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How to Deal with the Mazal of Crabby Tammuz & Savage Av

27/6/2017

Over the years, I've learned to dread Tammuz and Av.

But I'm trying to view them as the opportunities they actually are, and not as the obstacles and frustration they end up feeling like.

A while back, I wrote a post describing my experiences in Tammuz and explaining the astrological effects based on the Kli Yakar:
How to Fight the Crabby Mazal of Tammuz

Later, the Kli Yakar mentions the effect of Av: the Lion.

Lions tend to savage their prey, which is why hatred and other person-to-person sins came to a head with the Destructions of both Temples on the 9th of Av.

And while we don't justify or excuse bad behavior, we can at least find a merit for people if they start acting wonky in Tammuz and Av:
"Oh, they're not innately awful. It's just that they're having a hard time warding off the influence of Tammuz and Av."

And even though the Gemara tells us that astrological effects do not decide a Jew's destiny, the effects are clearly there.

So what's going on?

And what are we supposed to do?

(Hint: The answer to this particular question is partly answered in the link above.)

Dealing with Tammuz

The mazal of Tammuz influences a person to start moving backwards or sideways, just like a crab.

This means that in Tammuz, you need to push yourself harder just to maintain equilibrium.

Picture yourself strolling down a sunlit path with a gentle breeze on your back.

Now picture yourself marching down an overcast path with hurricane-force winds at your face.

You need to brace yourself and push a lot harder to keep going forward, right?

That's Tammuz.

The fun part of it is that when the hurricane-force winds suddenly stop in Elul, all your pushback ends up flinging your forward, spiritually speaking, into the loving arms of Elul.

Elul stands for "Ani L'Dodi V'Dodi Li - I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine."

(The acronym is clearer in Hebrew: אלול - אני לדודי ודודי לי )

Anyway, the same idea holds true for Av.

Dealing with Av

As the Kli Yakar explains in Parshat Devarim:

That was in the month of Av whose sign is Aryeh (the Lion) because each person became like a lion who longs to attack his fellow

If in Av you feel like ripping someone apart, give yourself the benefit of the doubt and recognize that it's likely the influence of Av working on you (and not that you are an Godless raging bull of a person) and then do something to counteract those lion-esque tendencies:

Talk to Hashem about your feelings
Search for a good point in that person and mention it to Hashem
Pray for that person to do teshuvah from love
Pray for yourself
Actively do chessed
Go out of your way to help others (doesn't matter how small the help is; even letting a car in front of you or not careening toward that ideal parking spot while cursing under your breath when you see another car going for the same spot makes a huge difference, spiritually speaking)
Go out of your way to speak pleasantly or at least courteously in even the most trying situations.
Thank God for the situation, knowing that it's from Him and somehow good.
Whatever else you can think of

By the time Av ends and Elul begins, you'll automatically be in a higher place than you would be otherwise.

Elul is a time that is very welcoming toward and conducive for teshuvah and self-improvement, and sweetening judgements and decrees.

So the very frustrations and challenges of Tammuz and Av are actually the perfect preparation for Elul.

Wishing us all a lot of bracha (blessing) and hatzlacha (success)!

Keeping pushing forward!

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God's Sunlit Garden

26/6/2017

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In Chovot Halevavot/Duties of the Heart, Rabbeinu Bachya states in Shaar Habechinah/Gate of Reflection that God's Wisdom is One and the Same, but looks different depending on its vehicle of expression.

Just like the Sun is fundamentally one in its essence, its rays changing in appearance upon passing through windowpanes of white, black, red, or green. And the sunlight changes according to the color of the glass.

And just as water with which an orchard is irrigated assumes the color of the flowers on which it falls.

This is why we have 12 Tribes within one nation.

This is why we need different paths: We need a garden full of different flowers: a Breslov flower and a Chabad flower and a Yemenite flower and a Chazon Ish flower...all misted and irrigated by the same Water of Wisdom.

The Jewish Nation becomes a 12-point prism through which Hashem's Light shines.

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The Secret to Judging Favorably

25/6/2017

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Recently, I re-read several of my favorite English-language frum books brimming with inspiring stories, mussar for our times, insights, and so on.

And something I ran into frequently was the idea of giving a difficult person the benefit of the doubt.

And this is indeed a solid Torah commandment incumbent on every Jew at all times in every situation.

Yet ironically, I feel like I’ve been harmed and I’ve harmed others because I gave the benefit of the doubt.

How can that be?

The Secret to Living a Life of Torah: Learn to Embrace Paradox

So first of all: Judaism demands that we strive to live within paradox.

We give the benefit of the doubt, yet we also need to understand and utilize terms like rasha (a completely and intentionally evil person), and even when such people do good, we need to assume they're doing it for a bad reason.

We are commanded to love our fellow Jew, yet keep our distance from one who consistently behaves badly.

We must help our "enemy" load his donkey, yet refrain from being compassionate toward the cruel.

We must plug our ears and hold our tongues against lashon hara, yet know when to speak out against someone.

Unspeakably horrible things happen, yet God is Good and Compassionate and should be thanked and praised for everything.

(This paradox is encapsulated in the beautiful Chapter 3 of Kohelet/Ecclesiastes: “Everything has an appointed season, and there is a time for every matter under the heaven.”)

A while back, this blog featured a post called How to Avoid being a Pathological Pollyanna. It explains how to give the benefit of the doubt properly based on the Kli Yakar.

God wants us to use our brains.

He wants us to cultivate wisdom.

He wants us to look to our paragons of wisdom (our Sages) for guidance.

When I read a piece written by a fellow fine frum Jew, I’m getting her (or his!) perspective based on what she (or he!) finds inspiring.

And this differs from person to person.

If a person tends toward cynicism, snobbery, and judgementalness, then doing teshuvah drives that person overboard on optimism, acceptance, and appreciation…which is good for THAT person.

But it may not be good for you. (I wrote about this more in What Color is Your Bowl?)

Personally, I don’t find it difficult to see why another person—even a very bad person—behaves so badly. Western Liberalism has literally made a killing on this idea of understanding the motivations and thought processes of bad behavior.

Personally, I don’t find it that difficult to see the potentially very good person with someone currently behaving badly. It’s not hard to see how they can use their qualities for good.

I say this with gratitude because if I can do this, it comes from God, not me at all.

Yet on a practical level, this has done nothing to help me or anyone else.

Do you know how many times I’ve said (and had said to me):

“This person doesn’t really know the harm she’s doing.”
“This person actually does care about her/his own children.”
“It’s okay because he or she has had such a hard life.”
“It’s understandable because this person has been so traumatized.”
“This person actually means well.”
“This person doesn’t actually mean to hurt me/you/anybody.”

How many times? A LOT!

And guess what?

A lot of times, it’s NOT TRUE.

And a lot of times, it is true. But you can’t count on it being true.

Do you know how many people I’ve tried to “love” into healthier behavior?
Do you know how many people I really believed in because I could see actual good qualities…not from my imagination, but actual great potential that they definitely possessed?
Do you know how many people to whom I related according to the wonderful potential I saw (not imagined, but actually saw) within them? (Meaning that I related to them as they could be and not as they were behaving at that moment?)
Do you know how many people I treated with generosity and understanding and strenuous acts of kindness, giving them sincere praise about real and good qualities they possessed even as they treated me very badly, slandered me to others, and so on?

How many? I don’t know. But a lot.

And how many of these people did I succeed in influencing for the better?

How many of them started to change because I saw their good points and treated them accordingly?
How many of these people improved in even some slight way?
How many of these people, upon finally being given the love and understanding they’d never received, finally relaxed and were able to start to love and understand others?

The answer?
NONE! NO ONE! NOT EVEN ONE!!! IT NEVER HAPPENED EVEN ONCE!!!

All my lovely, high falutin’, oh-so-religious efforts were TOTALLY MEANINGLESS.

In fact, the opposite often happened: These people turn on you.

Why? Because you’re being so darn nice, an expectation builds up.

(And it’s an expectation that you cannot keep up. Why? Because you’re not God. Only God is Perfect. Only God is Unfailingly Trustworthy.)
______
Update: Recently, I discovered that the other reason they turn on their confidant is possibly because the confidant not being honest about both their flaws and their good points, and they sense this as written in How Embracing Contradiction Leads to Resolution. So it's a combined lack of humility and lack of honesty, even when the confidant's intentions are good.
______
And so you fail them in some way, such as:

You get (understandably) irritable just one time.
You fail to read their mind.
You simply aren’t able to do whatever is that they want (like escort them on a sweltering summer day to the doctor when you’re pregnant)
And so on.

And I know so many people who have given the benefit of the doubt and been lovely and generous toward consistently difficult people…all for naught.

