If you've read Perek Shira (Chapter of Song), then you probably recognize the following verse from Yeshayah (Isaiah) 42:13 as the Song of Lion:

"The Lion says: 'God will go forth as a mighty man, like a man of wars will He arouse zealousness, He will shout, he will even scream; He will overcome his enemies.' "

Metzudat Tzion (Rav David Altschuler, Galicia, published in 1753 by his son, these commentaries were written while locked in a tower; like a dictionary this commentary explains the words in the text)
יָעִיר - hitorerut, an arousal/awakening
יָרִיעַ - teruah, a loud sound
יַצְרִיחַ - a matter of shouting in a great voice (as mentioned in Tzefania 1: "mar tzoreach")

Metzudat David (Same as above; this commentary explains the meaning of the text)
יֵצֵא - He will go out for the salvation of Yisrael
יָעִיר קִנְאָה - He will arouse zeal of the zealousness of His Nation
יִתְגַּבָּר - He will overpower his enemies

Radak (Rav David Kimchi, 1160-1235, southern France)
"God will go out as a mighty man" for the salvation of Yisrael like the mighty one who goes out to war without fear.
"He will arouse zealousness" of Yisrael, whom they [the nations] oppressed in Exile for years.
"He will shout, He will even scream" -- All this is a form of metaphor representing those victorious in war, that they make noise and scream to overpower that which opposes them.
יַצְרִיחַ - it's like "he will make a loud noise/יָרִיעַ" and it says "He will even scream" because hatzricha (bellowing) is even louder than teruah (shouting) and will overpower His enemies.

Ibn Ezra (Rav Avraham ibn Ezra, 1089-1167, Muslim Spain)
"God will go out as a mighty man" -- Indicates the secret decrees that go out from Hashem's Mouth
"zealousness" -- for the Babylonian worshipers of Bal
"He will shout" -- a kind of teruah

Malbim (the words in parentheses also appear in the Malbim's text in parentheses)
Gibur/Mighty Man: The power of a gibur is in his loins as he goes out to war himself like it says "God will go out as a mighty man"
Ish Milchamot/Man of Wars: And a man of wars is not a gibur; he is only learned in the strategies of war. And a man of wars is one who has examined many wars and is expert in the administration of wars. And he is not a warrior himself; he only arouses zeal from knowing the tactics that hasten men of valor and arouse zeal in their hearts.

(And the metaphor is: Just as the gibur himself fights, likewise God will appear with miraculous leadership and the overriding of the planetary/star system Himself by His Own Might. And just as the ish milchamot organizes the men of valor according to his will, likewise will God organize nature and the planetary/star system to concede to His Orchestrations against His enemy.)

יָרִיעַ - It used a metaphor of a man of war's cry of victory that strengthens his battalion.

אַף יַצְרִיחַ - He will orchestrate things so that His enemies will scream out in a broken cry that will terrify them with tactics so that in this way, their heart will weaken. And by means of this tactic, He will overpower His enemies.

Malbim (1809-1879) clearly says that Hashem will override (שידוד) the entire system (מערכה) of orbits and constellations in order to bring His enemies to their knees.

Over the past years, we've been hearing lots of predictions, but we don't know what exactly will occur, nor when or how it will occur.

And the Malbim seems to imply that astronomical predictions simply won't be, well, predictable because Hashem will override anything He chooses in order to achieve His desired result.

We can make observations regarding objects and their trajectories, but it is all subject to change depending on what Hashem plans to do with it.

If you're on His Side (or at least sincerely trying to be on His Side, even if you mess up at times), then His enemies are your enemies and you have nothing to fear, Jew or non-Jew.

Where does it say that? Previously, in verse 12 (included in the Song of the Bear), the Malbim explains:
" 'and in the islands they'll relate His Praises' -- to recognize the Unity of Hashem and His Spirituality (Ruchaniut), that He overrides the planetary/star system."

Malbim may be referring either to:

• two different times (the initial terror and the later recognition)

OR

• two different categories of people (His enemies who will scream in terror and His non-enemies for whom the miraculous override fills them with recognition of His Unity and Ruchaniut)

 
Or both.

May we all do true teshuvah from love & not from trials or disgraceful events.

Nowadays, it can be difficult to understand why polytheism is so bad.

Many secular Jews are attracted to Buddhism and in general, the Far East religions strongly appeal to many Westerners, many of whom claim they find inner peace, inspiration, and a much-need adjustment of perspective by visiting these places and following their practices.

Many Westerners are enchanted by the lack of materialism and the seeming contentment of the locals with their poverty. Culturally, the people of the Far East are often very nice to socialize with.
The Far East also seems to hold a treasure chest of benefits:

• martial arts
• delicious and healthier foods
• inspiring philosophies
• meditative disciplines
• fortune cookies ;)
  

The problem is that polytheism always leads to cruelty in the end.

These same cultures that Westerners admire so much are also rife with female infanticide, racism, violence, starvation and malnutrition, the persecution of the helpless or minorities, elitism, government and police corruption, misogyny, domestic violence, child marriage, honor killings, and more.

Even more disturbing, these cultures have suffered from the above evils for millennia. Any current improvement in these cultures has only been brought about through the intervention of those from Western culture, particularly those who come from a Christian background (which derives any of its positive values from the Torah, however much they end up misapplying those same values).

It was the British who stopped the infamous Hindu immolation of widows in India. It is Western organizations who seek to rescue innocent village girls tricked into coming to the cities and forced to work in places of ill repute until they die of AIDS or botched abortions.
(And most of the activists who rescue these girls are the same “white guys” who are so vilified for their race and gender in their cultures of origin.)
As a group, the Hindus do nothing to help their society.
(And their cruelty and suffering inherent in their caste system deserves a whole post of its own.)

In China today, North Korean refugees are imprisoned and sent back to certain torture and death in North Korea unless they are rescued and sheltered by American and Canadian activists operating near the border. (Not all of whom are white, but all of whom grew up in America or Canada.) Not to mention, China’s one-child policy and the accompanying forced abortions for those whose parents didn’t comply.

In To My Daughters with Love, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Pearl S. Buck wrote of one of her mother’s most terrifying experiences living as a Christian missionary in China.

In the Chinese town in which Buck's parents lived, there was a terrible drought. During that night, Buck's father left town to take care of some business, leaving his wife and small children alone.

Buck describes the natives of this town as "usually kind."

However, the idolatrous temple priests (the same priests who everyone thinks have "achieved balance" and "attained wisdom and serenity") said, "The gods were angry because strangers, white people, were in the city."

This riled up the local “usually kind” Chinese until a whole mob came to the Buck home with sticks and knives, intending to stab and beat to death this lone woman and her young children.

Fortunately, with a courage that “came from despair,” Mother Buck shocked the raging mob by throwing open the doors to her home and with fearless composure, she offered the idol-worshipers tea and refreshments.

Then everybody went home.

That same night, it suddenly rained and it kept pouring all throughout the next day.

But look at the cruelty and stupidity that "usually kind" polytheists can suddenly commit when hard times come.

And this is why Thailand can be known as the “The Land of Smiles” while being equally known for a brand of tourism that is licentious and diseased.

In the earthquake that crushed Nepal, we saw people who saved their idols before their fellow human beings and who invested money in their idols rather in the rehabilitation of the homeless and injured people surrounding them.

Disturbingly, the much-admired monks and gurus meditating in their ashrams and temples, the same people who are lauded in the West as being “enlightened” and “compassionate,” do almost nothing to actually ease the suffering and injustices in their surroundings.

Sara Yocheved Rigler wrote of how her guru denied accommodation to flood survivors in New York merely because their traumatized state would disturb “the vibes” of the commune. Actually healing their trauma through kindness and generosity was not an option for this “enlightened” guru.

And there are many stories like this.

The source of the all the above-mentioned cruelty and warped thinking is lack of emuna.

However, emuna is impossible within a polytheistic mindset which believes in equal but opposing forces and all sorts of little tricks and ceremonies to combat mazal rather than engaging in a cheshbon hanefesh and accepting the paradox that both the sweet and the bitter emanate from the same source.

The Torah records the Jewish battle against polytheism throughout its 24 books. Polytheism of that time led to atrocities like human sacrifice, including child sacrifice.

Our Sages note that Lavan’s beloved trafim were the shrunken heads of first-borns that, with the right incantations, could speak with psychic insight. Did Lavan and his ilk actually wait until a first-born man died of old age before making off with his head? I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound good.

Archeologists have dug up correspondence and declarations and other writings that shed light on the values of these cultures.

Princess and High Priestess or Snow White's Evil Stepmother?
In one long poem, a Sumerian princess and high priestess from Ur (around 2300 BCE) writes of her demotion and then later re-installment to her exalted position.

Far from mourning her spiritual descent and present inability to inspire others, she merely kvetches about her sudden lack of materialism: “Like the light of the rising moon, how she was sumptuously attired!” 
(Yes, she also refers to herself in third-person at times.)

Humility is also not one of her virtues—“I am the brilliant high priestess of Nanna.”

She tries to convince her goddess by reminding her that the goddess “loves the good headdress befitting the office of En priestess.”
(Because everyone knows how important fashion is in lofty spiritual service.)

Then she flatters her goddess by reminding the goddess of how incredibly violent she is (“Be it known that you crush heads! Be it known that you devour corpses like a dog!”) and how much suffering the goddess can cause with stanzas like, “Because of you, the threshold of tears is opened, and people walk along the path of the house of great lamentations” and “Your malevolent anger is too great to cool.”

She also addresses the goddess at one point as “Aggressive wild cow, great daughter of Suen.”

Her description of her occult service is also disturbing:
“Also, I erected a temple,
Where I inaugurated important events:
I set up an unshakeable throne!
I gave out dagger and sword to...(?),
Tambourine and drum to [men intimate with men](?),
I changed men into women!

Obviously, nothing good can come of this.

(I hope this has also helped to discredit the highly vaunted notion that goddess-centered religions were more nurturing and pro-female and more appreciative of the feminine roles and female empowerment than Judaism. In Ancient Near East findings, the above was not the only example of disturbing goddess-worship led by females.)

