A Contemplation on Spiritual Potency:

------------------------------------------
Imagine, the combined spiritual potency of all human souls that ever were, is and will be.

Imagine, the greater spiritual potency of Adam’s soul from whom all these souls radiated.

Imagine, the even greater spiritual potency of the Divine breath which ensouled Adam.

Imagine, the Infinite spiritual potency of the Breather Who effortlessly imparts such breath.

~ From the second Chabad Rebbe, “Torat Chaim” Chayei Sarah

The Doll Factory ~ a story

----------------------------------------------------
The following story was told to my nine year old daughter by her Hebrew School teacher. I am retelling it because its filled with wonderful metaphors that help explain what living by the Torah accomplishes.

There was a man who was hired by a doll factory to do a peculiar job. Every morning at 9:00 AM, he had to walk up a flight of stairs. Then at 5:00 PM in the afternoon, he had to walk down the same flight, concluding his workday.

During the early days of his employment, he fully expected that in exchange for the handsome paycheck he was receiving, he’d be assigned a series of projects. He waited day after day bored, but, no projects were forthcoming. So to occupy his time, he brought along a book. Pretty soon he re-examined his situation and reasoned, “Nobody is giving me projects anyways. Why not leave an hour early?”

Soon one hour early led to two hours early and then three hours early... It wasn’t long before his daily presence in the factory had chiseled down to a few hours. The boss took notice and called him in for a meeting.

After listening to why the employee was present fewer and fewer hours daily, the boss spoke, “I see you don’t understand the true nature of your job. How could you? It’s a secret. However, in order to help you along, I’ll let you in on the secret. There were some mischief makers who were trying to sabotage our operations by playing around with the buttons that activate the factory. I was compelled to hide these buttons from them in order to continue operations. So where did I hide them? Right under the steps!

“Everyday, when you sprint up the steps, you start up the factory and when you climb down, you shut down the operations. By cooperating with my disguised mechanism, you are doing us an invaluable service. However, when you started leaving early, not only did we produce less dolls, but, some dolls were left incomplete right in the middle of their assembly. So please be more careful going forward.”

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

Lesson:

The boss is the Creator. We are the workers. The mischief makers are the one’s from whom the keys to spiritual potency needs to be withheld - lest they take advantage. The dolls are upright structures in the “image of man”.

Many times we don’t understand the true nature what we’re doing in this world. However, by following the Torah, we are assured that we’re activating the heavenly factory to produce kindnesses and blessings both for us and for the rest of humanity.

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

Self Conversion

----------------------------------------------------
The second Chabad Rebbe asked, “Why does the Talmud teach that Jews wander diaspora to pick up converts, when historically there were very few converts?”

He responded, “Truthfully, there can be plenty of converts. Each of Jew can be his/her very own convert. With the Light of the Torah, we can convert our inner animals into holy beings.”

~ From “Torat Chaim” on Parshat Chayei Sarah

Both Upstream & Downstream, Mine is Yours ~ a prayer of connection

B”H

25 Tishrei 5773, at a Starbucks in Philadelphia

Dearest Sweet Beloved Divine Parent,

Thank You for this amazing opportunity to commune with You that You so kindly provide me with today and every day. For my own sanity and health I need to bring my heart into close proximity to Your light on a very regular basis. Otherwise, I am out of touch with so much of myself; as most of me drifts into slumber away from my Life Source.

It might be claimed that if I need Your fire to be illuminated then I’m not inherently luminous and all the bright corners of my emotional caverns are really lit by You. On some level, I feel great! And that’s all that matters. The ownership of the lights in my heart is irrelevant. On a deeper level, You own everything anyways. Even what I delude myself into believing I own, is totally Yours. The ultimate expression of this is that the length of our lives is not in our hands. The stability of our possessions and our circumstances is not in our hands. Yes, You made us co-creators, but, only as a temporary situation. And even within this temporary situation our roles are limited and You call the shots. So since in the ultimate sense I can’t lay real claim to anything that conventions of speech call, “Mine!”, I might as well find true happiness in simply the spiritual connections You allow me ~ without attaching ownership values to them.

Yes, it’s true that after the spiritual work of our era is done, You’ll tell each human being, “You’ve earned so many and so many units of intimacy with My Light.”

However, this is like a king who decreed land to a beloved. Since it became the beloved’s by a decree, the land never really left the king’s ownership. The king merely allowed space for the beloved to express her will on the land.

So even if my inner light is really Your Light, I’m happy. It might be claimed that my insights and feelings aren’t my own, but, You override what’s my own. They come from what’s moved within [me] by Your fire. Still, all true creativity is channeled. It all starts from the fountain where You and I meet. There, at the meeting place, there’s no distinction between You and I. That distinction first begins further downstream. At first it’s blurry, then hazy, then sharper and then sharp. However, it’s never real. For I never really ventured downstream. I only dreamed the journey, while the whole time cradled in Your nurturing bosom; never separate, never distinct. You dreamed through me [while infinitely awake].

Thank You [for this session in communion] …

Love and Kisses ...