(Note: I am specifically discussing consistently difficult people. Regular people going through a difficult time or people who actively seek to change or improve DO eventually show positive growth when judged favorably, treated according to their positive potential, and so on.)

Let me give you an example...

The Nice Jewish Girl and the Horrible Violent Ogre

There was a woman we'll call "Penina" married to a multi-millionaire who used to whip her with a belt.

Despite her fashionable secular lifestyle, she always wore long sleeves to cover the marks. Her husband used to force her to act as waitress and butler for the midnight poker games he held with his friends, regardless of how exhausted she was.

He also held bizarre and babyish expectations. For example, when he wanted coffee, he assumed his wife could somehow intuit this desire and read his mind, and therefore he ended up yelling, “Penina! My coffee! Where is it?” before he’d even asked for it.

At one point, Penina decided she wanted to become frum.
But when her husband caught her praying Tehillim, he shouted:
“WHAT DO YOU NEED GOD FOR?! THE ONLY ONE YOU’RE EVER GOING TO WORSHIP IS ME!”

Ooh, a real charmer! Do you think that a little more love and understanding are going to sort out this ogre?

(Don’t worry; they’re divorced now and she is living a fulfilling life full of Torah lectures, Tehillim, and spirituality.)

Now, I don’t know his personal history, but it’s not hard to imagine that he underwent some very trying times as a child to become the ogre he is now.

So...should we all start swooning with empathy and understanding, giving him the benefit of the doubt?
Does he really not mean to be such a vile ogre?
Does he really not understand that whipping his pretty little wife with a belt might be painful and inappropriate?

Anyway, at one point, Penina’s mother needed to undergo heart surgery. Due to lack of funds, Penina’s mother was just going to use whatever heart surgeon her public health fund would offer.

But when Penina’s husband found out that his mother-in-law would be undergoing heart surgery on the free health plan, he said, “No way! This is unconscionable! We must pay whatever it takes to get her the best heart surgeon possible!”

And he was the first to donate $30,000 toward this means, which he used as leverage to get other family members to donate whatever funds they could until he’d collected enough money to pay for a private heart surgeon. And his mother-in-law came through it all in good health.

Did he demonstrate a good quality? Yes.
Was there a lot of ego mixed into this good quality? Yes, of course.

And yes, other people still acknowledged that he’d done a very good thing, and that he’d been so generous and attentive when it wasn’t even his own mother, but his mother-in-law!

Did others seeing this good quality of his change him one iota? NO!
Did his fulfilling such a big mitzvah influence him positively in any observable way? NO!

So what are we supposed to do?

Judge Favorably…But Not Foolishly

Give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

By all means, do so!

A lot of people are touched by and appreciative of such generosity.

And even if they aren't, you've still performed a big mitzvah that stands on the side of merit for the entire Jewish people.

But if a person consistently behaves poorly in a certain area, then that means something.
Maybe they simply don’t know how they're affecting others.
Maybe they are temporarily going through a hard time.
But if you see that even when alerted to the hurtful behavior or that even in good times, they still behave badly…then likely they don’t care.
They may be very sunk into and addicted to their own bad behaviors.
Or, they may even enjoy hurting people.

Love from Afar: AVOID Bad Neighbors, Scoffers, and Sinners

Again, I’ve stumbled in this so often, it’s embarrassing to admit it already.

But Judaism shows a lot of concern regarding the bad influence of others EVEN IF IT’S UNINTENTIONAL.

(The very first Tehillim/Psalm clearly exhorts us to avoid standing in the path/way of chata'im - unintentional sinners, reshaim - intentional sinners, and letzim - scoffers/mockers/time-wasters who just shoot the wind.)

On the contrary, we are supposed to connect to people on a higher level than us.

After all, we all accidentally sin.

And we all have bad habits/addictions that we find impossible to break.

Nonetheless, we still shouldn't hang out with other "sinners." We should seek out people who can influence us positively and hang out with them (if they'll have us ;).

Judaism commands us to avoid people who consistently behave inappropriately.

In my experience, I’ve found it very difficult to maintain my spiritual equilibrium around consistently difficult and resistant people.
I get stressed out, mentally shut down and disassociate, or act out EVEN if I judge them favorably, understand where they’re coming from, and all that lovely stuff.

Now maybe that’s just me.
Maybe you are far thicker-skinned and can maintain your own fine middot while interacting with these types.

But guess what? I can’t.
So I don’t.

However, I do pray for them. And this works.

Center God Firmly in the Picture…Do NOT Leave Him Out!

And all that understanding and positive-potential-seeing and spotting all those diamonds among the coal dust and judging others favorably?

Pour it out to Hashem.

Tell Hashem how wonderful that person could be.
Tell Hashem how much that person has suffered.
Ask God to help that person.

I’m nothing. I can’t do anything. I really realize that now because God has whapped me in the face with this fact so many times until I got the message.

So I avoid interacting with these people and instead channel to Hashem all that loveliness demanded by the Torah.

Again, I cannot repeat this enough:
In my personal experience with consistently difficult and resistant people, merely judging favorably or seeing positive qualities and potential and even treating that person according to their real positive potential does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to heal that person’s nefesh even one iota.

(You can even be harmed by this same person, especially if you're merely pretending they have a positive quality or intention that they don't actually have. The positive quality or merit has to be real.)

The commanded favorable judgment and diamond-spotting MUST be done with Hashem.

That’s the only way.

Tell God about the good you see and think about this person.
Don’t do it on your own.

Happily Recognize the Secret Pride Lurking behind the Well-Intentioned Appearance of Humility

According to the biggest tzaddikim and the mussar books they’ve written, gaava (pride) is one of the hardest traits to obliterate.

And humility is one of the hardest traits to embrace.

So it’s safe to assume that no matter how good you are and how good you are trying to be, you probably struggle with gaava and humility, even if you don’t realize it.

And that’s okay. Even the greatest tzaddikim found this to be a great battle.

So while putting up with other people’s slop for the sake of “helping” them looks nice and self-effacing, it often is rooted in a certain amount of pride and ego.

And I’m speaking for myself here.

I thought I was being good, but self-introspection helped me realize that despite my good intentions and desire to be a good little Jewess, there was a certain amount of ego mixed in with it all.

So it follows that while you may certainly have pure and good intentions that emanate from your holy neshamah, those pure intentions are also likely mixed up with a bit of ego.

It may be your path to feeling good, feeling like a good person, trying to gain some control over a difficult situation, etc.

It can even come from fear. For example, your only other option may be to leave your job or relationship or neighborhood. So you unconsciously prefer trying to change the person instead.

Furthermore, difficult people usually don’t value your opinion.

Due to abuse they suffered in the past, they probably unconsciously search to please abusive people as a way to rectify their unsatisfiable abusers in their past.

Simply by virtue of the fact that you aren’t abusive, your opinion is automatically worth less to them.

That’s another reason why your sincere praise, empathy, and understanding do not help them. Sure, they might enjoy your treatment of them. But they usually don’t appreciate it.

In fact, they may even look down on you for thinking so highly of them.
Seriously.
They might even see you as stupid and easily manipulated for viewing them so positively.
Some people even get angry at you for viewing them positively and forgivingly. Furthermore, upon “diagnosing” you as stupid and easily manipulated, they may even decide that you deserve to be victimized! (Ask me how I know…)

And finally, as stated above, you ultimately cannot fulfill this person’s needs.

Only God can.
(Please see Gate of Trust, Chapters 1-3 in Duties of the Heart for more detail on how God is the only One Who can be trusted; no human being can ever fulfill the necessary qualifications.)

So again, the best way to do this is to turn it all to Hashem.

So What Do You Do Now?

Again, just pour forth all your good intentions and understanding and ayin tovah to God.

This automatically decreases your ego investment and increases your humility.

Nobody knows how lovely, patient, long-suffering, or heroic you’re being…except God. And that’s really good. It’s also a lot more effective. Why? Because you end up praying for the other person from a really good place. And that’s very powerful.

To sum it all up:

Find the diamonds and good points in the person, even the biggest ogre.

Understand this person’s past, their pain, and more.

See the person’s positive potential.

Then…tell this all to HASHEM and ask Him to help them do teshuvah and fulfill all that wonderful potential you've described.

Fifteen minutes telling the above to Hashem does a ton more than spending hours:

listening and empathizing with the person
cleaning their home
cooking them meals
watching their kids
driving them places
stroking their ego
giving them money
giving them chizuk and encouragement

(Of course, you can do all the above. That's chessed!
But watch your motivation: Do the above only because you want to as a mitzvah for Hashem’s Sake, and not because you feel forced to or because you think that they’ll start behaving or thinking better.)

So take your good eye, your diamond-finding, your favorable judgement, your understanding, your good-heartedness…

…and channel it all toward Hashem.
____________________________

May we all succeed in doing teshuvah from love, and not through bitter trials or degradations.