Some Ancient Fatherly Advice
“Advice from an Akkadian Father to His Son” (2200 BCE) reads:
Do not marry a kadesha, whose husbands are legion, an Ishtar-woman who is dedicated to a god, a kulmashitu-woman. . . .When you have trouble, she will not support you, when you have a dispute she will be a mocker. There is no reverence or submissiveness in her. Even if she is powerful in the household, get rid of her, for she pricks up her ears for the footsteps of another.

(If you're a learned Jew, you probably recognize "kadesha" from Tanach. And I couldn't find out what a kulmashitu-woman was.)

This indicates that despite the glory polytheistic priestesses enjoyed, there was no real spirituality or self-improvement involved and they were actually despised by the surrounding society, contrary to the fantasies of Women's Studies professors.

An Egyptian Princess Writes Home
The correspondence of an Egyptian princess to her father callously complains about several inconveniences in her marital home, one of which is that the slaves he sent with her just upped and died, much as one might complain about a trinket breaking.

The Crazy Code of Hammurabi
The famous Code of Hammurabi (1754 BCE) accepts trial-by-water as equal to trial-by-court-judges (and in some cases, insists on trial-by-water as preferable to holding a trial).

The punishment for a man who strikes and kills a pregnant woman is the execution of his daughter, who had no part in the violent death of her father's pregnant victim and may have even opposed it.

Likewise, it calls for the execution of the son of a builder whose badly constructed building collapses and kills the owner’s child, and so on.

What’s very disturbing about this is that the Code was not a list of laws, as many people think.

It was more of a statement of ideals which was meant to appeal to the general populace and increase the king’s popularity, much the way today’s politicians will make promises and declarations not based on what they actually think, but on what will increase their popularity and votes.

So the above values were so prized by that society that the king encoded these values to maintain his popularity.

So the Code of Hammurabi actually represents the values of the average Babylonian, and not necessarily that of the king.

Hittites are Just Gross
Hittite Law called for execution if a man had relations with a pig or dog. But with a horse or mule, it was totally okay—no punishment, not even a fine.

The Assyrian Koran?
Assyrian Law was very similar to Sharia Law. Enough said.

If you're a frum Jew, you've probably heard a lot about all the materialism and cruelty of Greek and Roman society. They're referred to quite often in the Talmud. And before that, there was Chanukah.

But suffice to say, Later, Greek and Roman myths featured tremendous cruelty and capriciousness among their gods.

And like other polytheistic societies, a strong tendency toward inane distractions, immorality and self-indulgences, and cruel gladiatorial events loomed over anything good the West feels it inherited from these cultures.

In many other places around the world, the values Westerners consider most basic and self-evident are contradicted in places like Africa and other primitive areas.

In fact, travel warnings (both official and anecdotal) for both Africa (where animism is popular) and Papua New Guinea caution visitors against stopping to help an injured child or a pedestrian hit by a car even if it’s not your fault, even if you’re clearly just passing by and not involved at all. Just the act of involving yourself anoints you with an aura of accountability.

“Yes, it’s difficult witnessing a hit-and-run with a child lying there injured,” the anecdotal warnings read. “But your instinct to save that child’s life could put in you in danger with locals who may not perceive your altruistic behavior in the light to which you are accustomed.”

These places also tend to be rife with wars, domestic violence, and tribal clashes.

Kumbaya, everyone!

As stated by the Rambam and others, Islam is one of the only (and perhaps the only) non-Jewish religious system considered monotheistic.

And Chazal predicts that Yishmael will eventually do teshuvah, may that day come soon.

But Islam is based on a moon-worshiping system (hence all those crescent moons that became swords upon their Islamization).

And that is why Islamic monotheism is often expressed in the way of ancient polytheists.

While Christians consider themselves monotheists, the Trinity is clearly polytheistic.

And true to their monotheistic aspirations, many of today’s Western Christians finally embody the values of mercy, charity, and forbearance they’ve always claimed to have.

I do credit Christians with leading the battle against abortion and non-traditional marriage, among other important battles. Also, many Christians saved Jews during the Shoah. I believe this is because that Christians end up reading Tanach too as part of what they consider to be their bible, and because their gospels ended up paraphrasing Jewish ideas at times, and thus the Christian reader can't help imbibing Torah values along with all the polytheism-derived ideas.

But until relatively recently in Christian history, many Christians were easy to incite into the worst acts of violence and treachery.

And even today, you can find groups that still commit immoral and harmful acts (cough, the Catholic Church, cough) and uphold wonky, weak values.

Not to mention the undercurrent of resentment and envy against Jews that many Christians secretly harbor.

I guess that for people who love to quote pithy proverbs from Buddha and Confucius or who romanticize the hopeless Indian people living on a blanket spread out over a steaming sidewalk or who idealize Ancient Greece and Rome as the cradle of their beloved modern culture, then all these facts won't make a dent.

But it can't be denied that despite the West’s love affair with polytheistic belief systems and societies, the truth is that polytheistic societies have always sat on top of a dark underbelly of cruelty, excess, and sadism.

If God considered the system REALLY, REALLY BAD...then it just is.

And if you really look at what's going on within the polytheist societies and groups, you'll see just how bad it is.

Note: Real names are not used in this post. All names are pseudonyms.
_______________

When I was in 8th grade, my friend Jessica confided 2 things to me:

• She had been touched inappropriately by her stepfather (an elder in the Mormon church) since age 12, only to have him tell her when she was 14: “I won’t touch you anymore because now you’re too old for me.” Sick, I know.
• She was anorexic.

 
I encouraged her to tell someone about her stepfather, but she already had. Yet it never went well. For example, when she initially told her mother, Jessica was slapped across the face. (I discovered later from listening to other victims of stepfather-abuse that being slapped across your face by your mother when you tell her what her husband is doing to you is not uncommon.)

Jessica tried telling others, like a young male guidance counselor and the school nurse, but neither did do anything, although I believe the guidance counselor responded with sympathetic words.

(And it wasn’t due to “lack of awareness.” This was the late Eighties and hotlines, organizations, and advice addressing abuse were literally all over TV, newspapers, talk shows, and magazines.)

I felt like maybe her eating disorder and the abuse might be connected.
(Eating disorders are indeed a common response to this kind of abuse.)

The school nurse cheerfully tackled Jessica’s anorexia by having her come to the nurse’s office weekly to weigh Jessica. Even at age 13, I realized that weekly weigh-ins could not help anorexia. Yet the adult nurse seemed not to realize this.

(I found out later that this same nurse used to take girls to get secret abortions during school hours. She genuinely thought she was being supportive and helpful. It was only later that I realized that this is typical of Liberal cowardice and hypocrisy: sporting girls off to get abortions while ignoring criminal sxual abuse and a dangerous eating disorder.)

Jessica also explained that as the oldest (she was the product of her mother’s first marriage and her half-siblings from this second marriage were much younger than Jessica), she was responsible for a lot of household chores.

Washing dishes became a dreaded task because if she broke a dish or cup, she got hit for it. This made her more nervous when she washed the dishes, and her nerves made her clumsier, which meant she dropped something breakable and got hit again. And so on.

Hunched over with a naturally round face and wearing bulky sweaters even on hot days, Jessica didn’t look anorexic. But really, she was becoming dangerously thin.

At one point, Jessica was finally admitted to the hospital and spent time in the special wing for eating disorders being plied with IVs and therapy.

It helped her with the anorexia and she got up to a healthy weight, at which point the hospital released her back to her mother and stepfather.

Please note that everyone Jessica had turned to had been really nice. The nurse was a cheerful spritely older woman. The male guidance counselor was a friendly personable guy who used to walk down the halls of the junior with a smile and a friendly greeting for everyone. The medical staff treating my friend was mostly really nice.

It’s America in the Eighties. Everyone’s really nice! Bright colors and cheerful music is in!

But even people who chose to be in these helping professions that not only call for being “really nice!” and validating feelings, but also sometimes call for courage and virtue…these people ultimately did not and often still do not come through for Jessica and others like her.

Why? Because American culture has developed into a zombie-brain that only wants to feel good, but cares not a darn for actually being good and doing the right thing—especially when doing the right thing is uncomfortable and scary.

Anyway, Jessica and I enter high school. She starts dating a boy from her church community, and he violates her.

(Okay, so there were a lot of Mormons where I grew up and Mormon males are either really awful and like her stepfather OR they’re really good, sort of like really sincere yeshivah bachur types. I think it’s because their religion was founded by a total sicko, but because the surrounding value system of 19th-Century America was pretty good, so they adapted those values as part of their religion even today. So they either embody Joseph Smith or 19th-Century Americans.)

Anyway, I want her to tell and call the police, and am willing to stand by her through the whole ordeal, but she can’t bring herself to do it. These things are notoriously hard to prove and she is anyway feeling beaten down from her home life.

I want him dead, but alas, can’t do a thing about it. It’s very uncomfortable to pass him in the hallway or sit across the room from him in class, knowing what he really is and wishing I could whack him upside the head with a metal pipe. But all I can do is warn other girls with whom I see him flirting not to go out with him or be with him anywhere alone. (L’maaseh, I only needed to this a couple of times.)

Jessica wants to seek out her father. When her parents divorced (when Jessica was age 2), her mother told everyone that she wanted the divorce because she discovered Jessica’s father violated Jessica when Jessica was a baby only a few months old. But Jessica has always felt that this wasn’t true, that such a thing never happened.

Also, by siding so violently with Jessica’s stepfather against Jessica’s accusations, Jessica’s mother made it pretty clear that she doesn’t give a whit about Jessica being abused or violated in any way.

Throughout 9th grade, Jessica is confiding in me and confiding in the high school guidance counselor who is a caring middle-aged woman who is ready to stand by Jessica and encourages Jessica to take legal action against the boy who assaulted her and against her stepfather.

But Jessica isn’t ready yet.

Jessica dates a couple more boys, then stops after they also violate her.

Despite us being close friends, Jessica never said that she’d been asked out or was going out on a date. If I’d known, I’d have tried to intervene.

(This is actually pretty common with survivors of abuse; they have “secret relationships” because that’s what feels normal to them and it doesn’t occur to them to chat with or confide in their friends about these relationships.)

So I would only find out after the fact, with Jessica looking glum and sounding so defeated, and quietly becoming suicidal.

I feel like I’m going crazy from this and am outraged that things like this can just happen with no repercussions. I also talk to the guidance counselor about Jessica and how to help her, but the lady just shakes her head sadly and says no one can do anything until Jessica herself decides to bring charges and testify, and she tells me to just keep on being a supportive friend because that’s what will ultimately help Jessica the most.

