Category: Teshuvah

Shabbat: The Mind-Transforming Gold Mine

28/2/2019

One of the most important things to remember about Shabbat is that it is an undeserved gift of unfathomable worth.

The angels actually protested to Hashem against giving us Shabbat.

They said we wouldn't appreciate it properly.

And for the majority of our people today, the angels have unfortunately been proven right.

But there is still the priceless minority who DO appreciate Shabbat — and want to appreciate it even more!

How to REALLY Appreciate Shabbat

There is a lot of work entailed for Shabbat. Some of it is grunge work. If you can afford it, you can pay someone else to do it for you.

But if you can't?

In Parshat Vayakhel - Building the Shabbos Home, Rav Avigdor Miller emphasizes that it's similar to a diamond merchant who is seen carefully sweeping the dust off the floor under his work table.

Why is he doing such menial work and doing so with such care?

"This is diamond dust!" says the sweeping diamond merchant. “And therefore it’s worth my while to sit on my knees and collect dust that comes from diamonds.”

Here's one of the amazing (yet imperceptible to most people) events that occurs on Shabbat:

When we stand up in Shemoneh Esrei and in Kiddush and say [or hear someone else say], "Vayechulu haShamayim v'ha'aretz v'chol tzeva'am — The heavens and the earth and all their hosts were finished at the end of six days,” to our surprise it’s such an important declaration that the Gemara (Shabbos 119b) says: "B'sha'ah sheh omer 'Vayichulu' — “At that time when a person says Vayichulu, shnei malachei hasharet hamelavin lo l'adam, so two angels come — manichin yadeihem al rosho, and they put their hands on this man’s head. V'omrim lo, and they say to him, V'sar avonecha v'chotecha yechupar, Your iniquity will depart and your sins will be forgiven.”

What Came Before "Beresheit"?

We hear about the concept of Beresheit—In the beginning—so much, that we don't think more deeply about the real meaning of it.

"The Universe was created ex nihilo!"

"There was absolutely nothing before Hashem created the Universe!"

How many times have you heard all that?

Yet was does that really mean?

Rav Avigdor Miller explains:

Now this is a startling idea that has no equal; here the Torah tells us a statement which is so revolutionary that it has no equal in all the statements and writings since the beginning of time.

And never again will another statement be made that has the same impact.

And that is that Hashem created from nothing.

***

But when you say Vayichulu, you’re declaring that there were no building blocks in the beginning, that the world was created out of nothing. Before Bereishis, nothing existed. There was no Big Bang, and there was no Little Bang. There were no black holes and no explosions of stars.

There was nothing to explode. There was zero.

Nothing at all existed except for the ruach Elokim, the spirit of Hashem which pervaded all
space — I don’t want to say space because there was no space yet — but Hashem pervaded All.

There was only Hashem and nothing else.

Can You Really Imagine "Nothing"?

The human mind can't really imagine "nothing."

When completely blind people are asked, "What do you see? Do you see darkness? Black?"

"No," they answer. "I see nothing. Not even black."

That's interesting because seeing people often describe blind people as living in darkness, but the truth is, they don't because they don't perceive even darkness.

To a sighted person, blind people live in visual darkness. But that's not how a blind-from-birth person perceives it. They simply do not see.

So could a blind person imagine "nothing"?

Visually, perhaps.

But "nothing" includes an absences of sound, scent, and everything else.

We just cannot imagine.

This week's dvar Torah is bursting with all sorts of necessary and luscious insights:

how to REALLY keep Shabbat
Hashem's "Imagination" & how it works
how the science of matter has changed
how dvar Hashem can be both energy & material
how anger, anxiety, and excitement can harm one's physical eyes
the effect of the weekday on one's mental & spiritual eyesight and how Shabbat heals this effect
why saying Vayichulu last Shabbat can make the coming erev Shabbat more peaceful
how Vayichulu is like a mini-Yom Kippur every week
why being a frum cow is better than being a wicked cow, but how to avoid being a frum cow anyway

Parshat Vayakhel - Building the Shabbos Home

Enjoy!

(All quotes used with permission from Toras Avigdor.)

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If Someone is Eating a Treif Salami, Should He Make a Bracha?

21/2/2019

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I subscribe to an e-newsletter that sends out transcribed Q&As from Rav Avigdor Miller's ztz"l lectures.

This week featured a particularly interesting question that I believe many people wonder about.

Rav Miller's answer is equally interesting (even shocking at times) and inspiring.

GREAT Torah hashkafah and guidance.

Here it is:

Tape #463: Still Not Observant...and the Paradox Within

This email is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210

QUESTION:

On the way into orthodoxy, if somebody is eating non-kosher salami, should he make a bracha?

I'll paraphrase the question, we'll forget about the salami. We have many people today who are still not observant, but they are definitely on the way in.

Should we consider their behavior as non-consequent, which means that they are contradicting themselves, that they are committing a paradox?

Or shall we say that despite the fact of their non-observance, these people still are on the way to success, and they should be encouraged?

ANSWER [from Rav Miller]:

I recall a boy who worked on Shabbos.

This boy never rode the train, he always walked all the way across town to his job, and he walked back.

Now the question is, did it make any sense? In his place where he worked he did all lamed tes melachos, he did every kind of work, and still he refused to ride?

That man is doing a tremendous thing, the man is leaving one area where he is protesting his love for the Shabbos, and anybody who is going to ridicule him is demolishing something that's precious.

There used to be Jews who worked on Shabbos, but didn't smoke on Shabbos. There were a lot of Jews like that; now don't ridicule them. If you use that as a leverage, if you don't smoke on Shabbos, then you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that either, that's good, but don't tell them what good is it not to smoke on Shabbos.