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Spiritual Protection, Especially at Night

22/6/2017

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With all the spooky stuff in recent posts on Minchat Yehudah (spirit possession, etc.), I thought it might be helpful and reassuring to post something on protective measures, especially at night.

So, the most helpful thing is Kriat Shema al Hamita—the Bedtime Prayer.

This can be found in every Orthodox siddur (prayer book). There are different versions of Kriat Shema according to custom, but they’re all highly effective and the differences are relatively minor.

All of them contain a prayer to forgive others, the Baruch Hamapil prayer, the Shema verse, the Baruch Shem Kavod verse, and the 3 paragraphs that follow the Shema prayer in any Orthodox siddur.

The very powerful Psalm 91 is also included in all customs.

The Sephardi Bedtime Prayer also includes the beautiful and powerful Ana B'Koach Prayer, which has many beautiful melodies to sing it to. Ana B'Koach can be said any time of day for protection and inspiration.

It’s best to say it all with as much feeling and pleasure as you can muster.

Rav Fetiyah mentions that if you need to wake up at night because of a crying baby or to adjust your blanket or something like that, you should ideally say all of the actual Shema prayer again. And if you can’t, you should say at least the first verse which starts off as: “Shema Yisrael…” and then the second verse which starts off as: “Baruch Shem Kavod…”

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov passionately recommends reading from Likutei Moharan right before sleep for night protection and good sleep.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Bender emphasizes that saying the prayer “Hashkiveinu—Lay us down” and emphasizing the verse within: “V’taknenu b’aitzah tovah milfanecha—Set us aright with good counsel from before You” is particularly powerful for having a good day, with God’s Help, the next day.
(This prayer is also included in all Orthodox siddurs within the Bedtime Prayer.)

Saying specific Torah verses or prayers (as mentioned within whatever version of Bedtime Prayer you are reading) until you fall asleep is a good method for sweet sleep.

Performing self-introspection and a self-accounting as you fall asleep also sweetens one’s sleep and offers protection. This sounds counterintuitive because you might think of things you’ve done wrong throughout the day, which is unpleasant, but it really works.

Here are some sources:
Jewish laws and suggestions regarding Bedtime Prayer

Chabad/Lubavitch Insights and Suggestions for the Bedtime Prayer

Ashkenazi Krias Shema in Hebrew Only

The Shema Verse with Its 3 Paragraphs in English Translation

Ana B'Koach in Hebrew, English Translation, and Brief Explanations

Sweet Dreams!

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Minchat Yehudah Part III: The Reassuring Truth about Hell, Punishment, Avenging Angels...and How to Avoid Them!

22/6/2017

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Go back to Part I or Part II

Man in washing machine...scrub-a-dub-dub!

One of the more difficult aspects of striving to be a spiritual God-oriented person is the concept of Heavenly punishment.

The Torah emphasizes repeatedly that Hashem is full of chessed/loving-kindness, He is unimaginably Forgiving and Patient, Slow to Anger, Infinitely Merciful and Compassionate, and only does good.

But the Torah also mentions punishment.

And we certainly see in our own lives events that are clearly not rewards, but events which are painful and distressing. At such times, we certainly feel “punished.”

Yet even in those times, we are meant to understand those events as somehow beneficial and the act of a loving Creator.

Yes, it’s challenging.

Yes, it’s a paradox.

And to complicate things, if you were raised by punitive parents or teachers or other authority figures, if you’ve slaved under a punitive boss or married a punitive spouse, or invested in friendships with punitive and manipulative people, your concept of negative-yet-loving-consequences may have been warped and twisted into something very ugly.

You may have rarely or even never seen an example of “loving” punishment.

So how can you internalize a concept which you can’t even imagine?

It takes work, no doubt about it.

And if God put you in that kind of a dynamic in this lifetime, it’s one of the things you’re meant to work on for the good of your own holy soul.

It’s like a muscle that needs to be worked in order for that muscle to bulk up and strengthen.

But God wouldn’t have put you in this situation if you couldn’t do it. This means that no matter how much resistance, despair, or resentment you may (or may not) feel about this matter, you definitely possess the ability to do it.

Beings and Events beyond Our 3-Dimensional World

Perhaps it’s helpful to read what the great tzaddik and mekubal, Rav Yehudah Petiyah, wrote about it.

In his book, Minchat Yehudah, he spoke directly to one of the angelic officials appointed over a particularly sullied soul suffering in the dreaded Kaf Hakelah.

While many people think very simplistically about the Afterlife—just Heaven or Hell, with maybe Purgatory—Judaism teaches us that it is a varied and complex place of many levels.

In Hashem’s Great Love for us, He wants us all to enter Gan Eden (Heaven), but our deeds in This World may prevent that from happening. Therefore, various “cleansing” situations exist to allow a soul to reach the state in which it can finally enter Gan Eden.

Some “cleansing” examples are:

Reincarnation (as humans, animals, plantlife, or rocks)
Wandering around the world not even knowing one is dead (an example of this is given in Words of Faith by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Bender)
Kaf Hakelah (“The Slingshot,” whereby a soul is chased around by angelic officials appointed over it, and they chase and strike him with fiery whips, and the soul can only find refuge by invading a body, like a person or even an animal)
Gehinnom (Hell, of which there are many levels and types)
Other freaky situations

There are also different levels of the paradise of Gan Eden.

Even though I just listed a whole bunch of stuff based on what I’ve read, I don’t claim to actually understand what all this means.

Living in this 3-dimensional world is very limiting and the above take place in other dimensions, i.e. non-physical.

For example, in a conversation with an angelic official named Yosef (who was one of the angels appointed to chase souls around with a fiery implement in Kaf Hakelah), Yosef described his angelic race and its characteristics as follows:

“We do not sleep at all, not during the day and not during the night. And we stand day and night because we have no knees, only a straight leg. And our foot is like the foot of a donkey and we are not wearied by standing.

"And we eat two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. And the meal appears by itself and appears before each and every one and stands in midair across from one’s chest placed in a bowl. And [the meals] consist of a type of sweet red lentils equal to the amount of a man’s handful. And the entire meal is eaten and not even one lentil is left over and it is the amount for our satiation.

"And afterwards, the bowls disappear before our eyes and we don’t know who gathers them…and at the time we strike the spirits, a rod or strap materializes in our hand and our hand strikes that spirit on its own, whether strongly or gently, whether a little bit or a lot. And after that, the rod or strap vanishes from our hand.”

Furthermore, when Rav Petiyah asked Yosef to show himself, the angel declined, saying:

“This is not possible. For I fear lest you become frightened and panic-stricken.”

I said to him, “Do not worry about that. I do not become panic-stricken from seeing your face because I am used to these types of matters.”

He said to me, “I am embarrassed and ashamed to reveal myself because the structure of our face is different than the structure of human beings who are made with image and likeness.” [i.e. the Image of God, I think he means – MR]

I said to him, “If so, please make known to me the structure of your face.”

He sighed and said, “For our face is on the side of the shoulder and our nose is very long, reaching until the chest and also it is very crooked.”

Clearly, this is not a 3-dimensional being.

Heavenly Penalties: Not Petty Revenge or Punishment, But Beneficial Cleansing

Later, Rav Fetiyah describes the question and answer session he had with the angelic official named Yosef (emphases mine-MR):

Question:
If the Beit Din [Heavenly Tribunal] decreed on the spirit to be in Kaf Hakelah thus-and-thus years and I rectify the spirit via yichudim [profoundly holy meditations], and by this means, the decree of the Beit Din upon it is nullified, is that bad in the eyes of the Beit Din because I was the cause to nullify that which they decreed?

Answer:
The intention of the Beit Din is not to take revenge against he who does evil.

Their intention is only to cleanse the stains that were made by the transgressions in his nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, in order to admit him into Gan Eden.

And they know how many years the stains need and what kind of punishment will cleanse and purify.

And if you purify and cleanse in a short time, what does that matter to the Beit Din? … because Kaf Hakelah and Gehinnom are not revenge and punishment for his sin.

On the contrary, everything is for the sake of cleansing him from the stains that were made on his soul in order to admit him later to Gan Eden.

And he resembles a man who buys new clothing and even though it is known and revealed before him that later, the same clothing will become dirty, nonetheless, this doesn’t prevent him from buying it.

When it will become dirty later, he launders it.

And during the laundering, his thoughts aren’t that he is taking revenge on the clothing because it got dirty. He only wants to clean it.

Again, this is very good news for all of us.

God doesn’t want us to suffer. God and His Heavenly Agents aren’t sadistic or punitive.

In fact, even these angelic officials appointed to the role of striking the sullied soul with a fiery implement aren’t doing so out of free will or emotion.