Finally, even though I never yell at my friends, I say to Jessica, “Stop dating! Don’t go out with ANYONE! Just stop!” I can see that she’s attracting and being attracted to predators, which again, is a very common result of abuse.

But Jessica just stares at me and I realize that she doesn’t know how to say no. Even to being asked out on a date, she just can’t say no.

So I tell her to just tell everyone she’s not dating right now.  Anyway, Mormons have rules not to date until you sixteen (and then often get married at eighteen), so this should be okay. But she looks like I’m asking her to climb over a wall, so I rehearse with her what she will say next time she’s asked out.

At one point, Jessica thinks she’s pregnant from the violation and I promise to hand over to her whatever money I have in my savings account (which isn’t so much) to have an abortion. I assume that’s what she wants because the thought of carrying a horrible person’s baby to term and going through birth, and then dealing with keeping this baby or giving it up for adoption…the whole scenario horrifies me.

Who would want to go through that?

She stares at me like I’m victimizing her now and I don’t understand why. I’m helping her, I’m being so altruistic! What’s wrong exactly?

What I didn’t understand was that she is against abortion and my pressuring her kill her own baby makes her feel like she was being violated again.

(Much later, I read about women who became pregnant from assault and who did have an abortion and grieve over how they were eventually able to heal from the assault, but not from the abortion. It’s a thorny and heart-rending situation, but I learn from reading and watching interviews with those conceived in abortion and their mothers that abortion is usually not the answer, even though “pro-choice” proponents insist it is the only compassionate response. Women pregnant from assault generally need unending support, compassion, and validation...not abortion. It doesn't matter how you or I imagine we'd feel in that situation, chas v'shalom, it matters how SHE feels. And this is learned from the parsha on Dina too, when the family allows her to make all decisions concerning her aftermath.)

Anyway, Jessica finds out she’s not pregnant and we are both much relieved.

(Now, I feel horrible about having pressured her to do such a thing. According to the Liberal values I’d been indoctrinated with at that time, I thought I was being so compassionate, but I was really being cruel. And I am so grateful to Hashem that He saved me from participating in an abortion.)

Later, Jessica manages to turn down a date and she feels great about overcoming that hurdle.

Throughout all this, Jessica shows a great capacity to be happy and enjoy the moment. She’s on the quieter side, but she’s got the cutest smile (which pops out more often than you’d think in her situation) and she’s always really nice to people.

I confide in her too, and she never puts me down or rebuffs me for having my own problems in contrast to her very dysfunctional life.

It's amazing how normal and sensitive and good-humored she is despite all the abuse.

Jessica invites me and a couple other friends to her fifteenth birthday party.

I’m surprised at how small and run-down her home is. I thought that as a church elder, her stepfather would have a better livelihood. He is a short squarely built man with sandy hair and blue eyes. He looks more like a logger than a church elder. Her mother is a quiet pale brunette.

I feel this weird sense of disassociation being in the same room with such awful people when I know what they’ve done. Especially her stepfather. I wish he would just drop dead, but I have to greet him politely so Jessica doesn’t get into trouble for bringing home rude friends. We all sit on the shaggy carpet in a corner of the living room and quietly give her presents. Somehow, we all sense we need to be quiet, but we don't know why.

Her mother and stepfather coldly ignore us, but I don't know why.

Her younger three siblings sit nearby and watch us. They are scruffy-looking with sad eyes. We try smiling at them, but they don’t smile back.
 
(When I ask Jessica, she insists that her stepfather doesn’t do to his own daughter what he did to her. But the daughter is only five and I wonder. I feel like something needs to be done because I feel like the younger children, especially the girl, are in danger too, but there doesn’t seem to be anything that can legally be done. Anyway, Jessica insists that her half-siblings aren’t abused like how she is.)

At one point, Jessica finds old documents from her parents’ divorce and discovers that her father consistently denied all accusations and that the court psychologist diagnosed her mother with a thought disorder. We don’t know exactly what this is, but it doesn’t sound good and we wonder why custody was given to her mother.

Toward the end of 10th grade Jessica is growing stronger emotionally and she finally decides that with her sixteenth birthday coming up (in our state, children 16 and up can legally choose with which parent they want to live), she wants to seek out her father to live with him and press charges against her stepfather.

Unfortunately, the entire church decides that Jessica is making false accusations against a church elder they all respect. But because they’re Mormons, they’re all really nice about it. They still like Jessica personally, but they are certain she is deluded, poor thing.

Jessica isn’t allowed out of her house or on the phone. She calls me here and there, but speaks quietly and hangs up suddenly because she hears someone coming. Then she contacts me to let me know that they’re having a youth group meeting at a church not far from my home and we agree to meet in the church driveway.

She sneaks out of the youth group meeting and we speak in the shadow of the tall bushes at the bottom of the steep walkway that leads up to the church entrance.

Suddenly, the church door opens and something like 20 Mormons come streaming out looking for Jessica.

Me and Jessica exchange looks and I ask if me being here will get her into trouble, and she says no, I can just say I was passing by and anyway, they probably won’t tell on her because they are trying to “help” her and don’t want to get her into trouble with her parents.

The head of the group is an outgoing confident girl named Allison. She spots Jessica and brings Jessica to the front of the group. She starts to talk to Jessica as if Jessica was an errant but beloved child.

Suddenly, I feel in danger. I sense that they won’t do anything particularly vicious to Jessica, but I’m a Jew and I somehow feel certain that would matter to them. I don’t stop to ponder this, but rationally, it didn’t make sense. I was open about my Jewish identity, but I was very assimilated and didn’t look specifically Jewish. Also, these people were very nice and proud of being open-minded. Furthermore, being a religious minority themselves, I’d always been treating with understanding and sensitivity by Mormons. Mormons are the nicest group of Christians I've encountered as a group.
So I have no idea where this sense of danger came from.

At one point, Allison is wagging her finger in Jessica’s face and looking intently into Jessica’s eyes.

“Now, Jessica,” says Allison firmly yet patiently. “You know your stepfather never did any such thing to you. You know you’re making everything up and you know that it’s all lies. You need to stop this.”

Danger or not, I can’t stand hearing this and seeing Jessica being treated like this.
I step out of the shadows and say, “Allison, Jessica’s not lying.”

Allison looks at me in shock, as do the rest of our peers and I realize they didn’t realize I was there. Allison isn’t sure how to handle my presence and I quietly defend Jessica, pointing out that her history of anorexia says something and also that they all probably have sensed something “off” about her stepfather, but are in denial themselves. Using Allison’s exact same tone of voice, I say, “Allison, you know that Jessica’s not lying. You know her stepfather and you can sense exactly what he is.”
And I can’t remember what else I said.

They all just stare at me for a moment. Then Allison glances at Joanne and as if hearing the same call, they all run off together.

I don't know why they keep running like a herd of antelope, rather than walking.

Jessica looks at me. “Thanks,” she says. But she still looks troubled.

We both know that anything I said was for Jessica’s benefit only, just so that she wouldn’t feel completely alone, but that everything else in her life was going to continue exactly the same. In other words, whatever I did was useless and only served to make me feel good. But nothing useful happened.

(Also, there was clearly no foundation for my sudden sense of danger as a Jew. Where did that come from?)

Jessica’s home situation becomes intolerable.

Allison’s family agrees to take her in and Jessica goes to live with them. They feel holier-than-thou because in their eyes, they are taking in this poor delusional girl who is making terrible accusations against one of their elders—yet they are behaving with exemplary Christian compassion toward her anyway.

Also, they can work on "curing" her while she is under their roof.

Jessica is in a crazy-making situation because it’s either her abusive family or Allison’s family or the street. Allison and her parents are really nice to Jessica, but are firm in their belief that Jessica is delusional, yet they love her enough to help her and support her even though she is nuts.

I can’t stand the whole thing.

Jessica calls me and confesses that she got a hold of diet pills and that she is behaving anorexically again. Feeling like I’m obliged to do something, I reassure her that I'm on my way.

Allison and her mother are not so happy to see me and I feel intimidated, but am on a mission, which gives me some courage. Allison and her mother make a big show in the kitchen about working together and humming and generally acting all familial and “apple pie.”

Jessica allows me into her room and then doesn’t want to show me the pills. She says she has regrets about confiding in me because she’s getting fat again (she’s not) and she really needs them. I ask her to show them to me, which she does reluctantly.

I pull on the package, but she doesn’t let go. Finally, she lets go and I throw the package in the waste paper basket next to us. We both look at it doubtfully.

“Is that good enough?” I say.

She looks me in the eye and says, “I’ll just take it out again after you leave.”

“Right,” I say.

So I take it and put it in my purse. Jessica looks very unhappy. I need to go and I try to say something encouraging and reassure that I’m doing this for her own good, even though I feel really bad and condescending for saying it.

I go and throw the diet pills in a dumpster.

I feel like I’ve done something and not just stood idly by, but deep down, I know I didn’t do anything useful at all.

I’m becoming like the surrounding culture: doing things to make myself feel good and proactive, but in reality, my efforts are useless.

Jessica gets in contact with her father, who is happy to hear from her and also open to having her come live him.

He never remarried and has a job and is much relieved that she never believed the false accusations against him. There is more to the story that I can’t really remember, like something about the church ganging up against him and it all being too much for him.

Secretly, I’m upset with him for abandoning her for 14 years. I understand why he couldn’t handle the initial pressure against him, but if he knew what his ex-wife was like, then why did he never try to fight for custody or visitation rights again?
Why wasn’t his only child worth fighting for?
And what kind of man did he think his ex-wife would marry—why wasn’t Jessica’s father more concerned?
Why did he wait until Jessica contacted him?
Why didn’t he care enough about his only child?

But I say nothing about my thoughts to Jessica. I want her out of this community and living with her father too.

Finally, Jessica is sixteen and her case goes to court.

The middle-aged female guidance counselor goes to testify on Jessica’s behalf, but I see her beforehand and she doesn’t look happy. She doesn’t say much, but implies that she doesn’t trust that particular court to do the right thing. But she will try her best.

I am thrilled. Finally! Jessica will be away from all the nuts and abusers! Now she’ll be able to heal. I can’t wait!