Therefore there are lots of Jews today who are coming back, and you must be patient with them, because some of them will turn out to be the best idealists, and I'll tell you a little anecdote:

Reb Yisroel Salanter zichrono livrocho, who lived a long time ago, a hundred years ago, he visited the German town of Memel; it's right near Lithuania.

In Memel all the stores were open on Shabbos. So when he went there for a Shabbos, he asked if there were any Lithuanian Jews present.

They said yes, some Lithuanian Jews are visiting there for business, so he didn't say anything.

He waited for another Shabbos when no Lithuanian Jews were present, and then he got up and made a speech, and listen to what this great man said:

To keep your stores open on Shabbos, that's something that you cannot help yourself. But is it necessary to go to the port and to take the merchandise from the ships that are brought in for you? (Memel was a port city) That you could do on Monday!

That was his speech. It had an effect. Then he waited for another Shabbos, he didn't want any Lithuanian Jews to be present, because the Lithuanian Jews all kept Shabbos then, a hundred years ago, he didn't want them to hear.

The next Shabbos when no Lithuanian Jews were present he said:

If you keep your stores open on Shabbos that's your parnosso, but do you have to write? Can't you get away without writing on Shabbos?

And he spoke about the importance of not writing, and he gained his point.

The end was, a number of German Jewish families in Memel became not only shomrei Shabbos eventually, but they became Torah aristocrats, and that's the way we have to deal with people.

When a man comes into the Shul and he doesn't observe much, don't shame him; you have to treat him delicately, because you can never know.

And I want to tell you something, that these people many times have more idealism than people who are in it all their lives.

People who are in it all their lives, many times are on the way out, and this man is on his way in.

It's the truth.

And even those who don't think that they are on the way out, they're hankering to be out, they are prisoners of the in, and you see it in their children.

Therefore, this question is a serious question, an important question, should a man make a blessing over a piece of treifa salami?

So in practice you don't make any blessing, but I'll tell you what he should do, he should say words equivalent to a blessing in English.

He should express his gratitude to the Almighty who has given him food, and eventually that man will say birchas hamazon over a kosher meal, I guarantee you.

Good Shabbos To All

Amazing.

With thanks to A Moment with Rav Avigdor Miller Z"L for generously permitting me to use their material.

You can also sign up for these enlightening once-a-week newsletters here:
http://rmillerqa.com/

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Who WASN'T on the Bus - and Why

13/2/2019

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While I don't know the whole spiritual message behind the bus-overturn tragedy that happened on the Modiin-Jerusalem 443 route, I do want to point out something else.

While we need to pray for and assist the survivors and mourn those who died, it's also important to realize something revealed by my son:

Many people meant to be on that bus ended up missing it.

And it wasn't their fault.

Two boys who learn in my son's yeshivah intended to take that bus. Familiar with that bus's timetable, they stopped in at a nearby grocery store to pick up some nosh when the bus suddenly sped by.

In fact, several other potential passengers were in that same store and also shocked that the bus came early and didn't stop.

(In routes between cities, buses don't come as often and a missed bus is a huge inconvenience to the potential passengers -- something the drivers are aware of, making them more likely to wait for a person running after them and yelling, "Wait!")

This missed bus was their salvation, as they found out later.

It reminds me of similar incident that happened around the time of suicide-bombings on the buses in Tel Aviv & Yerushalayim.

An American girl was attending Tel Aviv University's one-year program for English-speakers.

When the crowded bus pulled up at the stop where she waited, she tried to get on, but the driver started yelling at her, "There's no room! Get off! Wait for the next bus!"

Startled, she protested that there was room as she was already inside the bus.

But the driver kept yelling at her and with a final shout of "There's no place for you here!", he shoved her off the bus.

Living in Eretz Yisrael for 25 years, I've never seen a bus driver do that.

Then the bus continued along its route and...

...exploded.

That's why, indeed, there was no place for her on the bus.

It wasn't her time yet and it wasn't her way to go either.

(BTW, she didn't leave her dorm for a month after that.)

So while we need to remember & be sensitive to the pain of the victims of this tragedy and the pain of their families, and to help them and daven for them any way we can, we should also remember that nothing is truly an accident.

And we should ask Hashem what message He wants us to understand from this.

Hopefully, we won't need to suffer anymore tragedies and the Geula will come already, b'ezrat Hashem.

Please see Neshama's blog for a list of names for davening:
Route 443 Accident Victims Need Your Prayers

Also, Hamodia included these names:
Chemdatia Ditza bat Rivka
Tamar bat Rivka
Moshe ben Chana Hendel

May everyone have a refuah shlaima of the nefesh & guf b'toch sha'ar cholei Yisrael.

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Why Fear of God is Still Important (and Beneficial!) in Our Generation

5/2/2019

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In our times, yirat Shamayim — fear of Heaven — has become underrated and underappreciated.

In some cases, it's even despised.

True, great tzaddikim have been saying for generations that our generations cannot handle the pious fear expected of our ancestors.

But that doesn’t mean that yirah — yirat Shamayim and yirat Hashem and yirat ha'onesh (fear of Heavenly punishment) — should be ignored completely.

There is way too much emphasis throughout Tanach & Chazal to dismiss the necessity of yirah.

Particularly if you read or hear about those who’ve suffered in the Afterlife, whether in Rav Yehudah Petiyah’s stories in Minchat Yehudah or Rabbi Alon Anava’s near-death experience or anything else — and how even a moment of sincere regret could have saved them so much suffering — we need to realize that there is indeed a Judge and Judgement.

Personally, there have been times when I refrained from doing or saying something only because the works of tzaddikim repeatedly emphasized the fact that I’ll eventually need to face the consequences of my negative actions.