As the angel Yosef describes above, the implement appears and then the hand of the angelic official operates on its own, apparently according to the dictates Above and what is necessary to cleanse that soul.

God WANTS us to do teshuvah!

And yes, teshuvah can be very painful (though not as painful as Kaf Hakelah and all the above).

Try to Feel Happy about Feeling Bad

So...what if you discover an aspect of yourself that is shameful or disgusting? What if you’ve been in deep denial of your motives or the harm you’ve been causing all this time?
Without getting too personal, I’ve definitely discovered things about myself that made me cringe.

But you also have really beautiful and wonderful aspects, too, so don’t get bogged down in shame or self-hatred.

It’s very comforting and important to realize that GOD ALREADY KNOWS ALL YOUR FILTHY ROTTEN POINTS. You’re not really hiding anything…except from yourself.

So just purge it out to Hashem.

Even if you discover that you’ve had a terrible case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder since your teens, that’s okay.

You might have a lot of amends to make, but believe me, you likely didn’t do anything as bad as Shabtai Tzvi nor any of the people mentioned in Parts I & II.

(I didn’t even post the really bad things they did because they were so disturbing and unmentionable. What is described in those posts are the milder transgressions mentioned in the book, and as you can see yourself, those were already pretty extreme.)

So just find a private place to sit with God and say something like:
“Thank you for being so Compassionate and Accepting, Hashem. I’m ashamed to admit that I actually enjoyed torturing that ladybug to death in my flashlight. That shows sadistic tendencies, right? Well, I’m very sorry about that. Please help me overcome them. Thanks!”

Or here’s one that I really wish a lot of people would do 😉 :
“Thanks for being You, Hashem, and for gifting us with the opportunity to do teshuvah. Um, if I’m being really honest, I think I kind of enjoy shooting nasty little barbs at people and justifying that passive-aggressive behavior by pretending that those targeted somehow deserve it.

I’m really sorry. Please help me change.

Please help me become more compassionate, empathetic, and filled with emuna.

And please imbue me with the courage and humility to apologize to whomever I need to apologize. Thanks!”

Yes, the shame and discomfort can really burn.

But better to burn a little now than to burn a lot later!

I kept forgetting to say that all this translation is mine and therefore any errors are also mine.

Go back to Part I or Part II

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Minchat Yehudah Part II: True and Astounding Compassion

21/6/2017

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Fall back to Part I
Spring forward to Part III

The Saga of a Suffering Teenage Jewess

Rav Fatiyah was an incredibly compassionate and loving person.

Here's just one of example of his tenderness and holiness:

Later, in the year 5673/1912 15 Elul, a 17-year-old virtuous unmarried girl came to me and her name was Katun the daughter of Aziza and she said to me,

“I am an orphan from my father and in 5672/1911, my mother went to the land of Persia to visit my brother who was there because he was ill. And she left me and my little brother and my little sister with the sister of my mother, who was a very angry and irritable person."

Katun went on to describe her great suffering from this verbally and emotionally abusive aunt and how Katun could not say a word in her defense or to stop the abuse for fear of being thrown out on the street.

One night, during an episode of profuse weeping over her awful fate, Katun says:

“I felt as if a large cat had fallen on my back between my two shoulders and was scratching my flesh with great scratches in order to make for itself a way to enter into me. And I feared to scream lest the naughty sister of my father also get angry at me. And afterwards, I felt this cat enter my left arm.”

Katun then described physical and audial sensations she experienced from then on, which robbed her of her sleep.

She suffered this way until her mother returned around a year later and immediately sought help for her daughter.

"My mother took me to a Yishmaelite plil."

[Note: I could not find a translation for "plil," but I’m assuming it some sort of exorcist or someone who utilizes the forces of impurity to “help” others.—MR]

"After several exertions, he said that it was a very strong Christian demon and the plil exhausted himself to exorcise it and he could not overcome it.

"And we went to the grave of Yehoshuah the Kohen Gadol and I did hitbodedut there alone, and I prayed there with copious tears.

"And amid this, a great trembling seized me and my eyes closed. And I saw an awesomely venerable man dressed in white clothes and wrapped in white wool. And I couldn’t gaze at his face and he stood at a distance of four amot and he was standing and gazing at me without speaking or words.

"And when we returned from prostrating, our goal was to go to the plil. Yet without meaning to, we found ourselves standing before your home..."

Rav Fetiyah was very moved by Katun’s suffering. He said:

“And I...when I saw Katun cry and her tears on her cheeks, my heart broke within me, and my heart went out to her.”

Anyway, far from being possessed by "a very strong Christian demon," poor Katun was actually possessed by a very tough Jewish spirit name Roza, who’d sinned quite a lot with a particular boy before she died.

In fact, it took Rav Fetiyah an entire year just to get Roza to admit her name and to expel her from Katun took even longer with a lot of struggle.

Eventually, Katun got married in Iran and Roza left her then.

But it wasn’t just Rav Fetiyah’s compassion toward Katun that touched me. Any normal person would feel the same toward such a poor, innocent girl.

It was that Rav Fetiyah insisted on helping Roza to rectify herself so that she could escape the terrible torments of Kaf Hakelah.

And just as a side note:
In the stories of spirit possession, the opening for the spirit is usually made by a transgression on the part of the host. In Katun’s case, no sin is apparent. Even Roza herself admitted that was why she needed to fight so much to enter into Katun's body; Katun hadn’t sinned. However, Katun became possessed while in a state of despondency and bitterness.

Having myself been caught up in states of despondency and bitterness, I certainly don’t blame her and neither does Rav Fetiyah, but it certainly is something to consider…

It's also noteworthy to see that praying sincerely from the heart in a holy place (the gravesite of Yehoshuah the Kohen Gadol) brought Katun to the right agent of salvation.

The fact that Rav Fetiyah really wanted to help these lost souls, despite the fact that some of them had behaved horribly when alive and some even continued to do truly depraved and awful things while dead! (I know, this is so weird.)

Yet he had so much compassion on them. He even assisted souls such as Shabtai Tzvi and others to achieve rectification.

Believe me, after reading some of the reprehensible events here, I would not care about some of these souls. I’d say, Let ’em burn! But after reading Rav Fetiyah’s example, I see that I’m very wrong.

We need to help people get better and praying for them is the best (and sometimes only) way.

Rav Yehuda Fetiyah's Humble Motivation for Helping Such Awful Souls

Here is a conversation between one spirit and Rav Fetiyah — who displays astounding humility:

[Yonah the spirit] said to me, “May God bestow goodness upon you for all your work and great chessed [loving-kindness], which is beyond value and it is more precious than all the treasure in the world.”

I said to him, “May the Blessed God also bestow chessed upon you all for the chessed that you all perform for me.”

And Yonah was amazed at my words and said to me, “How are we bestowing chessed upon you?”

I said to him, “I’ll give you the parable of a baby who suckles milk from his mother. And yes, she performs a great chessed by nursing him, because if she didn’t nurse him, he would certainly die.

"But indeed, the baby is also bestowing chessed upon his mother to empty the milk from her because if he wouldn’t, then the milk would dry up and [cause a lot of physical torment] and the doctor would need to lance them. Likewise, the issue in our matter.

"Because I exerted myself for a long time until God merited me to learn these yichudim. And if a buyer wouldn’t be found for them, then all the exertion would be for nothing, may God have mercy.

"But now I have found in you all a buyer, my mind is content within me that all the exertion wasn’t for nothing.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In fact, when dealing with the notorious Shabtai Tzvi, Rav Fetiyah said:

“Tell me, is it my desire to torment you with yichudim? Because I hope to receive a good reward for my efforts from this young man [possessed by Shabbatai Tzvi]?”

And he said to me, “That is not so. For isn’t this young man a poor man, and he can’t even give you a penny?”

I said to him, “If so, guess why I am straining myself and depriving myself of my business and my studies if not that I pity your soul because it is part of the Godliness Above and it shines like a pearl.

"It’s just that because of the transgressions, 'rust' has encrusted upon it.

"And the Holy One Blessed Be He, Who is the Cause of all causes and the Reason for all reasons orchestrated the matter to insert you within the body of this young man so that by this means, there will be an end and a limit to the rectification of your soul through my hands, that I will toil to rectify you.”

If his soul was “part of the Godliness Above” and “shines like a pearl,” then what about ours, which is surely not nearly as sullied as his?

All the more so, the souls of those of us who may be flawed, but not nearly as flawed as the soul of the above.

The Profound Love & Compassion Within

I feel like it’s very helpful to read about tzaddikim in their own words, as was also done in the post: The Secret Saga of a Righteous Convert as Told by a True Tzaddik.

When we see the world through the eyes of tzaddikim, we get the truth.