Excited, I wait for a call from Jessica.

Finally, she contacts me and she’s just despondent. The female judge declared that a child belongs with her mother and sentenced Jessica to the custody of her mother until she’d turn 18.

I feel like my heart and stomach are caving in. How could this happen? Anyway, without the abuse, Jessica has a legal right at 16 to choose with which parent she wants to live.

Why is this happening?

According to everything I've read and everything I've seen on TV, it’s not supposed to happen like this. Once you tell a trusted adult, then everything gets better. Once you scrounge up the guts to go to court, everything gets better: Justice is served.

Also, the judge was a woman! According to feminism, the entire reason why abuse victims were ever treated unjustly was due to the monopoly of insensitive white males in the system.

Installing FEMALES in traditionally male roles was supposed to fix at all that and right all those wrongs!

So what happened here?

The next day, I talk to the guidance counselor who sadly tells me that this particular court is very “family-oriented.” From my Liberal indoctrination, I already know that anything to do with “family” is bad: It’s code for Conservative positions (like “family values” and phrases like that).

But I don’t understand how this happened and what “family-oriented” has to do with forcing a child back to an abusive family.

“Is the judge Mormon?” I ask, thinking maybe the judge wants to protect her own.

“No,” says the guidance counselor. “Not at all.”

This is even stranger. I know that mainstream Christians tend to consider Mormonism weird, like a type of cult.
So even if the judge is “family-oriented,” why would she side unjustly with Mormons?
Why didn’t she believe Jessica and the guidance counselor and the others who showed up on Jessica’s behalf?
What about Jessica’s lawyer?
What about Jessica’s history of anorexia? 

In an effort to understand, I try asking more questions, but the guidance counselor’s mind seems to be somewhere else. She has other things to do (I found out what later) and I can tell that it's time for me to leave.

The next day, there’s a school assembly in the gym, which I attend along with everyone else, but my mind is elsewhere.

I’m very upset and confused and feeling betrayed on Jessica's behalf.

Spending another 2 years with her mother and stepfather seems impossible and I can’t stand the thought of it. I don’t see Jessica at school and I wonder where she is.

As I trudge out of the gym, everyone is streaming out around me with boisterous, loose energy. Suddenly, someone whomps up against me and arms are thrown around my neck.

I look down and see Jessica’s face beaming up at me.

“I'm going!” she says.

“Where?” I say.

She giggles. “Into hiding! They found a place for me to be until I’m 18 and can go live with my father!”

Into hiding? I start to feel rage boiling up inside of me. Why is Jessica going underground? She’s the victim! The other people should be hiding themselves, not Jessica! Why is the victim being punished?!

But Jessica is so happy, I force myself to smile at her. The truth is, I’m relieved for her too, even though it’s not fair. But of course, it’s better than the current alternative.

“I have to go now before anyone sees me,” says Jessica. “But I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye to you. Thanks for everything, for being such a good friend!” She squeezes her arms around my neck again in a hug and in shock, I hug her back. “See you in 2 years!” she chirps. Then she disappears and I’m left with my empty arms still in a half circle.

I look around, but can’t see her among the crowd.

This is the last blow of injustice. I feel devastated.

I go to see the guidance counselor, who is glowing with pleasure.

It was she who contacted this underground foster care system organized by people who wanted to help the children failed by the official system. She’s very pleased that she managed to save Jessica after all.

Me too, but I’m still outraged that the system and society failed her and that she needs to go underground against the law with a false identity and when she’s the victim.

“But aren’t you happy for Jessica?” says the guidance counselor.

No, I’m not happy. Oh, yay, abused and innocent Jessica is a fugitive and gone to live with God-knows-who! Does that seem like something to be happy about? No, I’m relieved for Jessica, but I’m also very, very angry at almost everyone else.

I can tell that the guidance counselor is a bit hurt that I don’t appreciate more what she did. After all, it’s totally illegal and she’s taking a huge risk.

Realizing I’m too absorbed in my own feelings, I re-focus and thank her for doing all that for Jessica and reassure her that I’m happy for Jessica and that I appreciate everything the guidance counselor has done.

Then I go to English class and sit there, glaring into space while the teacher talks. Then everyone gets to work on the assignment and I’m still sitting there with my arms crossed and glaring at nothing.

The teacher, a middle-aged Catholic woman approaches me and asks me what’s wrong.

She sounds nice, but she often looks at me a bit distrustfully, as if remembering what my Pharisee ancestors did to her godhead, and now is no exception.

I say something like I just lost a good friend because the system fails victims.

Pursing her lips, she lowers her head to contemplate me with eyes radiating rebuke.

It occurs to me that she might have been peripherally involved on Jessica’s behalf and know about Jessica’s escape into hiding. Jessica had mentioned something about this English teacher being sympathetic, but I couldn’t remember what. I think I didn’t pay attention at the time because different Christian groups could be nice to those from other Christian groups in an effort prove themselves as the REAL good guys and get new converts. And I think that’s why I thought the English teacher was being sympathetic toward Jessica.

Anyway, the English teacher fixes me with this look, then says pointedly, “But aren’t you happy for her?”

I am getting really sick of this word. No, I am not happy.

This isn’t fair, this isn’t right, this isn’t the way things are supposed to work.

Victims should be vindicated, not punished.

This is America, this is 1990, this is a culture of awareness, hotlines, organizations, women's rights, and lots of other propaganda I'd believed in.

I feel like everything has failed Jessica—and by association, failed me too: feminism, democracy, the Constitution, psychology, the justice system, therapists, organizations, treatment centers (like at the hospital), the culture…nothing works.

You can't trust any of it. It all fails in the end. There’s nothing you can really do to help someone being hurt.

“No, I’m not happy," I admit. "I mean, yes, I’m happy that she’s out of harm and in a safer environment." Safer. I know that legal foster homes can be abusive. So this underground foster care system is still risky. "But this still isn’t right. It's not ideal.” I pause. “Also, she’s my good friend. I’m going to really miss her.”

The Catholic English teacher looks at me with disapproval. “You should be happy for her," she said. "If you really care about her, you’ll be happy for her and not just think about yourself.” And with that, she went back to her desk.

I felt slapped.

And for some reason, I felt it was an anti-Jewish thing. Here I am, the uncompassionate Jew—just like the Sanhedrin of Pharisees who sentenced her god to death just because he was a nice, loving little shepherd who only wanted to spread love and compassion throughout the world. [sarc]

And so a Jew like me needs a righteous, compassionate Christian to put me in my place and set me straight. [sarc]

For some reason, I also felt like the strong strain of justice within me was also a Jewish thing. I sensed that the non-religious guidance counselor and the Catholic English teacher were content with just feeling “happy” because they weren’t Jewish. Jews have a “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof—Justice, justice thou shalt pursue” passion in us and others can’t always relate.

But it’s the extra oomph that Jews have which makes us go that extra mile in social justice. Its expression is often distorted among Jews who don’t use Torah as their guide, but it’s definitely there.

Yet at that time, I didn’t know why I felt that me being Jewish had something to do with the difference in our responses and why I felt so certain that the Catholic English teacher was relating to me in a dynamic of Christian vs Jew.

I can't prove any of this, including the Catholic teacher's intentions. It was just my strong feeling at the time for some reason.

I also sensed that feeling personal loss wasn’t as selfish and immoral as the English teacher was making it out to be. Somehow, I understood that having more than one feeling (“Happy!”) about the whole issue was perfectly justified.

It was okay to feel relieved, “happy,” outraged, betrayed, and despondent all at the same time, even if no one else thought it was okay.

I also understood I couldn’t talk about this with anyone and that the guidance counselor couldn’t discuss it either. Good people could get into trouble.

Over the next 2 years, I received birthday and Chanukah cards from within our state, but from 2 other states too. Jessica signed her first name only, but there was never a return address and I understood she was still on the run. She only scrawled a quick sentence (“Just letting you know I’m okay!”), but she sounded cheerful and optimistic.

As cheered as I was to receive each card, they also plunged me back into outrage and despair again. Why was Jessica having to run around 3 different states like a dangerous fugitive? She was the victim!

I noted her 18th birthday and wondered how I would get in touch with her again.

One day, I got a phone call.

“Hi, it’s Jessica! I turned eighteen!”

“Omigosh!” I shrieked.

She was living with her father now and so we met up at a park.

She didn’t say much about where she’d been for the past 2 years.

I guessed she couldn’t for fear of accidentally revealing something.

She mentioned being with an elderly couple in one place. It was boring and they just basically ignored her. I guessed that maybe they were paid, which added to their meager pension, and told to just keep things hush-hush, and that they were helping out a good girl failed by the system.

At first, I was concerned that she endured more abuse in these homes as is common in the legal foster system, but she said no, no one was abusive in any way. It was just more that she was ignored and bored most of the time. 

She was harder and more cynical than I remembered, but it made sense considering what she’d been through. She was also more direct, which I thought was a good sign, even though she was still nice and caring.

At first, things went really well with her father, but friction developed as time went by.

“He’s wants more control over me,” she said at one point. “But he doesn’t understand that I’ve been on my own for most of my life. He can’t just start being my father when I’m eighteen. We don’t have the normal father-daughter dynamic.”

And I understood that she struggled with resentment against his abandonment of her for so long until she, the child, had to reach out and contact him.

Not long after that, I moved to Eretz Yisrael.

At one point when we were around 22, I got a wedding invitation from her, then later a couple of photographs of her standing with her groom and her in a wedding dress looking pregnant.

Then I received a birth announcement declaring the birth of a daughter.

Then a year or so after that, I received another wedding invitation. I surmised she got divorced in the interim and was now getting remarried.

We were both moving around a lot and we lost contact.

Much later, I realized a lot of this was Hashem showing me not to rely on “isms” and all the agendas that come in and out of fashion, no matter how glowingly promoted in society.

Believe me, I know how convincing these agendas can be.
 
Some of it has crept into the frum community and people put their trust in non-Jewish resources and believe their propaganda, with some frum Jews feeling like we need to emulate these non-Jewish resources and systems even though I can tell you from personal experience that, while there are good and effective people within the system, these resources are neither as good nor as effective as they portray themselves to be.

(Jessica is not my only story either. Other people confided in me over the years and I've had my own experiences with social workers, therapists, and other aspects of the system.)