Furthermore, so much of Judaism, whether Tehillim or anything else, emphasizes how deeply Hashem probes your true motivations. You can fool others (or think you're fooling others) and you can fool yourself, but Hashem knows the real reason why you decided to do what you did.

For example, there are times I really wanted to indulge in lashon hara, but the idea of facing that particularly odious sin later kept my words muzzled. Sure, I could lie to myself and invent some kind of toelet, a beneficial reason, but Hashem knows the truth and deep down, so do I.

Having said that, many people are inspired by the idea that for every moment you refrain from indulging in particularly gratifying lashon hara, you create a light that even high angels cannot perceive. I’m inspired by that too.

But sometimes, the fear aspect makes a better muzzle.

It depends.

It also depends on your individual personality and what you personally need to bring out the best of your soul-potential.

The Way Out of Spiritual Bankruptcy

Excessive fear and harsh atonements have been discouraged by some of our greatest, like the Arizal.

In the chapter on Teshuvah, the Pele Yoetz explains in the name of the Arizal that the little done in our generation is considered like the great performed in previous generations.

Why?

The klippah (the external spiritually negative "shell") is stronger and our sins are stronger, making us weaker.

In Chulin 84a, Chazal writes: “Father was from a healthy family, but we need to borrow money and eat well.”

This explains it all in a nutshell.

Spiritually speaking, we are the weaker, sicker descendants. If we eat minimally like our father from a healthy family, we can become even weaker, sicker, and die, chas v’shalom. So we need to “borrow money and eat well” just to survive.

The Pele Yoetz goes on to explain that we are like a man who owes a great debt, goes bankrupt, and lacks the means to pay in full.

How can we shoulder such a burden?

The Pele Yoetz advises us to:

Speak like a poor man (i.e., admit the bankruptcy & impoverishment)
Show your “accounts” (i.e., “See? This is what I owe, and this and this, and here are my empty coffers.”)
Continue until your “creditor” agrees that in light of the facts, you should be allowed to pay back over time whenever and as much as you are able — but no more than that because you simply don’t have it.

(Yet you will certainly give what you can when you can.)

This is how we should speak with Hashem.

Yes, it’s the opposite of our generation’s voices promoting self-assurance, self-praise, self-aggrandizement and self-cheerleading, constantly pumping up ourselves and tweeting/posting our most minor accomplishments.

Yay me! Rah, rah, rah!

(Note: It's possible to serve Hashem with joy & without self-aggrandizement. It's also possible feel joy about a spiritually healthy fear of Hashem. It all goes together.)

But really, we should be saying to Hashem: “I know I should be doing more and I wish I could do more, but this is my best for now. Please forgive me and please help me. Please give me what I need to make it through.”

And feel happy about that.

As the Pele Yoetz concludes:

Likewise, we are broke and we don’t have the ability to withdraw ourselves from our debt —only that which is within our power to do, we shall do little by little, to rectify what we have corrupted throughout the days of our lives.

Perhaps God will consider us and forgive all our debt — but on the condition that all that is in our power to do, we shall do and accept upon ourselves.

So we should be patient and understanding with ourselves and others.

But not completely ignore the benefit of a spiritually healthy fear of God.

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Why Life is So Hard & the 1 Thing You Can Do About It

28/1/2019

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In a November class, Rav Shalom Arush described a woman who completed 6 hours of hitbodedut – then immediately had a fall. He didn’t say in what, but he described her frustration and despair.

Six hours! That’s something like 2 hours of thanking Hashem, 2 hours of confession, and 2 hours of requests – or however the woman parceled it out.

People can go through their whole life without ever accumulating 2 hours of sincere heartfelt confession before Hashem. And here, she did that (more or less) in one go – and she tripped up right after.

That’s not encouraging, is it?

Why It's Not Your Fault

Rav Arush used this example to stress the importance of begging Hashem to help you overcome your yetzer hara, your dysfunctional inclinations.

Your yetzer hara is so strong that good intentions and iron resolve aren’t enough; you need Hashem.

Sound depressing?

It’s not.

It’s actually another way of saying that your flaws and your falls aren’t really your fault.

You aren’t a failure if you try then stumble.

The yetzer hara is barreling at us full-force, particularly in this generation, and Hashem is the only One strong enough to overcome it.

Some Sagely Statements

Here is proof (and advice) from our truly great Sages:

Sefer Hachareidim: “A person must pray over himself and his children to be rescued from the yetzer hara.”

This is why the morning blessings specifically request that the yetzer hara not overcome a person.

Likewise, during the Bedtime Shema in the blessing of “Hamapil” ("al yishlot bi yetzer hara – don’t let the evil inclination take control of me") a person must intend that he, his spouse, and his children are saved from the yetzer hara. (Yeladim Mutzlachim/Successful Children by Rav Shalom Arush)

Chazal: “The yetzer hara is so harsh that even its Creator called it ‘bad’.”

Rav Yitzchak: “The yetzer of a person renews itself upon him each day.”

Rav Sh. Ben Levi: “The yetzer of a person overcomes him each day and seeks to slay him – and if the Holy One Blessed Be He wouldn’t help him, he [the person] could not [help himself]. (Kiddushim 30)

Rav Yechezkel Levenshtein (Avot Yisrael): “A person’s greatest hater is the yetzer hara, and it wants to annihilate him from two worlds [i.e., This World and the World to Come].”

Sefer HaYashar: “...each person needs to fear for his soul and to pray each day to his God to rescue him from the force of the yetzer hara.”

The above paints a picture of a merciless and monstrous psychopath in hot pursuit of ripping us to pieces.

So if we’re crushed beneath the yetzer hara, is it really our fault?

Only if we didn’t cry out for help.

I Protest!