We also get a lot of love and compassion, because that is where true tzaddikim are coming from.

And even if we can’t be like them, allowing ourselves to be influenced by their viewpoint and attitudes enables us to be a little bit better than we were before.

The potential within each of us is definitely there.

Fall back to Part I
Spring forward to Part III

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Minchat Yehudah Part I: Teshuvah and What Happens After You Die

20/6/2017

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Since I first started on my journey toward Torah-true Judaism, I kept hearing about what a great gift teshuvah (repentance and returning to the path of truth and goodness) is.

And while I thought, sure, teshuvah is pretty nice, I didn’t feel amazed by the concept.

After all, it made sense:

You do something wrong.

We all mess up sometimes.

So you apologize.

And then you’re forgiven.

And even though human beings aren’t always so forgiving, no matter how sincerely sorry you are, God sees what’s really in your heart and is anyway above petty ego considerations, so of course HE will forgive you.

But I didn’t realize exactly HOW powerful teshuvah is. It can literally save you from the most terrible things—and I don’t even mean in this physical world.

The book Minchat Yehudah was published by an Iraqi-born mekubal (a great and holy sage thoroughly versed in theoretical and practical kabbalah) named Rabbi Yehudah Fetiyah (1859-1942).

Minchat Yehudah contains Rav Fetiyah’s elucidations on many aspects of Tanach, Pirkeh Avot, and more.

He asks and answers interesting questions like, “How did the Snake get into Gan Eden in the first place?” and he also describes what goes on behind the scenes, spiritually speaking.

(Transliteration note: My husband and children keep insisting that his name is pronounced peh-TYE-yah, but because all the English spellings of his name seem to be written with an "F", I’ve left it like that in this post so as not to confuse the English reader. UPDATE 2021: But in later posts, I decided it's actually not that confusing, so his name is written in later posts according to its authentic pronunciation: Petiyah.)

In his section on Yechezkel/Ezekiel, he goes into copious detail regarding his experiences with dead spirits, some of whom did such reprehensible things while alive, I can’t describe them here.

In fact, these departed souls were so corrupt that even while dead, they still managed to do reprehensible acts EVEN THOUGH they KNEW they’d immediately be punished with fiery whips by the angels appointed over them.

I know. It’s so bizarre.

Two things struck me as I read over Rav Fetiyah’s mind-boggling experiences:

Teshuvah is vitally important and powerful.
Rav Fetiyah is one of the most compassionate and loving people I’ve ever encountered.

I'll save a discussion of Rav Fetiyah's great compassion for Part II.

Let’s talk about the power of teshuvah first.

What's Worse than Hell?

The dead souls Rav Fetiyah dealt with were people who’d sinned so appallingly that upon dying, they couldn’t even get into Gehinnom (Hell).

They were in something called Kaf Hakelah (Slingshot), which is when angelic officials chase them around the world with whips of fire (sometimes for even 200 years) and the only time these spirits can get relief is when they invade the body of a live human (or animal).

(This is not exact, BTW. We’re limited to using physical 3-dimensional descriptions to describe a spiritual phenomenon occurring outside our narrow 3-dimensional world.)

And actually, even people who were fairly good in life could still find themselves in this state of Kaf Hakelah if they hadn’t done teshuvah on the things they did do wrong.

(The book gives examples of this too.)

These spirits usually find an opening to possess a person when that person sins in some way.

Anyway, the big chessed here was that upon being possessed, these people turned to Rav Fetiyah, who not only was able to free the person from the blemished spirit, but also effect a tikkun (rectification) on the dead spirit, enabling that soul to eventually enter Gehinnom, and from there, Gan Eden (Heaven, so to speak).

(Sometimes, this necessitated Rav Fetiyah working with this blemished soul for years until rectification was achieved.)

It shocking to see how teshuvah could have saved people from even very serious sins that most of us could not imagine committing.

Yonah: A One-Time Sinner with Major Repercussions

Here is one episode with a soul named Yonah (the words in parentheses are Rav Fetiyah's thoughts):

I said to Yonah,

"First of all, please tell me and don’t hide anything from me: What was your sin that you’ve remained today 15 years in Kaf Hakelah? And who knows how many more years you’ll be in Kaf Hakelah for the same transgression?"

He said to me, “I never sinned all my days except for one time only. And this is how the matter came about:

"For I was an agent between merchants selling raw silk, and blue and purple dyes, to be the go-between for the sellers and buyers. And from this I earned a living for myself and my home. And sometimes a pressing situation arose which required an early visit to the home of the merchants themselves to speak with them.

"And one time it happened that the merchant was not at home and his wife said to me, ‘Sit a while until I’ll send for him to call him.’

"And she sent her maidservant to call her husband and when she sent off her maidservant…and there was nobody with us in the home…and she withdrew 20 shekels and laid it on my chest. And I couldn’t overcome my inclination and I fulfilled her request. And this was my transgression.

"And this is why I’m 15 years in Kaf Hakelah and I don’t know how long I’ll be in this torment because the Beit Din didn’t make it known."

(Perhaps because he caused her to be forbidden to her husband, therefore each time her husband co habited with her, it was considered a transgression for Yonah in and of itself, and they added to Yonah even more years in Kaf Hakelah because this transgression reaped fruits. And thus the Beit Din didn’t inform Yonah how many years he’ll be in Kaf Hakelah.)

"And because of this transgression alone, I am struck."

I said to him, “Why didn’t you do teshuvah for this transgression during your lifetime?”

He said to me, “Because I was embarrassed and ashamed to tell of my crime and sin to a wise man, and I didn’t perform any rectification.”

It goes without saying that he still could’ve done teshuvah on his own, just speaking of his regret and humiliation to Hashem.

Nonetheless, implication here is that some kind of teshuvah still could have been effective, even for such a sin.

Ephraim: A Shockingly Depraved Sinner Even For Our Time

Another dead spirit named Ephraim, who engaged in a mind-boggling cruel and degenerate behavior during his lifetime, ended up being murdered in Kfar Akuba, a place where he’d committed a particularly depraved sin.

He described his death to Rav Fetiyah, who wrote the following:

A few years later, a quarrel occurred between [Ephraim] and some Yishmaelite donkey drivers.

And when he was transporting some merchandise to Kfar Akuba, these same Yishmaelites ganged up on him and killed him.

And they moved his body outside the village and buried him there and didn’t leave any sign of his burial place.

And they left his donkeys and their load abandoned on the road and didn’t take even one thing from those.

Finally, his brother Shaul went and took the abandoned items and didn’t return anything to the owners. And he didn’t search for his body.

And [Shaul] also took all the money and everything that [Ephraim] had in his home, and [Shaul] didn’t pay his creditors a thing.

And [Shaul] also performed nothing for the gratification of his soul according to the way we are accustomed to do for the dead during the first 12 months.

And because [Ephraim] suffered greatly over this, therefore it caused [Shaul] many obstacles and he lost all his fortune until finally he passed on in a bad way and a very difficult illness.

"And know, that in the place I am buried, there are also other Jews buried there, too. And it has been 17 years since I was killed."

I asked the spirit whether he made teshuvah in the moment he was killed.

He said to me that because he was so panic-stricken, it didn’t occur to him to do teshuvah, and especially since he was an am haaretz, he didn’t even feel the apprehension [that usually ignites a person] to do teshuvah.

He also never put on tzitzit or tefillin all his days, except for 3 times and he didn’t daven except for Yom Kippur.

It’s absolutely shocking to me, especially in light of the truly awful things Ephraim did, that just doing split-second teshuvah in his mind at his moment of death would’ve eased things so much.

Ephraim’s story is much more convoluted than what appears here because prior to his lifetime as Ephraim, he also went through several incarnations in which he heaped sin upon sin, and this most recent and putrid lifetime was just one in a long-lasting pattern of depravity.

Yet Rav Fetiyah still wanted to know if he’d even managed one moment of mental teshuvah.

Repenting, feeling regret, and expressing this to God is really that powerful.

A Severe Sinner with a Happy Ending: The Power of Teshuvah

On the more positive side, Rav Fetiyah describes how doing teshuvah — even minimal partial teshuvah — is able to prevent centuries of post-death torments.

And this I learned from an episode that arrived to me in the year 5683/1922, when one elderly man came to me and said to me that he came upon his daughter-in-law during the life of his son and he cannot undergo fasts and penitential purifications (such as donning a sack and sleeping on ashes and the like of which are all called sigufim/penitential purifications).

I said to him, “Can you not fast at least one day and one night like Yom Kippur?”

And he said yes.