Note: You can certainly utilize non-Jewish resources if they’re effective—I have done so myself—but placing your trust in them as the be-all end-all or attempting to emulate their projected image is neither wise nor correct.

Recently, I went received an unexpected message from someone that threw me into the kind of tizzy I haven’t experienced in a very long time.

I also thought I had worked on myself up to the point that I was above such tizzies.
Oh, well.

Anyway, it was the kind of chatty cheerfully insulting fauxpology that very messed-up people tend to offer, which just ends up exasperating and hurting you more than ever.

And I totally forgot about most of the principles I learned, believed in, and even write about on this blog.

And I started engaging in the behaviors that even the non-Jewish world advises against (like obsessively pondering exactly how to respond, mentally playing out different scenarios of how you could possibly communicate your thoughts to them, imagining how the scenario could get even worse with her calling me or talking about me to others, etc.).

And I did all this even as I knew that was all the wrong thing to do.

Therefore, I was also very angry with myself because I knew I was responding all wrong, but I just couldn’t make myself better.
(After all, this whole miserable incident was from Hashem and for my own good! And shouldn’t I feel distressed on her behalf? After all, look at what Minchat Yehudah says happens to dysfunctional people who never do teshuvah! Where's my compassion?)

And I yearned to be on a higher level and above petty incidents like this, so I could be a happier and better person. But I wasn’t. So I was really frustrated with myself.

Yet between crying jags, I managed to ask Hashem to help this person do teshuvah.
But that didn't help me either.

Part of the reason I felt so frustrated was because I had davened for this person so much.

In addition, I’ve sat with Hashem several times over the past 3 years and related this person’s good points, and also increased compassion by talking to Hashem about this person’s emotionally abusive upbringing (of which she herself is in denial, but the stories she humorously tells hint at mind-boggling dysfunction).

And as long as I didn’t actually speak with her over the past 3 years, I was able to feel genuine compassion for her and sincerely ask Hashem to help her in all sorts of ways (in addition to mental health problems, she has physical health problems, marital problems, and child-rearing problems—a certain amount of which is self-caused), and plead her case.

I also realized that a significant part of her abusive behavior was Prozac-induced.
(Prozac can cause mania and also emotional blunting, which means that you don’t feel things like you should—including how your behavior is affecting others.)

So at this point, I was feeling like, “Why doesn’t being dan l’kaf zechut ever work for me? How many times have I given someone the benefit of the doubt only to be stabbed in the gut in return? Or cheated? Or exploited? Or mocked?”

I mean, even the classic “Oh, they’re wrong but they don’t really mean it, they don’t really know what they’re doing”…
No! Sometimes they do mean it!
(Sometimes, definitely not always.)

And finding her good points over the past 3 years clearly did not help her do teshuvah in any way whatsoever.

So I tried viewing the awful letter as sign to daven for her more, but I couldn’t stop hating her (and hating Prozac and Prozac-junkies like her and the psychiatrists who prescribe Prozac).

Then I tried viewing the crud she wrote as a hint of what I needed to correct in myself.
And yeah, I found stuff.
But no relief.

Talking to God didn’t help either. (Well, not immediately. Please read on...)

And I just felt totally irrelevant as a human being.
How many times have I really and sincerely tried to do the right thing only to have it explode in my face?

Yeah, I know we often don't see reward in This World and that's not what I was expecting. But to see that following sagely advice doesn’t even have the spiritual effect seemingly promised by the sage…well, I just felt like garbage.

I often see these things that work out for everyone else.
But for me, following frum advice often makes things worse.

Then Hashem made me realize that I wasn’t the only one—not by a long shot…

In Words of Faith, Rav Bender describes a scene in which a known moisser (a Jew who betrays other Jews to cruel authorities) "catches" him davening at the kever of Rebbe Nachman (a fatal crime in Communist Russia back then). Rav Bender judges the cruel moisser favorably and appeals to the spark of humanity Rav Bender is sure must be there.

But...nope! No apparent spark.

The moisser reports the tremendous tzaddik anyway and Rav Bender spends time in an awful prison, his wife nearly dies back home (but is saved by another courageous Breslover tzaddik), and Rav Bender is eventually and miraculously released.

Rebbe Nachman himself also faced some serious haters, despite the fact that Rebbe Nachman prayed for them and noted their good points.

So the fact that finding merits in and davening for people helps neither them nor me in any perceivable way? Nothing new here.

My actions weren't wrong; my expectations and understanding were lacking.

Then I happened across a passage in Garden of Emuna that seemed to address my mental state, and it directed me to look up Section 6 of Likutei Moharan.

The Hebrew (and the Aramaic and the abbreviations, for that matter) in Likutei Moharan are exceptionally difficult for me and I always end up missing out on a lot simply because I can’t understand it. But I forced myself through Section 6 and I quickly realized where I was messing up:

• Insults are sent in order to destroy your Yetzer Hara.
• Insults help you.
• Insults atone for your sins and destroy your Yetzer Hara so that you won't sin anymore.

Here, God was being so nice to me and taking shots at my Yetzer Hara, and what was I doing? Strengthening my Yetzer Hara even more!

Oddly, it's not like I don't know that insults atone for a person. I do know!

So why had I missed it?

Well, my nemesis's barbs didn't come in the form of conventional insults.
They had to do with her own warped worldview and her own messed-up value system. (For example, there are behaviors and traits condemned as bad and wrong by Chazal, but she considers these same behaviors and traits neutral or innocent, even though she looks like a very frum person.)

And while this person in the past had certainly insulted me directly either by name-calling (“Just being honest!”) or by crowing gleefully, “IT’S AAAAALL YOUR FAAAULT!”, most of her attacks tended to be a lot more subtle than that.

In today's world, a lot of people come from a culture and educational background which discourages direct insults and attacks.

So instead they stand there with a charming smile while speaking in a light tone as they thrust the pointy dagger under your ribcage when you least expect it.
Then as you double-over in pain and shock, they chirp, “Ooh, gosh…you should really get a doctor to check that out!”
And then slander you to others by saying, “I don’t know why she no longer speaks to me. I have done nothing but love and care about her. I even encouraged her to get medical help when she was doubled over and even though she was bleeding on the tips of my shoes.”
And then if you point out that she stabbed you, she throws a hissy fit about how you transgressed the prohibition against revenge by bleeding on her shoes.

It doesn't sound like the insults referred to in Chazal. But it is.

Being silent and not responding in the face of any insult—including these subtle chirpy ones—atones for your sins and destroys your Yetzer Hara.

Yes, you feel like you are the one being destroyed, but that pointy dagger is really meant for your Yetzer Hara.

Yet if you're not careful, the Yetzer Hara deflects the blade and thrusts it into you.

There are very, very powerful results in the spiritual world for anyone who hears himself insulted and remains silent.

(I think this means keeping your mind quiet too, and not obsessing over the verbal assault.)

Even if you don’t see these wondrous results in your life, they still exist on your cheshbon in another dimension.

But it was the final paragraph of Likutei Moharan 6 that fixed things for me.

You see, the merits we find in others are jewels in HASHEM’S crown. Every time we relate a good point in someone else, we are setting an invaluable emerald or sapphire into God’s metaphorical Crown.

In fact, a major part of the section is how we need to worry about Hashem’s Kavod (honor) and to mostly forget about our own kavod. Okay, this is no chiddush in Judaism. Discussions of increasing Hashem’s Kavod while nullifying our own desire for kavod abound through millennia of Torah writings.

So why was this helpful?

Because  finding merits and judging favorably aren’t about the other person, even though this topic is often presented this way. And I myself have presented this on this blog, that davening, dancing, and finding good points in the other person helps them to do teshuvah.

And it does!

But not always.

However, what is 100% certain is that finding a good point in a fellow Jew increases Hashem’s Kavod and you—whoever and however flawed you are—end up decorating the Crown of the only real King we have.

And this is real. That’s a guarantee.

When I was working up a cover for the Cheshbon Hanefesh (Self-Accounting) Workbook, I found a gorgeous image that suited the idea of illuminating one's soul.

And so I worked up a cover.

But then 2 thoughts occurred to me:

• How would a man feel holding a workbook with a cover like this?
  

• Heck, even a lot of women would find it hard to take seriously a Cheshbon Hanefesh Workbook that looks like a pink and purple gamma-ray burst.
  

So the workbook ended up with the more sedate yet still attractive cover it wears now:

You can order your copy now at Amazon for the special low introductory price.

It will be available from Book Depository in another few weeks.

Sample chapters and more information about the workbook in previous post.

Thank you and wishing you much hatzlacha!

Throughout the years, I’ve read over Rabbeinu Bachya’s Cheshbon Hanefesh ("Self-Accounting" or "Soul Accounting") within Chovot Halevavot (Duties of the Heart) several times, but always got stuck as if it couldn’t penetrate my brain.

Every few years, I looked at it anew hoping that wherever I was holding anew in my frumkeit and advancing knowledge would finally reveal to me what I didn’t perceive before.

But to my puzzlement, it remained the same impenetrable chapter.

My problem was that instead of it reading as I thought a self-accounting should read, it contained urging after urging to “contemplate this” and “contemplate that,” or “imagine that you didn’t have this” and “imagine that you had something else instead.”
It seemed to be a convoluted way of merely counting your blessings.

Where were the middot I needed to scrutinize, the transgressions I needed to root out?
What I only realized later was that my own mind was too narrow. I got stuck on what I thought a cheshbon hanefesh was supposed to be and couldn’t see Rabbeinu Bachya’s view of what a chesbon hanefesh really is.

It was only after I read Rav Shalom Arush’s book on saying thank you that the light bulb went on.

Contemplating Hashem’s Goodness along with the Unfathomable Wisdom with which He created the human soul, human mind, and human body leads to teshuvah and avodat hamiddot. In other words, gratitude on its own is transformative.

Sure, there are a few cheshbonot in which Rabbeinu Bachya describes what you’d conventionally consider a “cheshbon.” But mostly, it’s “contemplate the different parts and organs of your body, how smoothly they all function, and how bones and sockets fit so perfectly together.”

Rabbeinu Bachya guides you to start at the root: become a good person...NOW.

Had I just sat down and started doing any of the 30 techniques he details within, I would’ve automatically become less bitter, more expanded, more attuned to what I was doing wrong, and increased my overall emuna.