In Words of Faith, Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender stresses the importance of protesting the yetzer hara. Even just one second after you’ve just sinned!

Say something like: “I DON’T WANT THIS! I DON’T WANT TO BE LIKE THIS! I HATE THIS MIDDAH! I HATE THIS FACET OF ME – TAKE IT AWAY, HASHEM, BECAUSE I DON’T WANT IT!!!”

Because of this, Rav Arush recommends to cry out several times a day, once on behalf of yourself and a few more times on behalf of your spouse and children, to be saved from your biggest enemy, which wants you to lose Two Worlds.

So don’t sink into self-disgust or despair if you fall.

Maybe you had great week, then you find yourself back to square one again.

Maybe yesterday, you managed victory after victory, then all of the sudden, you trip up this morning before you even said Modeh Ani.

Or maybe you started off your morning well, then found yourself flat on your face by noon.

That’s how it goes, sorry to say.

It’s not a reflection on you.

As described in a previous post, this generation is under assault from the fierce and gargantuan death throes of everything bad.

Why is that YOUR fault?

It’s NOT!

So even as you find your face smushed into the mud from yet another fall, try to at least mumble the words: “I protest! Help me, Hashem! Save me from the yetzer hara! Mrmph-mrmph!”

As Rebbe Akiva Rabinovitz said [Ahavat Kedumim, p. 170, emphasis mine]:

Hakadosh Baruch Hu holds absolutely no hakpadah against a Jewish person who possess evil traits and lusts.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu does not come in accusations about this since He implanted these within him, and He brought us down here FOR THIS PURPOSE.

If so, regarding what is the hakpadah?

The hakpadah occurs when the Jewish person does not strive to seek out the path and the counsel as to how to get out of [those evil traits and lusts].

Therefore, there exists the iron rule:

"As long as a person engages in battle, he is always called 'the winner'."

This is mind-bogglingly liberating.

It means that even if you don’t succeed, you are still considered victorious in Shamayim just because you TRY.

But you have to really try.

And you have to call out to Hashem.

Previous Post:
Inspiring Words for the Darkest & Coldest Times

Related Post:
How to Get Past Toxic Shame & Apathy

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Your Inalienable Right to Teshuvah - No Matter What Scoffers & Cynics Say

22/1/2019

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One of the most important rights a person has is the right to do teshuvah.

People have a right to change for the better.

Unfortunately, there will always be those who call a changed person “fake” or “hypocrite” and remind that person of his or her former deeds.

There will always be those with the conviction that the sinful, flawed you is the “real” you. (It’s not.)

But you can’t let that stop you.

You Can't Collect Scattered Feathers

Around 20 years ago, in a moment of frustration, I confided lashon hara in a “friend”— lashon hara that I mistakenly assumed was l’to’elet due to my emotional pain.

Then I forgot about it.

But she didn’t.

Around 10 years later, we ran into each other and pretty early on in the conversation, she asked how I was managing with so-and-so.

“Oh, fine,” came my breezy answer.

“Really?” she smirked. “Because you sure weren’t before.”

(“Before” was 10 years prior.)

“Oh,” I said, realizing what the problem was. “Yeah, we had some issues then, and, oh, there were a lot of things I didn’t understand. But I understand them now and we get along fine.”

She sniggered. “Really?” she said. “But don’t you remember how that person said [the appalling & strange thing that person had said]. I mean, that was really weird. You don’t remember that?”

Oh, right! I’d forgotten about it. But fortunately, it no longer appalled or distressed me because I’d moved past it. Now I fumbled for words. And she chuckled again. Then I stammered something like, “That person didn’t mean it that way and I never should have repeated it to others.”

At that point, I think she realized her own impropriety because she sobered up and the conversation ended pretty quickly after that.

Now, I don’t think you really need halacha to tell you NOT to do what she did. I mean, it’s pretty smarmy to remind a person of lashon hara said 10 years ago AND insert it early into a conversation when you’ve only just reconnected. Furthermore, it’s even smarmier to twist their arm about it — not only to remember it, but to get re-offended by it.

I really think that any decent person would realize on his or her own not do such a thing, even without knowing that it’s halachically forbidden.

But it taught me some things.

Lessons Learned

1) First of all, it gave me the chance to atone for what I’d said. I took the blame off the subject of the lashon hara and also admitted that I shouldn’t have said it in the first place. I was able to express regret for the deed.

2) Secondly, it drove home that old parable, that negative speech is like waving a pillowcase full of feathers into the wind — you’ll never be able to re-gather all the feathers. They’ve simply scattered too far and wide. (But it was a lesson I needed to learn a few more times before I really got it. Ultimately, sitting down each day to review these laws really helped.)

3) Thirdly, it showed me how important it was to avoid doing this to others — and to let the other person CHANGE. Really, I don’t understand why she didn’t switch the subject when she saw I initially didn’t remember the incident. Why did she work so hard to conjure it up again and rub it in? I really don’t get it.

4) And finally, I needed to take responsibility for myself. Yeah, she was wrong to do what she did—that was a couple of serious transgressions right there on her part. But she’d never have been able to do that if I hadn’t said what I said in the first place.

I was wrong to have said what I said.

And that’s that.

The Penitent Peddler

Especially if you speak out against your former errant behavior and in favor of correct behavior, certain people will target you.

And the Kli Yakar describes all this well in Vayikra 14:4 (Parshat Metzora).

There is the famous midrash of the rochel, the peddler, who made his way through the area of Tzippori, proclaiming, “Who wants to buy the elixir of life?”

And only Rav Yannai was interested.

What was the elixir of life?

Shemirat halashon — guarding your tongue from speaking slander (whether true or not), rumor-mongering, tale-bearing, and any other negative speech that is of no benefit.