I said to him, “Go and immerse seven immersions before the final meal (because seven immersions are favorable to purify the soul from the tzaraat [spiritual leprosy] within it, as is written about Elisha the Prophet to Naaman the army official, king of Aram; Kings II: 5, 10) and accept upon yourself a fast of 24 hours for the mentioned sin like Yom Kippur (except that you are permitted to perform any kind of malachah). And on the day of the fast, come to me with redemption money equal to 325 fasts and I will perform a rectification for you."

And he did just so.

Rav Fetiyah then describes the whole process of the man confessing and of the transfer of the redemption money, which Rav Fetiyah received for tzedakah and the prayer that Rav Fetiyah recited at that time for this elderly man.

And because I perceived that this elderly man was a poor man and borrowed the above money from others, therefore I returned to him all the above money as a donation of charity and I did not take from it except 2 pennies alone.

And behold, two years later, this same elderly man passed away and I saw him in a dream that he is standing before the Beit Din/Heavenly Tribunal.

And they gazed at him and they saw that he was a baal teshuvah, except that he only did teshuvah on adultery with a married woman, but not on the prohibition [against doing so with] one’s daughter-in-law.

And they didn’t speak with him a word regarding that prohibition.

And without speaking or words himself, he entered one room on the side of the court of the Beit Din.

And this room was dark and gloomy, and there wasn’t even a mat to sit on.

And he enters there and sits on his knees in the corner of this room.

And the Beit Din raised their eyes upwards and immediately, 3 angels descended from the heavens above the Beit Din.

And these same angels are called Great Healers Who are Experts in the Wisdom of Surgery.

And they entered the room with the elderly man and closed the door.

And they performed surgery on his organ and removed from there the “rust” and the blemish that had been done to the organ [because of his sin].

And they healed him completely and went out.

I saw until here.

And from this, a person should know the precious beauty of teshuvah!

How it is so great that it saved this same elderly man from several hundreds of years that he should have been sentenced to Kaf Hakelah!

And how many years he should have undergone incarnations as inanimate objects, plants, animals, and people.

And after he would undergo incarnations as inanimate objects, plants, animals, and people, he would enter Gehinnom because the sentence of Gehinnom comes after incarnations as inanimate objects, plants, animals, and people as is written in Shaar Hagilgulim, Introduction 22, page 22 72, and as is copied in his words nearby.

And therefore, our Sages said (Avot 4:17): “How beautiful is one hour of teshuvah and good deeds in This World than all life in the World to Come.”

Incredibly, the elderly man didn't even need to really donate the money. Rav Fetiyah immediately gave it back to him.

So what did he do?

He fasted for 24 hours and said a truly remorseful Vidui/Confession, and Rav Fetiyah recited a fervent "Yehi Ratzon" over him.

And he didn't even do full teshuvah! His dastardly act was a two-sin transgression, of which he did teshuvah for only one.

It's really, really astounding.

Notably, there are different opinions on fasting (Rebbe Nachman states that hitbodedut—talking directly to God in your own words—is even more powerful and effective than fasting), but to superficially summarize Rav Fetiyah’s recommendations:

fasting (even just once and even just from sunrise to sunset)
giving tzedakah (with the intent of atonement)
sincere confession to Hashem accompanied by sincere regret

These are very, very powerful in atoning for even particularly ugly sins.

I also can't help wondering about the power of Tikkun Haklali to assist in this.

Rebbe Nachman's designation of 10 specific Psalms (16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150) are known as the Tikkun Haklali, which is usually translated as "The General Remedy."

But "tikkun" also means rectification, fixing, repair.

Judging by what has been said about the power and deeper meanings of this particular collection of Psalms, it seems like it would be of profound benefit to whoever recites them with as much feeling as possible.

It goes without saying that if at all possible, you should apologize and make amends to anyone you’ve hurt.

It’s very unlikely you’ve done anything anywhere near as corrupt and strange as this elderly man.

(And remember, this was in a time and place where society was more moral and more connected to Torah law. Yet he still transgressed in such a bizarre and disgusting way…)

Please reflect on what this man’s judgement should have been and what great relief happened instead. And he hadn't even done full teshuvah!

This is wonderful hope for each and every one one of us.

May we all succeed in doing complete teshuvah from love.

Go on to Part II
Or skip to Part III

Note: Many people like to extract the above examples to show how bad the Jewish community was in the olden days when "everyone was Orthodox" or something like that.

They use it to justify their image of themselves & their modern Jewish community as "an upright Jew" or "perfectly acceptable Jew" (regardless of how lax they are with actual Jewish Law).

Yet it's clear the above examples represent the exception & not the rule.

In the entire book, such examples represent a small handful of the vast Jewish community Rav Fetiyah served in both Iraq & Eretz Yisrael.

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Growing with My Boys: How Parenting Transforms You

19/6/2017

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In the Beginning: Slugs 'n' Snails 'n' Puppy Dog Tails

When I was a little girl, I found little boys intimidating.

Boys tended to be louder, rowdier, less sensitive, and sometimes even cruel.

And they often thought that mean teasing and cruelty was funny. Not all of them, of course.

But there did seem to be this strain of reveling in dominance, particularly against those who couldn't fight back—sometimes it was passive aggression and sometimes it was aggressive aggression.

Being in public school, sports were coed, which was pointless. They boys couldn’t play as heartily as they needed and many of the girls couldn’t be the teammates or opposition that they boys needed (although some girls did thrive on this).

I remember one of the more aggressive boys in sixth grade power-kicking a soccer ball straight into my face by accident. To his credit, he came over to me later in class and stammered an apology. I hadn’t thought he would feel so bad, and it was touching to see that he really hadn’t meant to do it. But I also remember being yelled at by frustrated strong and scary boys who couldn’t understand why I wasn’t throwing myself into the game like they were.

Boys also did things like put a ladybug onto a flashlight bulb, close the lens and then turn on the bulb, torturing the poor ladybug to death—and the boys enjoyed this. Another time, I listened to two boys chuckling about tossing a pet gerbil between each other from pillow to pillow and laughing when the gerbil accidentally flew out the second-story window after a badly aimed toss.

But in high school, things were different. Boys had matured somewhat, and could restrain themselves, and you could be friends. And you were no longer pitted against them in Physical Education class because there was no longer an obligatory PE class. Also, guy is humor is really, really funny. The way guys tell stories and yeshivah Purim shpiels, etc…they’re very funny.

And while due to my nature even as a secular girl, I tended to have female friends almost exclusively, though there were still guy friends too (like Linus, whom I wrote about in The Startling Impact of Kol Ishah.)

So I didn’t have an issue with guys nor with men. I just thought that little boys (though not all of them) were kind of scary and sadistic.

Little Boys, Israeli style

Then I came to Eretz Yisrael and here, kids are out and about a lot more because Israeli streets are generally safer for kids, plus there are a lot more kids. (Even secular Israelis tend to have more kids than their secular counterparts outside of Israel.)

Particularly in religious neighborhoods on Shabbat when kids are out in droves, I ended up faced with those aggressive, bold, pushing-the-boundaries little boys again. Not all of them, but gosh. There are some who are real little gremlins.

And again, they were kind of scary. There are these types that don’t have personal limits and they revel in seeing how much bad stuff they can get away with.

In the Trenches with Little Boys

Anyway, I got married and before I even got pregnant, I thought maybe I should daven to have girls first. I knew almost nothing about taking care of babies and very little about motherhood in general, but I’d been a girl and and I liked girls, so why not start off with girls first?

But another part of me said that Hashem knew best. What if the very best thing for me was to have a boy first? Would I really want to miss out on the very best thing for me just because of my anxieties? So I decided not to daven for gender.

And I had a boy!
And I fell head-over-heels in love with him at first sight. I thought he was absolutely the greatest thing that had ever happened to me (and truly, he was) and why hadn’t I gotten married and had a baby much earlier? He was so fabulous.

He was also born with this fun-loving innately masculine Alpha male personality (an Eight with a Seven wing, for anyone familiar with the Enneagram). You know, the type that can grow up to be a Green Beret or some other Rambo type? Yeah, that. His way of thinking and behaving is just totally masculine and I mean that in a scientific biological sense, not a stereotypical sense.

So he was not only very different than me in general, but totally different than I was as a toddler and preschooler, and so on. And as much as I adored him, he was also a big challenge.

And chinuch people and chinuch classes weren’t very helpful about this personality type.
But other mothers and my husband (who himself had been an active and fun-loving child, though not as daring and as much of a natural leader as his son proved to be) were able to tell me that a lot of his behavior was very normal for boys, and this endowed me with a more balanced and positive perspective (both toward him and myself as a mother) than I would have had otherwise.

Then I had another boy. And then another. And so on.