But I’m the type of person who likes to understand how and why something works before I start. This is usually a good tendency. Yet sometimes, the best way to understand something is to just do it. And with a tzaddik on the level of Rabbeinu Bachya, I have nothing to fear. It’s okay to just trust his guidance and take the leap.

So I finally took the leap, but felt I would manage better if I could break each technique down to the steps detailed within. Then I wished I could organize it into a workbook form because I needed to make it even more concrete in order to get my head around it. Then I thought, if I’m going to make a workbook anyway, why not make it available to a wider audience?

And that's how 30 Ways to Make Your Soul Shine: A Workbook Guide to Making a Self-Accounting Based on Rabbeinu Bachya's Classic "Duties of the Heart" was born. (Sample pages available for download below.)

I’m not the only person who has read mussar sefarim and come away feeling perplexed or dissatisfied because I couldn’t figure out how to do what they suggested.

The thing is, you just have to jump in (which is hard if you're like me).

Either with paper and pen or with your mouth, just do what they say. Meaning, if they say “contemplate,” do it verbally or manually (like with a pencil and paper), and not just mentally.
 
My big disclaimer is that the workbook falls very short of what you could do for each technique if you just sat down and did it. Really, you could spend 30-60 minutes on each technique, either talking it through with Hashem or doing a stream-of-consciousness freewrite. So if you don’t need the workbook, then GREAT. That’s ideal; you’ll get more out of it. But if you ran into the same issues I did, then this workbook can help you get more out of it than you would otherwise.

Note: It's fine if you don't fill out every single line of the workbook, if you fill out only one page, or if most of it ends up blank. In the spiritual world (i.e. real world), even the tiniest baby step reaps tremendous results, whether you sense them or not. Any good act you perform can never be erased. So if you write down only one thing to be grateful for, only one organ you appreciate in your body, or whatever, that is very powerful and stays with you forever...whether you feel this or not.

Rabbeinu Bachya himself did not state any order and he stressed the need for each person to do it according to one’s individual level and situation.

So there is a lot of room for flexibility and no room for guilt or pressure.

Right now, it’s being offered on Amazon at the special low introductory price of $5.99. (It is currently available at several of the Amazon sites in that country's currency of pound or euro.)

It will automatically appear in Book Depository within the next 6-8 weeks, hopefully earlier.

(Admittedly inconvenient if you want it before Rosh Hashanah, but I didn’t even come up with the idea until too late. However, since teshuvah should anyway be done every single day of the year, you’re never really too late.)

I'm publishing it under the name "Myrtle Rising."

I'm also trying to see if I can also get it sold through Barnes and Noble.

• There is a glossary of all non-English terms to make the workbook accessible for everyone.
• Each cheshbon includes suggestions if you get stuck.

Table of Contents
   Introduction

1. Gratitude Owed to Hashem as Your Rescuer and Benefactor
2. Gratitude Owed to Hashem for Your Physical Body
3. Gratitude Owed to Hashem for Your Intellect
4. Gratitude Owed to Hashem for the Torah
5. Your Obligation to Resist being Superficial
6. Your Obligation to Obey Hashem out of a Sense of Gratitude
7. Your Obligation to Serve Hashem out of Gratitude
8. Your Obligation to Serve Hashem with Gratitude and Sincerity
9. Your Responsibility to Perform Mitzvot with Enthusiasm
10. Remembering the Attention Hashem Lavishes on You
11. An Accounting of Your Gifts and How You Use Them
12. Redirecting Your Pursuit of the Physical World
13. Your Obligation to Avoid Wasting Time
14. Using Gratitude to Prevent a Spider Web
15. How to Prepare for Your Ultimate Journey
16. Reflections When Remembering Another’s Death
17. The Benefits of Solitude
18. Your Very Greatness as a Human Being Obligates You in Humility
19. Gratitude toward Hashem When Bad Things DON’T Happen
20. Your Obligation to Cultivate a Healthy Attitude toward Money
21. Asking for Hashem’s Help
22. Loving Your Fellow as Yourself
23. Gratitude to Hashem regarding Natural Occurrences
24. Looking at the Torah through “New” Eyes
25. Minimizing the Material while Maximizing the Spiritual
26. Really Feeling Hashem as King
27. Thanking Hashem for What Seems Bad
28. Complete Acceptance of Hashem’s Will
29. The Greatness of Your Soul Over Your Body and Other Attributes
30. Recognition of Your True Position in This World

 Glossary

Sample Pages
I've included the Introduction and the first 15 Cheshbonot, and Cheshbon #21 because #21 is the only one I saw fit to get artistic about.

Thank you more than I can say.

May we all have a lot of hatzlacha in scrubbing our souls.

Note: This post has been updated, mostly with prettier formatting and additional details added to the stories.
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Dancing at Weddings

At a wedding long ago, one of the guests was this adorable young woman sweetly dressed in a pink velvet top and a wide pink satin skirt that reached her ankles. She was petite with a strawberry blonde shaitel full of little curls down to her shoulders. She looked like the perfect doll come to life.
 
Imagine my shock when we started circle-dancing and she grabbed my hand, immediately yanking on my arm with a force that belied her delicate little stature. I immediately pulled away – but she actually hung on!

Then she let me go and as I stepped away from the dancing, the next woman joined hands unsuspectingly with the The Doll, only to immediately be yanked so hard she almost fell over. She looked at The Doll with the same shock I probably had on my face, and also stepped away, rubbing her shoulder. The pattern repeated itself and someone even said, “Ow! Stop – that hurts!”

The Doll responded by pursing her lips and furrowing her pert little nose.
Wimp! she clearly seemed to be thinking.

It ended with several of us standing there and staring at her in disbelief.

“C’mon! C’mon!” she barked, bouncing on her feet like a boxer up for the next round. “Let’s dance! C’mon!” Her lips rubbed against each other and her eyes lit up like the eyes of those who go to hockey games to see the blood bounce off the ice. Her little fists pounded her satin skirt as she looked at us. “Come on! What’s wrong with you guys? This is a wedding! Let’s dance!”

At that point, as if one, we drifted away to other circles of dancers.

As I looked back, her face was all pinched and glaring in a way that clearly said, Can’t take the heat, eh? What a bunch of wimps!

I wondered who'd had the guts to marry her.

A girl name Miriam loved to attend weddings because she loved to dance for the kallah – something she did with infectious joy and energy. When other girls complimented her dancing, she always answered, “Thanks! B’ezras Hashem, I’ll dance at your wedding, too – may it be soon!”
 
When I mentioned to a mutual friend how much I admired Miriam’s dancing, the friend said, “Sure! And you should have seen how she used to rip up the clubs with her dancing!”
 
“Really?” I said (neither of us realizing at the time that now we were entering the realm of lashon hara).
 
“Sure! She used to go clubbing all the time and dance for hours! She was also really into rap music.”
 
“But that’s so weird,” I said. “Because her dancing is totally tzanuah. She doesn’t throw in any of those provocative moves. She just seems totally happy for the kallah.”
 
“Yes,” said the friend. “Because she’s done true teshuvah. She’s a real example to follow.”

A distant cousin of my husband’s whom I’d never met before danced at our wedding non-stop and with a serious sense of purpose and dedication. When I thanked her later and told her how much it meant to me, she looked surprised and said, “Of course! It’s a big mitzvah to dance at a wedding.”
 
I found out later she was known to be a conscientious, serious, trustworthy type.

Another time, I watched as two newly married women danced for a kallah. One looked unsmiling off to the side, her movements half-hearted and robotic; she seemed not to want to be there and didn't care who knew it - including the kallah. In contrast, her partner gazed warmly into the eyes of the kallah with a quiet smile, her steps gentle and light.
 
Socializing with them later revealed that the first was very unhappy. (Understandably, she was feeling very lonely as a newlywed far away from her family and old friends.) And the second was warm, kind, and engaging (and trying very hard to help the first newlywed not feel so lonely). So this may not have reflected the first newlywed's true essence, but merely the state she was in at that time.

And even outside of weddings, a dancer’s personality still peeps out. At an old age home, I watched as one young woman pranced lightly among the residents, singing softly and pleasantly while clapping her hands gently. I didn't realize at the time she was divorced (her shaitel was very realistic) and the light that shone from her soul belied the traumatic year she spent in an emotionally abusive marriage. (As I got to know her, I discovered an exceptionally special young woman who remarried a really wonderful and sweet bachur not long after.)
 
The old folks mostly slouched in their chairs, staring at nothing, with only a few blessed with enough good health to clap and sway in rhythm. The young woman’s face glowed with gentle joy and caring. Another dancing girl kept stared blankly off to the side as she clapped her hands and bounced around, singing by rote. Then she grabbed the hands of an elderly woman hunched almost face down over a desk and started swinging the woman’s stiff arms back and forth. The elderly lady made a choking sound, then started emitting warbles of pain: “Ahhhahh – ahhahh – aaaaagh!”
 
But the girl didn't stop.
 
Shocked, I put my hand on the girl’s arm and whispered, “Wait, I don’t think she likes that much.”
 
Startled, the girl’s eyes widened as her head jerked around to look at me. Then she gave me a disgruntled frown and shook me off, moving away while looking at me as if I had done something indecent. I was certain it was just a defensive reaction; after all, she must have been embarrassed to be shown how she was accidentally hurting this arthritic old lady. I thought that was the end of it until I saw her back with the same woman, the elderly lady’s stiff body rocking back and forth helplessly as the same girl swung the lady’s arms from side to side, accompanied by the elderly lady’s painful warbles.
 
Without thinking, I rushed over to the girl and said, “Stop! Can’t you see you’re hurting her?!”
 
The girl looked at me in startled disgust, raised her chin, and gave a disdainful sniff as she danced as far away from me as possible.
 
She seemed so sure of herself, I started wondering whether I’d misinterpreted the elderly lady’s sounds. Perhaps the elderly lady was trying to sing along and I mistakenly thought she was in unbearable agony?
 
I leaned over to see if the lady was okay. She lay with her stiff arms stretched out across her desk, breathing hard, and still gasping and groaning a little. Her eyes were wide and frantic-looking. Biting my lip, I asked her if she was okay. She stared at me a moment as if to say, Do you really need to ask? and rolled her eyes.
 