The Kli Yakar delves into the deeper layers of this story. Because rochel is the same word as tale-bearer – a person who spreads rechilut – the Kli Yakar maintains that this peddler was actually a slanderer who’d done teshuvah and was now encouraging others to do teshuvah too.

What happened?

Once upon a time, the rochel went about slandering others and "casting strife between brothers," in the words of the Kli Yakar.

“Yet later, he gave his heart to do teshuvah and requested the ways of healing mentioned by our Sages: Torah learning for a talmid chacham and shever ruach [a broken spirit] for an am ha'aretz.

“And he saw that these ‘medications’ benefited him.

“Therefore, his heart filled with the desire to bring merit to the masses and to bring teshuvah to all the very towns in which he knew there were gossipers.”

So the rochel marched through these towns with his tantalizing proclamation.

“For they were like sick people who need medications for a cure, which needs to be purchased.”

But the people wouldn’t allow it.

Yes, they came out at his call — to harass him.

“Etmol hayitah rochel holech rachil — Yesterday, you were a slanderer who went about slandering!” they said. “V’hayom atah rotzeh l’taken darcheinu? — And today you want to fix our path? Kashot atzmacha tachilah! — Clean up your own backyard first!"

(Loose translation — kashot means “adorn” or “decorate” or “fix up.”)

Yet the rochel DID clean up his own backyard!

That’s why he was there. He’d found the right “medication” (Torah study and a broken spirit of remorse) for the “illness” (fault-finding combined with gossiping about those found faults).

And now he wanted to share the “cure.”

Instead, they humiliated him and insisted he was still the same old fault-finding slanderer who’d gone around fomenting strife between brothers.

Of course, this can be considered an atonement for his previous behavior. Their response to him was very wrong, but as far as he goes, he can take it as a kaparah.

Yet why did they respond the way they did?

Baalei Ra'atan Don't Count

The Kli Yakar describes them as baalei ra’atan — people who choose to seek out the faults in others and then gossip about those faults: “…they'd already chosen for themselves the rotten path and their tongues were used to speaking lashon hara.”

People who haven’t done real teshuvah don’t see the possibility of change. Even if they see a changed person in front of their face, they simply do not believe their eyes.

This is a reflection on them, not on you.

3 Types of Trepidation

Yet to be fair, there are times when another person’s hesitancy to accept the new you is justified (and then you need to be patient and understanding):

You’re very quick to apologize without any change.

This type tends to combine an apology with self-denigration.

If you're doing this, you're not actually doing teshuvah at all.

How so? What's going on with this type?

Subconsciously, this type feels that the self-denigration atones for their mistakes, and in a sense, permits them to repeat the mistake again. There’s no real teshuvah there and they’ll repeat the faulty behavior pretty quickly after they apologize. And they’ll continue this way, often for years, without ever changing.

If this is what you’re doing, people have a right to distrust your apologies and admissions of wrong-doing.

Until you actually change your behavior, people don’t need to take your apologies or breast-beating seriously.

You’re still in the ping-pong phase of teshuvah.

You really intend to stop the behavior and you even succeed to a certain extent – but then you backslide.

So you jump back on the wagon and even stay there for a time...until you fall off again.

This occurs because it takes time & trial-and-error to learn the new improved behavior. You’ve boarded the ship and now you need to gain “sea-legs” as you sail the churning waters.

But until you’ve gained your sea-legs, you lurch around, tripping & falling.

Others are within their rights if they choose to keep their distance from your lurching until you’ve got your sea-legs firmly in place. After all, you’ve sprawled onto these people before; they don’t want to get in your way again.

But don't feel bad. The ping-pong phase is perfectly natural, especially if you're learning a behavior that's very foreign to you.

(This is actually a good sign because it means you are really striving for profound change by aiming for behavior that is so different than your sinful ways, you need to learn it like learning a foreign language.)

You hurt them so much before, they want to make sure you’ve REALLY changed.

These people aren’t unforgiving, just wary. They’re willing to accept you’ve changed; they just want to make SURE you actually have.

Failure Never Erases Success

You also have the right to fall without being considered a failure.

Falling is pretty common.

For example, after a year of total sobriety, an alcoholic can suddenly go on a drinking binge.

After 6 months of measured behavior, a reformed ka'asan can suddenly fly into an outburst.

There are a few reasons for this. One is simple human weakness.

Another major reason is that it drives home how bad the behavior is. For example, an alcoholic may feel so sick on this sudden binge that he doesn’t even want to ever drink again. Throughout the year, he felt pretty good with his sobriety, but still yearned to at least get tipsy again. Yet after the sickening binge, he no longer even yearns for it.

This is known as descent for the sake of ascent. You needed to plummet in order to really rid yourself of the bad middah.

Another reason is to keep yourself connected to Hashem and disconnected from gaavah. In the midst of a fall, you can’t feel like you’re oh-so victorious and better than others. You also realize that your success came from Hashem and not your own willpower.

Regardless, there are people who will point to your fall as “proof” that you really haven’t changed.

How stupid and horrible of them.

All those moments, hours, days, and weeks of struggle…all those excruciating obstacles you faced as you fought your ingrained bad habits and forged new good behaviors…it’s all meaningless.

Really?

It’s nothing? You didn’t do anything at all?

Of course not.

In THEIR eyes, in the eyes of people who’ve never really done teshuvah, your efforts and successes don’t exist.

But your naysayers are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Your efforts and successes DO exist – and they mean a lot!

They’ve already formed an imprint on your soul.

And so you pick yourself up and try again. Hopefully, you’ll last out for longer until the next fall. And then you’ll last longer and longer – until you don’t fall again.

Good is Always Stronger Than Bad

In Judaism, good deeds can never be erased.