And I quickly realized that I really need to learn how to deal with Boy World in the best and healthiest manner possible. And while some fellow mothers provided a lot of chizuk and healthy perspective, some did just the opposite. Unfortunately, some women have ugly feminist views that are totally chauvinistic. They think that male chauvinism is evil, but female chauvinism is the emesdikker emes. And even in casual conversation, they denigrate men for no real reason and when talking about their own sons, they also denigrated them and considered them innately inferior—just because of their gender.

If you’ve ever looked at your kid for even a moment and thought about their innate potential, “Meh”— or even “Ugh”—then you’ll know that is a horribly depressing mindset. You cannot possibly raise a child in this mindset. It’s so miserable. So those chauvinistic snotty attitudes repulsed me because of that.

Secondly, this was exactly what feminists raged at society for doing (although certainly not all parents favored their boys pre-feminism. But the ones that did caused a lot of damage.) So why was it the Height of Evil to do it to girls, but perfectly acceptable to do it to boys?

It just all seemed wrong, wrong, wrong, and I avoided these types.

But the good thing that came out of it was that I saw that boys needed appreciation and advocacy too. I mean, we are talking about innocent children with precious potential, regardless of gender.

Boy World is Also Full of Sugar 'n' Spice 'n' Everything Nice

So it’s hard to say exactly how I changed and all the steps along the way because a lot of it was so subtle. I think the main thing was that I really loved my kids and I wanted to be a good mother, and you can only be a good parent if you see your child’s potential positively (even if the present behavior is sometimes monstrous). And just like there are innately feminine traits that are positive, there are innately masculine traits that are positive.

And also, there are two sides to any coin. Even a trait generally considered negative (like aggression and territoriality) can be used a positive and beneficial way.

Then I started noticing that a lot of problems in society are because of feminine traits being used negatively and masculine traits not being used at all.

There needs to be a balance of feminine and masculine traits, and both need to be expressed in a positive manner.

But the point is that now, I really like and appreciate little boys. And I’m not scared of them anymore. (Well, not usually…) And at this stage, I’ve liked them for years. And I like my own boys and I like their friends. And because of my own boys, I’ve learned how to relate to and deal well with other little boys. But the main thing is…I like them!

And I think that this is one of the very precious benefits of being a parent:
You learn to like and appreciate people that you never would have otherwise.

The truth is that when you feel repulsed by a group or trait, it’s because of fear or overfocusing on the negative aspects of that group or trait.

And ultimately, that fear or negativity stunts you and your own spiritual development.

But our children can help us overcome our own negative bias if we let them.

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Inching One Step Beyond Your Religious Comfort Zone

18/6/2017

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In a well-known story printed in a book of Rabbi Avigdor Miller’s lectures, the rabbi mentions a man who left his young son in a room alone with Chanukah candles.

Tragically, something happened and the room went up in flames, taking the young boy’s life.

During the shiva, the heartbroken father tearfully declared his acceptance of God’s Will and his beloved son’s untimely death. Many people were moved by the father’s unwavering faith despite the harsh blow.

However, while Rabbi Miller praised the father’s faith and acceptance, he also said that the father should not have left his young son alone with the candles.

In other words, a cheshbon hanefesh (self-accounting) was missing.

What If You Pushed Just 1 More Baby-Step beyond Your Comfort Zone?

An acquaintance recently told of a terrible medical problem she underwent.

She detailed with great honesty the process she undertook of going from questioning Hashem while feeling frightened and upset to wholehearted acceptance of the medical decree as “a love letter from God.”

It was very inspiring and gave me a lot of chizuk and gratitude.

At the same time, I do know this person.

And while there is a lot to like and appreciate about her, she also has stuff she needs to work on. (Just like me and just like everybody else.)

While I admired her use of the painful challenge to successfully strengthen her emuna (and while I also don’t delude myself—I don’t see myself as handling such a challenge better than she), I couldn’t help noticing that she skipped the step of cheshbon hanefesh in her earnest desire to handle her situation with emunah.

Yes, she briefly touched on it by noting that problems in various body parts hint at what needs to be worked on.

(For example, problems in one’s mouth hint at sins of speech.)

But her body part didn’t have an obvious correlation.

(And to be fair, it’s much harder to figure out hints coming from inner organs, such as the appendix, bladder, kidneys, gallbladder, and so on.)

Yet even with hard-to-figure organs, the following can help:

Sefer Charedim (among other books) lists different body parts and their correlating mitzvot
Garden of Healing (based on the above) lists different body parts/organs and their correlating issues
A mekubal could be asked what needs to be worked on
One could directly ask God during a session of personal prayer
Chinese medicine details how different emotions and middot with different organs. (For a frum take on this which middot and emotions go with which organ and how to heal it all with God’s Help, please see How to Talk to God and Fix Your Health.)

In fact, the Me'am Lo'ez on Parshat Beresheit 1:27 (page 11) states the following:

The right kidney gives good advice to a person's mind.
The left kidney gives bad advice.
The spleen produces black bile & causes a person to be happy; make him laugh.

Anyway, I wondered whether she really had needed all the medical intervention, especially since the medical intervention was performed incorrectly, painfully, and uselessly at first.

What if she’d gone a step further than faithful acceptance (which certainly was a form of self-transformation) and actually went to work on fixing another trait that needs polishing?

It’s impossible to know for sure in the above circumstances.

Yet we do know that we are here to do teshuvah, to rectify ourselves, and to become better people.

And there are certainly stories of ill people doing teshuvah whose teshuvah reversed the process.

Yes, strengthening emuna is definitely doing teshuvah.

Intensifying one’s gratitude is definitely self-improvement.

In the above example, my acquaintance ended up with a clean bill of health after all those procedures—procedures which themselves were life-threatening, in addition to her life-threatening illness.

Baruch Hashem, while she was a wonderful person before, she is an even better person from it all and she is totally healthy, may she live in good health until 120.

Also, sometimes a decree is a decree. The illness continues, but at least the teshuvah saves from Gehinnom.

But I look at my own flawed messy self…and I see that strengthening my emuna and accepting Hashem’s Will with joy isn’t enough.

Measure for Measure: An "Ouch!" for an "Ouch!"

I’ll give you an example:

One day, I was pushing a baby carriage home through a charedi area on a hot day.

On the way, I noticed a young woman sporting bushy bleached hair with a thick black stripe through it while wearing a micro-miniskirt waiting for a bus.

There was something in her sullen demeanor that made me want to reach out to her.

Something in me wanted to reassure her that she was still likeable and acceptable, even though she was looking rebellious and unacceptable.

I decided I would smile and say hi as I passed by her.

The problem is, I’m an introvert at heart and doing these kinds of things call for a certain gutsiness that I can’t always muster.

In short, my good intentions stumbled along the way, and my greeting didn’t come out audibly enough and I’m not sure she saw my smile. (Or if she did see it, if she interpreted it correctly…maybe it came off as a smirk?)

Immediately, I felt this unbearable stinging sensation in my leg.

I couldn’t take care of it on the street and home was over a block away. I had no choice but to continue walking even though every step brought another sting.

Once upon a time, I would’ve just felt self-pitying and resentful about this.

But at this point, I knew it was from Hashem and it was for my good. So gritting my teeth, I said, “Thank You for this stinging sensation!”

Was that progress? Yes.

Could have I just been content with that? Yes.

Is it correct to be content with that? Well…no—not to my thinking, whatever that's worth.

So I did a quick search of myself and it didn’t take long to make the connection between the stinging sensation and my "stingingly" clumsy interaction with the girl.

I realized my good intentions likely came off badly. And though she didn’t show it, it probably stung.

So now I was stinging.

I deliberated whether to go back. I wasn’t sure whether I could physically manage to walk back to her and then walk back home again.

I wasn’t sure whether apologizing might make it worse. (i.e., “Hi! Maybe you thought I was smirking at or insulting you, but really, I was trying to be nice!” Weird…)

Furthermore, she didn’t look vulnerable, she looked hostile and sullen.

So I decided to happily accept this as atonement for my unintentional blunder and to ask Hashem to somehow make the girl realize that the strange lady who passed her by wasn’t insulting, but just socially awkward.

Is that progress compared to how I used to be? Yes.

Is it enough? Well…not really.

So I dug a bit deeper into my nefesh, and this is what I come up with:

1) Next time someone interacts with me in a way I find offensive, I could ask myself whether the person is innocent and actually means well, but is merely expressing herself in a clumsy or awkward manner, as I obviously sometimes do myself.

2) Despite what all the outreach enthusiasts preach, sometimes reaching out is the wrong thing to do. Compassion can warp into condescending if it’s not done just right. Sometimes, people prefer to be unnoticed and just acting normal around them is actually the kindest and most compassionate thing to do.

3) There is a time to act & a time to hold back.

4) Ask Hashem before deciding on my own how to respond.

And no, all the self-introspection didn’t make the stinging sensation go away until I got home to fix it.