Oddly, that same girl appeared very different in class. She sat staring off into space the entire time, leaning to the side in a way that made me wonder if she was drugged. If directly addressed, she looked startled, straightened up for the time it took her to answer, then immediately flopped over and went back to staring at nothing. She seemed quiet and unhappy, and my initial impression of her was of a nice girl for whom I felt sorry. But her dancing persona gave me a totally different insight.
 
(Although to be fair, popular medications like Prozac can cause its user to become insensitive and even obnoxious to others. Even Tylenol studies recently proved that acetaminophen lowers a person's  empathy. So perhaps the disdainful dancer I saw was not the real her, but merely how she was on medication. Maybe.)

The explanation behind Tu B’Av opened my eyes to the fact that you certainly can see a lot in a person’s dancing. There are basic middot, like a need to dominate or a sense of purpose or insensitivity or someone who just goes through the motions. And then there are personality types – all good, but still different: lively and bursting with simchat chaim or gentle and sweet or serious and committed.
 
And that’s just to name a few.

• So a boy looking for an energetic girl who embraces a life of mitzvot with gusto might choose a girl like Miriam.
• But a boy who prefers a girl who’s gentle and sensitive might choose the second baton-dancer or the young divorcee.
• Yet another boy who’s looking for girl who marches through life with heartfelt seriousness and a strong sense of purpose might choose my husband’s distant cousin.

(And in case you were wondering, The Doll and the girl at the old age home were just 2 out of only 3 times I ever saw such aggressive behavior while dancing. Phew!)

I once read about a frum woman who ended up in a terribly abusive marriage. Later, she managed to get divorced, then struggled as a single mother until her second marriage to a man who was a tzaddik and—as he revealed to her—her true soulmate; they’d been together before in several different lifetimes.
 
I forget the reasons why they were meant to be apart in this lifetime, but when she asked her tzaddik husband why she merited to be with him again in this lifetime, he said it was because of her determination to be happy.
She insisted on being a happy person despite all her gut-wrenching suffering.
(This doesn't mean she never felt the pain of the abuse and rejection; it means that she picked herself up and strove to be happy despite it.)
 
Being happy and kind despite the unhappy and unkind people (and lived with) she encountered made her into a great person. She achieved a tikkun which then allowed her to change her original mazal.
 
Most people don’t think they’re able to be great. Many see themselves as damaged, failed, bad, doomed, or second-rate.

At best, they consider themselves nice people, decent and mediocre.
 
People who secretly think they’re better than everyone else are considered narcissists.

But great potential is God-given and something to be thankful and glad for, not something to lord over others.

Yet narcissists often also have great potential. Due to profound shame and a feeling of emptiness, they trample their God-given real potential with fake self-defined "greatness."

If Hashem created you with great potential, then that’s a responsibility, not a pride.

It’s also an expectation. You must try to reach that potential because if you have it, then Hashem put you here in order to attain it.
 
But of course, the path to greatness—as inventors, athletes, and billionaires will tell you—is fraught with falls along the way.
 
I’ve seen people who grew up in non-nurturing families, ended up with an abusive spouse, and are dealing with their own hurting and rejecting children…and they understandably walk around like they have a knife permanently lodged in their heart.

And there’s no one for them to talk to about all that pain. Even if people are sympathetic, they don’t fully understand what it’s like to endure a lifetime of deprivation with no hope for anything better.

People often have hope even when they grow up in an abusive family. They know they'll leave and they dream of having a better life and of being better people.

And sometimes they get that better life...but sometimes they don't.

While many experts love to blame such people for attracting the wrong spouse or crowd or ideology, or for "repeating patterns" or for being "co-dependent," the truth is that some people are self-aware, knowledgeable of "repeating patterns" and the like and still end up married to a dud.

I even know people who had a great first marriage - mamash a love story - yet when their first spouse died, they ended up in an emotionally abusive second marriage.
What pattern were they repeating?
What "co-dependence" or "negative attraction" were they acting out?
They obviously managed to attract a healthy partner the first time and cultivate an ideal marriage.
So what happened?

Yet even those who end up in challenging marriages still don't give up...at first.

They keep trying, keep striving to find the key to shalom bayit via segulot, therapy, extra investment in the shalom-bayit-associated mitzvot (like taharat hamishpacha, challah, candle-lighting, judging favorably, more "love," etc.), consultation with "experts" and rabbis and rebbetzins...until everything starts blowing up in their face (usually stuff concerning their children).

Suddenly, they wake up to the fact that they've been banging their face against the wall for the past 15-20 years.

And it hurts.

In such situations where you weren’t given the keilim (tools) by your family of origin and you don’t have the kind of support you need from your spouse or your friends or your siblings, and you don’t have a naturally warm or nurturing or patient or wise personality within you…you have all the strikes against you.
 
Forget about all this “everybody has their own sack of sorrows and if we could see other people’s sorrows, we’d still pick our own…”

It’s not true. (Well, not necessarily...)
 
Some people objectively have harder lives from beginning to end. They do!
 
And it’s very, very hard to be happy and to live with emuna in the kind of situation described above.
 
And it’s understandable if you fall—and even if you fall a lot.
 
If you don’t have the keilim within you and you don’t have the keilim outside of you, then you’ll find yourself acting out negative behaviors at times even if you don’t want to: depression, sarcasm, yelling, escaping into food or other meaningless stuff, escaping into drugs or other forbidden stuff, rage, black-and-white thinking, attention-seeking, and more.

But that doesn’t mean you are hopeless. You aren’t.
 
You simply have more challenges designed to help you attain the greatness for which you are destined.

And the only way to deal with everything (and to attain your destined greatness) is to talk stuff out with Hashem.

This means:

• thanking Him even when there doesn't seem to be much to be thankful for
• trying to decipher the messages God sends you through the behavior of others even if those messages come with a sting amid the honey
• asking Him to fulfill everything you lack
• keep turning to Hashem even when you're desperate to talk to a "real" person and even though you know that a regular person will let you down and ultimately not give you what you really need and not fully understand you...even if they really want to (simply because they are just as human as you)

Sometimes, Hashem gives you one or two people to whom you can turn and sometimes He doesn't give you anyone.

Or sometimes, He gives you a few people to rely on, then He plucks them away.

And sometimes, He gives you one or two supportive people, but there are certain areas or times in which they just can't give you what you're desperate for.

Why is your potential so hard to perceive?

Oftentimes, society and other people give you the wrong messages.

They're unable to see you as Hashem sees you, so they disregard your potential.

You may get criticized for the wrong things OR the criticism is correct, but their advice on how to improve is all wrong for you.

Anyway, this is why it's so important to check back with Hashem about any messages you receive.

Only He really knows.
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Please see Deprivation: The True Path to Greatness for more on this topic.

In reading Words of Faith, you keep coming across people who suffered terrible physical deprivation:

• unheated homes in the Ukrainian winter
• people so poor and deprived that they needed to buy water as a heated drink from a local store (not to mention their lack of food!)
• people whose malnutrition and cold covered their bodies with painful sores

…yet they were happy.
 
Happy!
 
The truth is that Jewish history is replete with heroes who maintained their emuna in the face of serious deprivation.
 
I guess we’ve all heard stories of people who maintained a cheerful countenance and mindset despite poverty and deprivation—they’re especially lauded in Chassidus.
 
But why? Why would Hashem do that to such dedicated servants of His?
 
It’s easy to toss off a reason such as past-life deeds that need to be atoned for now. Or that they’re tzaddikim whose suffering atones for the sins of their entire generation.
 
And these reasons are likely true.
 
But there’s something else.

The way to greatness is through nisayon (hardship, challenge, trial).   
 
In the natural world, no one esteems a person who lies in bed and boasts, “I could be a world-class weight-lifter if I worked out. I could be a successful billionaire if I wanted to be. I could invent something completely revolutionary if I had the resources—Tesla and Steve Jobs have nothing on me. No, really! I have that potential!”
 
Even if it’s true, how can anyone—including that person—really know?
 
Yet we instinctively recognize the efforts of the people who “made it.”

Even if we’re sure their talent got them there, we still recognize that work and determination it took to make it big. Neither Tesla nor Jobs would hesitate to relate to you all the failures, the ups and downs, and—in Tesla’s case—the outright sabotage they endured to “make it to the top.”
 

• Look at the adulation Olympic athletes receive when they perform well while nursing a broken wrist or fighting the flu.
  

 

• Ice skaters who mess up or fall during their routine can still up their score by throwing in another spinning jump or by transforming their double axel into a triple.
  

 

• Any body-builder knows that to build muscle, you need to endure a lot of pain as the muscle rips and rebuilds itself into a larger and harder mass.
  

 

• Many wildly wealthy people failed just as much as they succeeded, investing long hours and mental acrobatics into their careers.
  

 
And the spiritual world is much the same.

And all those great people in 19th century Eastern Europe?
 
Well, what would they have been without their poverty and deprivation?
 
Would it have been a huge achievement to be happy while sipping a hot cup of tea in front of cozy fire with a book of Likutei Moharan printed in clear letters open in front of you when your children aren’t crying with the pain of empty bellies and your skin is supple and smooth?
 
No, of course not.
 
Hashem sent these great souls down to the This World, both for their rectification and for ours. But in order to become great, these souls needed to develop the middah of joy and emuna despite joyless and depressing circumstances.
 
There isn’t another way.
 
(Okay, yes, a wealthy person needs to do the same. And for them, it’s often harder for certain reasons. But keeping with the theme of deprivation…)
 
Today, we have poor people, but no one is lacking water and needs to scrape together their last pennies to buy it by the pitcher from a store. You might have problems on your hands or in your joints during cold weather, but you likely aren’t covered in sores do to the cold and malnutrition. And if you are malnourished, it’s likely due to poor choices (you can be overweight and malnourished) and not physically poor circumstances.
 
Our deprivation today tends to be emotional.
 
People feel lonely and deprived of love and support.
 
We have new psychological disorders such as Parental Alienation Syndrome, and addictions to video games, social media, fantasy worlds, and much more.
 
I know one person who loved reality talent shows because something about the whole thing made her feel, “It’s almost like having friends!” (And yes, she immediately bit her lip and winced in the way people do when they blurt out something they don’t want people to know.)
 
People with living parents and lots of siblings can be married with a lot of children and still feel alone.
 