Pregnant with Blessing and Light ~ a contemplative prayer

B”H

24 Tishrei 5773, 8:20 AM, Wed., at a Starbucks in Philadelphia

Dearest Sweet Beloved Divine Parent,

Thank You for this opportunity to commune with You this morning. Thank You for the holiday season from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah. Those tuned into the message of Jewish mysticism know that this is just one long holiday undergoing different phases. In the most general sense one can easily see that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur comprise the upper three sefirot of the season that elicits blessings for the next twelve months. Succot with its seven days, comprises the next seven sefirot. Between Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Succot a complete structure of ten sefirot are formed ~ making the blessings of the year ripe to be harvested. Then on the holiday of Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah we pray for rain and dance the blessings down to the ground, to the earthly level. This is just on the very superficial level. So to say that there’s so much more going on mystically is truly a vast understatement.

There’s a passage I came across in “Tree of Life” which enhances this perspective even further. From this perspective the whole year is seen as a single unit to give birth to new blessings in a broad sense#. The book “Tree of Life” explains that the basic elements of a successful birth of anything (people, blessings, consciousness, souls, living beings, rocks, etc.) are lights, sparks and vessels. In a very generalized sense the lights are soul, the vessels are the body and the sparks are what connect the soul and body to each other. Every detail in the entire creation has some version of body, soul and connective sparks; regardless of what level the entity is on (spiritual and/or physical).

Each of the three has its own length of processing during pregnancy. The lights are processed in seven months, the sparks in nine months and the vessels in twelve months. Since humans are usually born after nine months, the first three months of nursing and nurturing complete the twelve months needed for bodily development in the pregnancy sense.

The year’s efforts to give birth seem to have a similar flow. From Passover season through Simchat Torah is seven months. These are (in the hemisphere of Jerusalem) the warmest months and [thus, suited to] develop the lights. From Passover through Chanukah is a blend of weather, which climaxes with the tiny flames of the Chanukah Menorah. This corresponds to the sparks. After this the weather gets coldest. The full twelve months climax with the Purim season, when our bodies were saved. This corresponds to the vessels.

So this season [we just celebrated] was to fill out the lights. May it be light!

Thank you [for the insights] …

Love and Kisses ...

Waters of Joy!

I was thinking this week about our festival Succoth and its focus on celebrating water. We take this celebration to a climax on the final day of Succoth by celebrating with a "water plant", the willow, which tends to grow near streams. To me it seems like the uniqueness of water and willows are a flexibility that comes with having so much potential, only loosely formed.

This is a lot like the blessings that come down from heaven - until they reach the earthly realm, they don't yet have concrete form. They can manifest in many different ways, with surprising flexibility. This season we are praying that these heavenly waters take on sweet forms. Concurrently, we are also praying that our inner waters, our personal reservoirs of unformed potential, also take on sweet forms. This way the waters from above will be greeted by waters from below - reuniting some of what the Creator split apart on the second day of creation when He separated waters.

A true reunion!

“Drawing Water” ~ an inner prayer journey into an ancient festival

B”H

18 Tishrei 5773, Thurs., at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, PA

Dearest Sweet Beloved Divine Parent,

Thank You for the kindness of a few moments to commune with You. Thank You for allowing humans to commune with You. It’s a tremendous gift. Without this gift I’d feel so isolated and lonely. This gift keeps reinforcing that no matter what, Someone really cares about me ~ Someone really loves me. You care for even the lowliest, even the simplest. Perhaps, it’s best to rephrase that and say that You care especially for the lowliest and simplest. I know that it says in the Bar Yochai song, “Let us make man...’ was said for your sake”. The Talmud also relates that it was worth creating the entire world just for [the saintly] Rabbi Chaninah ben Dosa.

Yet despite this, we find that Rabbi Shimon [bar Yochai] was sent back to the cave for disturbing the life pattern of the lowly and simple people. Rabbi Chaninah himself only reached his levels of saintliness for embodying the qualities of the lowly and simple people. [Our Master] Moses’ soul was exalted beyond all the people. Yet, he was only granted prophecy for their sake. The holy [Rabbi Israel] Ba’al Shem Tov spent a lot of time with the lowly and simple. He lauded their ways to his more sophisticated disciples.

We are now in the midst of the “Celebration of Water Drawing”. In the Torah portion of “Nitzavim”, which is always read on the Sabbath morning prior to Rosh Hashanah, Moses tells the Jews, “You are standing today before the Eternal Being, your Lord...”. The Talmud comments that “today” means the day of great judgment, i.e. Rosh Hashanah. Then Moses continues with a list of societal roles, “Your heads, your tribes, your elders … till your water drawers.”

The “water drawers” are mentioned as the very last role because they were the lowliest, the least appreciated. Yet what was celebrated on the festival of Succoth [in Jerusalem’s Holy Temple]? “Water Drawing”. It’s so joyous that we still celebrate it, even if it’s only a simulation of the original.

Gathered in this celebration were certainly many “water drawers” ~ the underappreciated common folk  forgotten in history, who came to celebrate the pilgrimage festival in the Temple. The great sages wouldn’t communicate to these people with sophisticated teachings, but, rather with gestures and antics. They brought them the Torah in the entertainment suited as a teaching tool for the common folk; [just] like the Ben Ish Chai whose every gesture during his Purim dramatization for his community was laced with the depth of Kabbalah. Yet, even a small child was transfixed.

Thank You [for this prayer journal session] …

Love and Kisses …