That was the atonement for unintentionally “stinging” another person.

Hopefully, it’s off my Heavenly slate.

Is that enough?

Well, I don’t know.

But I reached my limits on what I could think to do and here it is.

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The Secret Saga of a Righteous Convert as Told by a True Tzaddik

14/6/2017

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Even though I’m not Breslov, I ended up getting a 2-volume set of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Bender’s lectures called Words of Faith (Diburei Emunah), which was translated from a Hebrew translation of Rav Bender’s original Yiddish.

He offers a lot of passionate and thought-provoking advice accompanied by many fascinating true stories, both of his own life and the lives of other jaw-droppingly special Jews.

I highly recommend acquiring this set to reread again and again.

To keep as close to the original tone as possible, the compilers obviously chose as literal a translation as possible, choosing strict accuracy over style and at times, incorporating the original Yiddish into the text.

Yet the lectures (some of which are only a paragraph or two) make for some of the most compelling reading and provide tremendous mussar and inspiration.

There is no dry sermonizing here.

Rav Bender’s words exemplify the passion of Torah Judaism.

His heart was not only awake but on fire for Hashem.

Rav Bender was a complete tzaddik and it’s quite an experience to read his actual thoughts, his viewpoints, and many stories he heard and experiences he underwent...all described directly from him.

For example, if I start enthusing about another Jew’s greatness and self-sacrifice, it’s not that big a deal because who the heck am I? Because I am very far from spiritual perfection, I’m easily awed by any example of tzidkut.

This is one of the unspoken issues with biographies of great people. Those of us who are regular people can’t really explain or portray the tzaddik or tzaddikah properly because we lack the perspective that spiritual greatness would give us.

Having said that, there are extremely worthwhile biographies of great people. Some of the best biographers are Sara Yoheved Rigler, Yonason Rosenblum, and Yisroel Besser.

But when at all possible, it’s best to hear from the great person him- or herself AND descriptions of spiritually great people by other spiritually great people.

And Words of Faith does both.

Self-Sacrifice from an Entire Village of Righteous Converts

At the beginning of the first volume, we meet several righteous converts. Here's one of the first (Words of Faith, Vol. 1, pgs. 14-16) told in Rav Bender's own words:

In our time, there was a certain village called Sinitsa near the city of Rostov—all of its inhabitants converted. Their conversion was in Uman because others were all afraid to convert them.

But we worked on the matter and converted them.

This was at a time when Communism had taken hold, in addition to the standard anti-Jewish sentiments of the local Christians.

These converts were particularly strong men—tall, powerful, and big-boned.

They all came together for Rosh Hashanah. They had their own table in the Kloiz [big synagogue]. Their wives filled the women’s section. They stood the whole time in prayer.

They just cried and cried and let tears flow like water because they did not know how to recite one letter of the prayer.

Of course, I would also describe these people with great awe and admiration. But this is a great tzaddik doing so. He’s seeing them with exalted spiritual vision.

Can you feel the difference between his expressing of admiration and that of a regular person?

Then he goes on to describe a Sinitsa convert who was learned:

I knew him well. He was from those who prayed in the Beis Hamidrash in Uman.

One day, they sent him to Siberia, thousands of kilometers deep into a thick dreadful forest!

He then describes the enormous, stout centuries-old trees that grew there in watery areas, such as rivers and “endlessly deep marshes.”

They sent millions of people there. The set work for a group of three…that is, to chop down a gigantic tree and cut it into small pieces of wood that are ready to send.

Not only once, when a tree shook and fell, it buried many people alive underneath it.

But this matter did not disturb the evil government, may their names be erased.

Rav Bender doesn’t mince words.

He wasn’t there, but his empathy is so profound that he speaks as if he himself saw these trees and the terrible suffering of the people who slaved there.

He doesn’t forget to mention that “millions” of people were sent there. This obviously includes people who aren’t Jewish, whose suffering and deaths clearly pained him too, judging by the tzaar he obviously experiences in the recalling.

He continues:

Some government officials knew that our convert was a very smart person.

“Our” convert. Is that how we normally describe people who joined the Jewish community?

Rabbi Bender obviously cherishes this man as a brother with great fondness and warmth. This convert is not “other” but “ours.”

And the truth is that, coming from a regular person, describing one of your newer fellow Jews as "our" convert might even feel condescending or patronizing for that convert. It could actually be an icky experience.

But coming from a tzaddik, it's totally different.

Then Rabbi Bender describes how the government officials offered this learned man a cozy position teaching indoors, protected from the harsh labor and horrific cold.

The downside? He would have to work on Shabbat:

He did not acquiesce to this very enticing proposition.

He answered them in strong refusal.

With holy brazenness, he said to them, "The whole reason I left my pleasant life and my birthplace to become Jewish was because of the holy Shabbos. How could you possibly think to convince me to work on the Holy Shabbos?"

Despite the fact that a tzaddik like Rav Bender would also likely refuse the proposition, he still acknowledges that it the option is "enticing." He has no problem acknowledging the reality of the whole situation.

Also...do you ever describe people as behaving with “holy brazenness”?

But let’s say I did. It just wouldn’t sound the same. But when a true tzaddik labels something as “holy brazenness,” then that’s a whole other ballgame.

His brazenness and refusal to cooperate aroused their wrath.

From then on, they related to him very strictly and caused him extra problems. They forced him to perform body-breaking labor steeped in a sinking canoe amid burning frost that broke the bones.

Despite his tremendous physical power, he could not bear this awesome burden.

Rav Bender then describes how this holy man grew continuously weaker, turning white and transforming “from a he-man to a shadow of a human being.”

The man’s wife came to visit him in the forest and fainted upon seeing his emaciated appearance. Out of concern for him, she begged him to acquiesce, citing pikuach nefesh as a halachically legitimate reason to violate Shabbat.

But Rav Bender describes the man's response:

“It doesn’t make any difference to me if it is permissible. I became Jewish for the sake of the holy Shabbos. I am prepared to give myself up and die for the sake of the holy Shabbos!”

He answered without hesitation and did not continue to speak to her.

Indeed, he passed away there in that awful thick forest for the sake of His Blessed Holy Name.

Happy is he!

Seen through the eyes of This World, the nameless convert’s story has a tragic ending.

No miracle came to save this incredible man.

He just died unnamed with his grave and specific death unknown.

It's chilling and depressing as perceived through the physical world.

And Rav Bender certainly empathizes with the man’s suffering.

But Rav Bender is also very aware of the Heavenly reward this convert ended up receiving and continues to receive: “Happy is he!”

Hashem and all of Heaven know all about this holy man and that's all that really matters.

If I ended the story with those words, it would just sound weird. But from a tzaddik, those final words have a different ring to them.

Words of Faith contains many stories like the above. And I can’t help wondering whether the mind-boggling mesirut nefesh these Jews had for Hashem’s mitzvot is what protected Russian Jewry from the worst of the Shoah.

Yes, Russian Jewry certainly suffered in labor camps during that time, but the Nazis and their death camps never made it there.

It’s these uncelebrated acts by unknown yet holy Jews that can be the most powerful.

*Note: In transcribing the text, I cleaned up the translation a tiny bit by adding punctuation and syntax.

Siberian forest in the winter

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Dealing with Tammuz

Dealing with Av

The Secret to Living a Life of Torah: Learn to Embrace Paradox

The Nice Jewish Girl and the Horrible Violent Ogre

Judge Favorably…But Not Foolishly

Love from Afar: AVOID Bad Neighbors, Scoffers, and Sinners

Center God Firmly in the Picture…Do NOT Leave Him Out!

Happily Recognize the Secret Pride Lurking behind the Well-Intentioned Appearance of Humility

So What Do You Do Now?

Beings and Events beyond Our 3-Dimensional World

Heavenly Penalties: Not Petty Revenge or Punishment, But Beneficial Cleansing

Try to Feel Happy about Feeling Bad

The Saga of a Suffering Teenage Jewess

Rav Yehuda Fetiyah's Humble Motivation for Helping Such Awful Souls

The Profound Love & Compassion Within

What's Worse than Hell?

Yonah: A One-Time Sinner with Major Repercussions

Ephraim: A Shockingly Depraved Sinner Even For Our Time

A Severe Sinner with a Happy Ending: The Power of Teshuvah

In the Beginning: Slugs 'n' Snails 'n' Puppy Dog Tails

Little Boys, Israeli style

In the Trenches with Little Boys

Boy World is Also Full of Sugar 'n' Spice 'n' Everything Nice

What If You Pushed Just 1 More Baby-Step beyond Your Comfort Zone?

Measure for Measure: An "Ouch!" for an "Ouch!"

Self-Sacrifice from an Entire Village of Righteous Converts

Myrtle Rising

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