Only bad deeds can be erased (via true teshuvah).

Anything good you do stands forever.

Even evil people get rewarded for the good they've done, no matter how minuscule.

(This is one reason why you'll see bad people with lots of success; they're being rewarded in This World for the little good they've done.)

People who try to convince you that a fall invalidates all the progress you made up to that fall are not coming from a Jewish point of view.

The Only Opinion that Really Matters

You have the right to improve yourself.

You have the right to change.

You have the right to turn over a new leaf.

Sure, we all know that we have an obligation to better ourselves.

But we have a right to change too.

And even if others don’t believe you, even if others mock you or reject you or scoff at you, you need to know that Hashem sees your transformation and that it’s registered in Shamayim.

And that’s all that matters.

To see more about the Kli Yakar's interpretation of the above story, please see:
Part II: The Happy Cure for Blabbermouthed Fault-Finders (AKA, The Kli Yakar on Parshat Metzorah)

For more on the problem with self-denigration, please see:
5 Reasons Why Self-Denigration Never Helps

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How to Use Erev Shabbat as Your Personal Guide to This World

15/1/2019

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Most of us are familiar with the idea that Shabbat symbolizes the Word to Come while Erev Shabbat symbolizes This World.

As the children’s song goes:
“Mi sheh lo tarach b’Erev Shabbat—mah yochal? Mah yochal b’Shabbat?”
“He who didn’t toil during the eve of Shabbat—what will he eat? What will he eat on Shabbat?”

Of course, it’s not originally a children’s song.

Talmud Avodah Zarah 3a states: “He who didn’t toil during the eve of Shabbat—from where shall he eat on Shabbat?”

(And the phrase prior to that states: “Mi sheh tarach b’Erev Shabbat yochal b’Shabbat—He who toiled during the eve of Shabbat will eat on Shabbat”—it’s a promise.)

The well-known symbolism is the promise that whoever toils in This World to prepare for the World to Come will enjoy the fruits of that toil in the World to Come.

(Interestingly, it promises this to whomever tarach—toiled—and not to whoever was successful. It sounds as if you struggle as much as you can to do the work, then you’ll reap the rewards. Meaning, you will be rewarded for your efforts and not for your outcome. Nice!)

So is there something we can learn from our Erev Shabbat preparations that can help us live our life better in This World so as to enable a better place in the World to Come?

Yes.

To figure this out, you first need to write up a list of whatever you do (or should be doing) to prepare for Shabbat and then see how it correlates to what you can do to prepare for the Ultimate Time of Rest: Olam Haba.

Make a List

For example, many people make at least 1 list on Erev Shabbat—a shopping list.

Others also keep a check-off list on their fridge to make sure they cover all the tasks necessary before Shabbat (i.e., set the Shabbat timer, turn off the fridge light, plug in the heating plate, etc.).

People may have a list of phone calls to wish family members “a Good Shabbos!”

And still others make up a schedule. Their to-do list includes the times at which they need to carry out all these tasks.

So that could be something you could incorporate into your daily life right now.

Personally, I feel suffocated by schedules, but a general list of what I’d like to accomplish during the day (in whatever order or at whatever time I wish) helps me accomplish more during the day. It also helps me to see where I’m holding. And checking off whatever I’ve already done is gratifying.

It can also show me if I’m overwhelming myself by chomping off more than I can possibly chew and need to scale back or switch things around.

A list also helps you keep your eye on your goal. You’re less likely to waste time when you see that you still have a couple more things on your list to complete before bedtime.

And because we are focusing on Olam Haba, this list refers to spiritual accomplishments or avodah you’d like to tackle. (Although you could make a list of everything all together. For example, if you plan to daven Mincha before an early shkiah, it’s important to know that you also need to run the carpool that day, then take Malki to her class Shabbaton—meaning, you need to know that you need to daven Mincha as early as possible on that day if you want to daven it at all.)

Frankly, I don’t make a list every day. But when I do, it’s usually more effective than just cruising along and hoping I’ll get around to doing whatever I need to.

Get a Head Start

Another thing people like to accomplish Erev Shabbat is to START EARLY.

(Those bold-faced caps are for me, not for you, dear reader. ;-)

Whether that means getting up early in the morning, or doing as much as you can on the weekdays leading up to Shabbat, you can’t possibly have a nice relaxed early candle-lighting & a clean home with plenty of delicious food if you only start preparing 2 hours before hadlakat neirot.

A last-minute Erev Shabbat tends to usher in a Shabbat with lots of yelling and panicking, followed by complaints throughout Shabbat:

“Where’s my Shabbat shirt—what do you mean it’s still in the laundry?”
“Oh, I can’t believe I forgot to plug in the blech! Maybe the neighbors have room on theirs for our pots?”
“Hey, the light’s still on in the fridge—we can’t close the door!”
“It’s so depressing to see 2 sinks full of dishes waiting to be washed after Shabbat—and we haven’t even had our first meal yet!”
“I hate going to shul in dusty muddy shoes, but I didn’t have time to polish them before Shabbat.”
“I’m hungry—what do you mean there isn’t anything else to eat?”

The big secret is that most of us have already suffered through a Shabbat like that already, whether due to Erev Shabbat laziness or unavoidable emergencies.

But barring unforeseen wrenches thrown our way, many of us know what a rushed, disorganized Erev Shabbat is like and we definitely DON’T want our Eternal World blemished with the spiritual equivalent of “I can’t believe I forgot to plug in the blech!”

Using Time Wisely

On Erev Shabbat, we don’t have time to laze around or waste time in non-essential activities.

Sure, some very organized or very desperate people make time for a pre-Shabbat nap or an energizing breakfast, and that’s actually a good idea if you can manage it.

