last night there was a torrential rain, but I have it all dried out and ready for this evening.

Sukkot to me is the most lovely time of the year. The days of Awe are behind, Marchesvan, the kind of darkish month is ahead, but its okay. It is like Sukkot will waft through my Cheshvan and I will drink the memories of my sukkah for months.

Thank you Ha Kodesh Baruch Hu for everything in my world.

Rav Dessler Interesting Insights I

Rav Dessler



Rabbi Eliyahu E. Dessler
Strive For The Truth/Feldheim Publishers
Michtav M'Eliyahu.

Volume I part I

Rav Dessler:

Death brings no fundamental change to the human personality. The characteristics we either worked on or didn't work on survive the bodies death and are the basis of future experiences in the World to Come.
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MH:

Can you imagine the implications of this situation?
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I am so amazed when I think of the road I have traveled. I used to think that my character was immutable, as if I were stamped out of iron and that was that. Even iron can be melted and reshaped, but that wasn't the way I envisioned who and what I was.

Then after many years of Torah and learning like that of Rav Dessler, I found out that my purpose was to correct flawed character traits. Believe me, there are some dastardly traits that have been seemingly impossible for me to battle. Dastardly is a great descriptive, because the only reason it was a battle was because I was too cowardly to fight them.

I used to lie like a rug because I was embarrassed of my own self-conception. Then I learned that these images and faults have a purpose and that purpose is action to prove sincerity. I don't lie at all anymore. I even correct myself in public if I stretch the truth.

Now, learning the above, I realize the benefits of non-negotiable Truth. Great Rabbis have access to a great storehouse of knowledge which is applicable to every possible situation that comes down the pike. It is Torah.

This accumulation of wisdom shed great light on our own obscurity. R' Dessler "Everything falls into place with the utmost precision, as befits the absolute Truth." This is why in retrospect we with foresight are able to see why certain things occurred as they did in our lives. With this wisdom we can see difficulties melt away.

There will be times, there have been a few in my life, where no matter how hard I tried I couldn't understand the extent of the difficulty. Rav Dessler "The part can bear witness to the whole."

Clarity emerges from Torah, and with great difficulty (hard work) sometimes we can reveal the depth of many problems. Even though the whole understanding may elude us, there is a sense of confidence in Hashem, that knows it will work out for the best. Gamzu l'Tova (Nachum of Gamzu) was a man who believed even though his body was broken and his skin was raw flesh, he believed completely.

Until next time, Baruch Hashem.

Two of my three dogs