Some people feel that life is an unending series of disappointments as they grew up without loving parents, end up married to an unloving spouse, then raise children who also don’t love them.
 
The thing is that if you can be in such a situation and still experience joy and closeness with Hashem, then that is greatness.

(It may take a lot of climbing and backsliding to get there, but if you can manage it, it really is greatness - no matter what anyone else may say about it.)
 
If everything is decent, if your spouse is your best friend, if your financial situation covers your basic needs, if your siblings are great friends and your parents are great support, and you and your spouse are shepping wave after wave of nachat from your children—then what is the challenge?
 
Are you great? Or is your situation great?

If your situation isn't great, then probably you have the potential to become truly great.

Try to see yourself through God's Eyes and not the eyes of other people.

To read more on this perspective, please see Gitty: The Stunning Greatness of a Regular Jew.

I always find it very hard to relate to the times when either Beit Hamikdash was standing.

Meaning, I find it hard to visualize what it must have been like, what exactly it gave to us and what exactly we lack now.

It's hard to know what you've never experienced.
 

Part of the problem is that you read about how things operated, yet at the same time, people started acting like it wasn’t there and all sorts of crazy things happened, like all the times a fake Kohen Gadol went into the Kodesh Kadoshim (Holy of Holies), he entered with a rope around his ankle so that when he dropped dead (Kodesh Kadoshim doesn’t suffer fakes), the people could pull him out for burial without endangering themselves.
 
Everything about the Beit Hamikdash was set up to make doing the right thing easier and doing the wrong thing harder. It was also set up to atone for when Jews did do the wrong thing because as Rebbe Levi Yitzchack Bender said in Words of Faith, the rituals in the Beit Hamikdash didn’t allow sin to settle on a Jew overnight because the Jewish soul cannot carry sin. Yet today we are forced to carry our sins overnight and even for years. (Unless we sit with Hashem every day to do a cheshbon nefesh…or at least, we immediately acknowledge our sin and ask forgiveness.)
 
So here’s my best shot at what it must have been like:

First of all, the Beit Hamikdash hit all your senses in the most sublime way:

• the air was imbued with the scent of Ketoret and the roasting meat of the korbonot
• you heard the melodies of the Leviim singing as they played their flutes, horns, harps, and drums
• you saw the tremendous beauty of marble, gold, and copper all around you
• the techeilet color worn by the Kohanim was not just a sky blue, but a deep, rich azure
• you walked barefoot on smooth marble
• the emotional atmosphere consisted of profound spirituality, which included sincere teshuvah and lofty joy.
• healing of past traumas came so easily
• it was easy to feel unity, Hashem’s Love along with your own love for others, and forgiveness.

 
(Please see the Kli Yakar on detailed symbolism of the Mishkan and the Kodesh Kadoshim.)

Scent
Today, we know that some scents can be described as “heady.” Furthermore, inhaling certain substances can even make you high. But it’s a false demonic high.

Scent is incredibly powerful; you probably have known the experience of catching a smell you haven’t smelled in years and being taken back to that original experience (whether for good or for bad).
 
Yet the scent of the Ketoret was special.

Made with specific ingredients in specific amounts, it enhanced the spiritual experience with total purity. Ketoret was Holy and by inhaling it, you became infused with untainted Holiness and spirituality. This gave you a shortcut of sorts to the very things we fight so hard for today: teshuvah, feeling close to Hashem, davening with a focused mind and a captivated heart…Ketoret also repelled flies, and nullified scorpions and snakes wherever the scent wafted. Ketoret could also stop even the most rabid plague.

Even today, just reading the Ketoret service provides powerful protection against disease, family disharmony, and klippot (forces of spiritual impurity) while opening channels of success (both financial and spiritual).

If that’s true of just its reading, imagine what being infused with its scent must have been like!

(See more at How Ketoret Proctects against Spiritual Tumah.)

The Scent and Sight of the Korbonot Experience
Many modern Jews struggle to relate to the Korbonot (Sacrifices). In short, Korbonot were performed with specific actions in specific amounts on specific animals. Everything was highly symbolic and the Kohanim themselves dedicated themselves out of heartfelt concern for the errant Jews offering the Korbonot and out of their own personal sense of intimacy with Hashem. Living within the Beit Hamikdash as it were, the Kohanim were constantly infused with the entire atmosphere - heart, body, and soul.

The entire physical ritual of the Korbonot reflected a spiritual process which affected the baal teshuvah on the inside by spiritually cremating all that person’s bad thoughts and taavot that led to the sin in the first place!

But as people began to relate to the Korbonot by rote, they clogged the opening for the spiritual effect to penetrate, which also clogged the preventive effect.

In other words, those offering the korbon didn’t want the atonement and prevention enough. Going through the motions was enough for them, tragically speaking.
 
(See the Kli Yakar on more detailed symbolism of the  Kohanim and the Ketoret and here for a short explanation of how the Korbonot worked on an inner spiritual level.)

Music
Ah, music…this is what I’m affected by the most. I could get lost within just the right song.

Today, popular music is calculated and produced to hit a person’s brain in just the right way. Producers have fine-tuned tempo, chord structure, beat, and timing to a science.
Just the “right” song can pull you from a lively mood into one of longing, nostalgia, or tears within minutes. Yet just the “right” upbeat song can imbue renewed energy and cheer to a gloomy person, even igniting him to dance.

Today’s music has been one of the strongest influences in society’s downward spiral. (TV/movies and books/newspapers are its competition for what gets First Place in the promotion of immoral gunk.) I even read a disturbing account of a prisoner in a torture chamber during the Balkan War of the Nineties whose guitar-playing inflamed tired or uninterested torturers back into torture-mode.
(And no, he wasn’t forced to play. Sick, I know.)
 
But the music of the Beit Hamikdash hit all the right notes—literally. Every note, every instrument, every voice was meant to uplift your heart in the purest and most genuine way.

With today’s heavy bass pounding away in even the frummest venues, it’s hard to imagine the profound and heart-lifting effect of soft drums, flutes, harps, clear horns, and Levite tenors and baritones on the heart of a Jew among the infusion of Ketoret surrounded by marble and rich gleaming metals.

Back then, occult worship offered an easy-come-easy-go coating of feelings and results. But for all the occult incense, you had the equally compelling Ketoret. For the alluring music of the idolaters, you had the equally compelling symphony of the Leviim. For all the glitter and glory of the temples of Baal, Dagon, and Aphrodite, you had the stunning magnificence of the Beit Hamikdash to surpass them all (as stated in the Talmud Sukkah 51b).
 
Yet today...
Reading/Learning

• People complain that frum books (whether non-fiction or novels) just aren’t as compelling as secular books.
• And which article do you turn to first in a frum magazine - the dvar Torah or the newest chapter of the serial novel or news feature?
• Does a blog post on a dvar Torah ever get nearly the same number of comments as a post on something more current and "exciting"?

Music
And even the most insulated frum people perceive frum music as so lacking that they need to spice it up by taking the worst of non-Jewish music and applying it to frum lyrics and Torah verses.

Holy niggunim crafted by tzaddikim “need” bass and synthesizer added to make them appealing to a frum audience today.

In fact, one of the hardest things to let go of for those Jewish children (and I mean those who remembered their love of Judaism and had grown up in committed Torah families) hidden in convents and monasteries during the Shoah were the songs and melodies of the idolatrous religious services.

Physical Beauty and Impressiveness
And is there a shul that rivals in physical beauty the Vatican or Eastern temples or the more exquisitely designed mosques?  

Look at the Kotel remnant of our Beit Hamikdash: pigeons roosting among moss in its crevices, old lumpy stones speckled with erosion and bird-droppings…it’s still beautiful to me and to so many others, but to the physical eye, can it compare to what the other nations have?

In December, drive through the streets of America and look at a Jewish home with its Chanukiyah in the window next to the light-shows decorating the lawns and houses of the non-Jewish neighbors.
How many Jewish children have begged their parents to put up "Chanukah lights" ("Just blue and white lights, Mom and Dad! Pleeeease?") or begged for a tree?

Scents
And how many people find the smell of cigarettes, marijuana, perfume (with names like Poison or Opium or Obsession or Fantasy), and incense more alluring than the aroma of baking challahs and chocolate yeast cakes, simmering cholent, roses in a vase on the Shabbat table, or the Havdalah spice?
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With the Destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, pure and true spirituality went underground in a sense. Today, you have to dig for it.

Back in the time of the Beit Hamikdash, all you had to do was go there and you had something that was obviously better in every way than anything the nations had to offer.

(Not to mention the mere fact of its existence and operation contributed something to your spiritual efforts even if you were physically far from the Beit Hamikdash.)

Today, we strive to give our hearts a boost by davening at the gravesites of holy tzaddikim, going to holy people for blessings, and going to the Kotel, the last standing remnant of the Beit Hamikdash.

But even with that, so much still depends on us working ourselves up to it.

Sometimes, a Jew visits a holy tzaddik and feels…nothing. A nice guy, to be sure, but nothing more than that.

I know of FFB Jews who heard about the holiness of and special experiences at the Kotel only to finally arrive there in person and feel…nothing. I myself would go visit holy gravesites, only to feel disappointed at feeling…nothing.

Now I feel more at gravesites, but nothing nearly as strong as what I feel at the Kotel. Interestingly, even though I still feel something special at the Kotel each time I go, it doesn’t compare to that initial wallop of spirituality and holiness I felt the first several times I went to the Kotel as a secular teenager completely immersed in a non-Jewish lifestyle.

My point is that even with the spiritual boosts we have today, there are no guarantees even if you really, really want that boost.
(Really, you should hear the disappointment saturating the voice of a Jew who really wanted what the Kotel had to offer, but just didn't feel anything. It's heartbreaking.)
 
Yet in the times of the Beit Hamikdash, all you had to do was want what it had to offer—and you got it. Guaranteed!
 
Today, you have to struggle SO HARD for every little drop of spiritual inspiration…and even then, your achievement within that exertion varies from moment to moment.

And even when you get it, how long can you maintain it?

And no matter how much you want it, not only can you not necessarily maintain it, you often can’t even get there at all.

(Fortunately, any spiritual effort reaps massive dividends in the Upper Realms even if you don't sense a darn thing down here.)

May our Beit Hamikdash be rebuilt and restored to its former glory speedily in our days.