Even people who completed all their Shabbat preparations by Thursday should spend Erev Shabbat in spiritual preparation for Shabbat (as will be detailed in a following section).

So Erev Shabbat isn’t the time to stretch out on the couch with a novel or start watching an endless video parade of giggling babies or recipes. And people who do waste their Erev Shabbat on Facebook or other non-essentials often find themselves on edge and rushed in order to make it on time.

Again, this is something many people have done at least once, yet don’t like it revealed to others. But rather than feeling bad about yourself or trying to push it to the back your mind, you can utilize it to learn what you should have done instead and improve your future Fridays.

So that’s something to consider within the Olam Hazeh/Olam Haba paradigm too:

How should I best utilize this time?
Yes, I should rest and eat, but how much & for what purpose?

Anger & Emuna Management

Trying my darnedest to manage my temper with emuna: A self-portrait.

Chazal says that the yetzer hara dances around a Jewish home on Erev Shabbat, making it very challenging to avoid angry exchanges.

Our yetzer hara wants us to damage not only our regular soul, but also to damage also the neshamah yeteirah—the extra soul we receive on Shabbat.

(For more, please see: Preserving Your Soul from Anger Erev Shabbat.)

So it’s important to try as hard as we can to cultivate an atmosphere of emuna on Erev Shabbat.

However, if you have ever gotten snappish or shrieky Erev Shabbat, you probably noticed that you later forgot about whatever it was that upset you so much not long after hadlakat neirot.

Whatever you were so stressed about just disappeared. You might even wonder why you were so freaked out about it in the first place?

Or the opposite happens: You remember it only too well. You go into Shabbat with a crummy feeling, like “Why can’t I ever get this right? Why am I such an awful parent/spouse/Jew?”

Or just feeling generally frustrated or resentful or like a failure.

Likewise, it’s very important to avoid anger in This World. (Yet again, I am speaking to myself.) Everything comes from Hashem and there’s no need for anger because He is running things and everything He does is for our own good—even if it doesn’t feel like that at all.

I can’t help thinking that when we finally make the transition (after 120 years, b’ezrat Hashem) to the Afterlife, we’re also going to either go in forgetting about what was so infuriating in This World and wondering why we were so upset in the first place?

Or we might go in feeling bad that we have so many sins of anger on our account.

“Why didn’t I take the yissurim b’simcha?” we might ask ourselves. “Why didn’t I try harder to respond to my ordeals with joy and gratitude? After all Gemara Taanit 8a promises that every person who rejoices in his yissurim brings salvation to the world. So why couldn’t I have tried a little harder?”

In the World of Truth, everything is so clear. We’re finally shown the reason for everything.

And we might feel there like how we feel here in the transition from Erev Shabbat to Shabbat—depending on how our Erev Shabbat went.

But we don’t want to arrive at Olam Haba full of regret or wondering why we were so upset in the first place.

Do Teshuvah

I think this next one isn’t as well known, but it’s important to do teshuvah Erev Shabbat.

Yeah, it’s important to go into Shabbat as sin-free as possible.

In his chapter called Teshuvah, the Pele Yoetz explains that if a person does not repent of his sins the day he committed them, then he should at least do so on the Friday of that week “because it is also a time of teshuvah.”

The Pele Yoetz stresses that thoughts of teshuvah on Erev Shabbat enable one to say Kiddush on Leil Shabbat. Why? The Kiddush is a form of testimony (eidut) and a wicked man is disqualified from testifying.

On a more positive note, doing teshuvah on Erev Shabbat enables a Jew to merit the addition of nefesh-ruach-neshamah (the 3 levels of soul) and the illumination of holiness on Shabbat (he’arat kedushat Shabbat). He continues:

And from the splendor of the abundance of its holiness, it will flow over him to the days of the week to return in repentance and to serve his Creator with complete service.

Umiziv shifat kedushato yashpia alav limot hachol lashuv biteshuvah v’la’avod et bor’o avodah shleimah.

If you think about it, this is actually a thrilling opportunity.

The Pele Yoetz means that by doing teshuvah (admitting your sins, regretting/making amends for them, and then accepting upon yourself to distance yourself from them), you will merit an especially enhanced soul for Shabbat, in addition to an especially enhanced light of holiness on Shabbat itself.

(As far as I know, all Jews receive an extra neshamah for Shabbat, but apparently, the quality and loftiness of your particular neshamah yeteirah depends on your behavior prior to its entry.)

In turn, the splendor (ziv) derived from the especially enhanced light (he’arah) will gush forth into the following week, enabling you to do even more teshuvah and perfect your avodah to Hashem, thereby making you even more fabulous than you already are.

So the spiritual quality and success of your week actually depends a lot on what you did Erev Shabbat of the week before.

Sure, this might sound a bit discouraging if you usually fall on your face Erev Shabbat.

On the other hand, if you’ve been stuck emotionally or spiritually during the week, you can try your best to use this coming Erev Shabbat as a time of teshuvah and anger-management to catapult you into a different state for that Shabbat and the following week.

As always, we don’t seek perfection because only Hashem is Perfect.

If you only manage teshuvah on 1 thing Erev Shabbat, then that’s still really good.

Much, much better than nothing at all.

In addition, the Pele Yoetz advises:

It’s good for a man to turn from his tasks before Kabbalat Shabbat and pour out his conversation [to Hashem]; he shall seek forgiveness, and afterward he shall go to the mikveh.

And he shall find a benefit for his soul, and purify it, and make it holy.

Women don’t go to the mikveh Erev Shabbat, but if a woman can manage to talk to Hashem at all and seek any forgiveness, then that is very good.

Furthermore, as is well-known, the preparations women invest in Erev Shabbat in honor of Shabbat--likhvod Shabbat—provide wonderful merit for her and for all of Am Yisrael.

Refraining from anger during these preparations is also a wonderful atonement.

Getting Started

Also, it’s perfectly normal that the first time you try something, you stumble & bumble around in it simply because you don’t quite know what you’re doing (yet).

Kol hahatchalot kashot—all the beginnings are difficult; that’s the spiritual reality. Just get up and try again. Really, that’s how it goes. It’s so normal.

So these are just a few examples of what you can learn from your Erev Shabbat to apply to your Olam Hazeh. And we share many similar aspects of Erev Shabbat (i.e. the need to start early, prepare food, etc.), individual situations vary.

For example, the Erev Shabbat of a single person is different than the Erev Shabbat of a person with 4 kids under the age of 3, which is different than the Erev Shabbat of a widow who spends a different Shabbat every week with one of her 10 married children.

And so on.

So you can make your personal list of what you do (or should be doing) on Erev Shabbat, then see how you can apply those lessons and insights to your life in This World.

May we all merit a World sheh kulo tov—that is entirely good.

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Judaism's Secret: Achieve the Glorious Maximum by Doing the Bare Minimum

13/1/2019

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Something very special about our genuinely spiritually great Jews is their encouragement of baby steps: doing whatever you can within your abilities—even within very limited abilities.

Minimum Tefillah for Women

For example, Rav Chaim Kanievsky came out with the encouragement for women to daven 3 times a day: Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv.

(His daughter, Rebbetzin Kolodetzky, calls this “speaking to Hashem in the language of the siddur.”)

But because Rav Kanievsky understands that many women have very busy, exhausting, and distracting lives, he reassured women that just looking at the words is 50% kavanah. Meaning, that just looking down at the page (even if your mind isn’t there) automatically snags you half of the obligatory kavanah according to all opinions in halacha. Any more you do as far as kavanah goes tips you over the halfway point.

Furthermore, even though davening a full Shacharit on your own can take at least a good 45 minutes, Rav Kanievsky insists that 25 minutes is enough. (Although it’s perfectly understandable that some women don’t even have that.) Then he offers 5 minutes for Mincha (just enough time for a VERY speedy Shemoneh Esrei), and 7 minutes for Maariv.

So yes, Rav Kanievsky made a request for women to increase their davening (when most poskim obligate women only 1 or 2 tefillot a day). But he pared it down to the bare minimum, so as to minimize the pressure.

10 Minutes Earlier

Rebbetzin Kanievsky promised miracles just for lighting Shabbat candles 10 minutes earlier.

TEN MINUTES! That’s it!

(It’s much harder than it sounds, by the way…but still very worth trying.)

The 1-Minute Hitbodedut

Likewise, Rav Shalom Arush encourages us to speak to Hashem in personal prayer in our own language, even 6 hours at a time. This is the ideal according to Breslov Chassidus. Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender also felt that people should engage in hitbodedut as much as possible—hours & hours every day, if possible. They got this from Rebbe Nachman. Yet the standard offered was…ONE hour only. And Rav Arush splits it up into 20 minutes of gratitude, 20 minutes of confession, and 20 minutes of requests.

However, the Breslov yeshivah katanah (for teenage boys) told its students to engage in 1 MINUTE of hitbodedut each day.

One minute!

Demanding more of a person can discourage them from doing it at all.

Furthermore, I knew of a very down & long-suffering person for whom Rav Arush recommended write a daily list of 20 things for which this person is grateful—and include as one of the items something this person lacks yet desires very much. At least once a day, this person must thank Hashem for that painful nisayon. And hopefully, Hashem will fulfill the wish and end the nisayon.

Now, how long does it take to write down 20 things?

Please note: He didn’t tell this person to do any hitbodedut. Without even knowing the person, Rav Arush realized that it would be too much. So instead, he advised this person to make a list that could be accomplished within 1 or 2 minutes.

People from all different backgrounds and hashkafot, from Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein to Rav Ofer Erez, have been encouraging people to make a daily gratitude list of 10 things to 100 things. Ten things!

How long does that take? How easy is that?

(Yet even with that, let me tell you that there is a strong yetzer hara against it...)

10 Steps to Greatness

One of Rav Avigdor’s more famous innovations is his list of 10 Steps to Greatness from Tape #706.

(And not only did he pare it all down to 10 steps that demand mere minutes or seconds, but he recommends trying it for 30 days and then taking a break, if necessary—and then come back slowly.)

The last step is to sit on the floor for 1 second & ponder the loss of Yerushalayim.

One second!

Every day. Or whenever you remember.

Also, you should try daily to do one act of chessed that nobody knows about.

Every day, offer an encouraging word to one person.

Also, once a day, say to Hashem, “I love You.”

In another dvar Torah, Rav Miller suggested you say the following to your friend while walking down the street: “Let’s make a project that from this lamppost to the next lamppost, we’ll only think of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.”

If you’re alone, Rav Miller encourages you to say to yourself:

“I can think about Hakadosh Baruch Hu from this street to the next street—it 's only twenty paces in between—so that means I was alone with Hashem for a little bit.”

And at the end you relax.

“Ah, I did it. I made it. For twenty paces I thought about Hakadosh Baruch Hu.”

( from Shemot 2: A Life Apart)

Why are the very people who do so much more avodat Hashem than most of us can imagine doing advising us to start out so small?

1) Instant Self-Transformation

First of all, the first step in the right direction shuts down the yetzer hara and automatically changes our self-image.

For example, if you spend 20 paces determinedly thinking about Hashem, you go from someone who either only thinks you think about Hashem to someone who actually thinks about Hashem; or you go from someone who thinks “this isn’t for our generation” or “I’m not on that level” or “that’s only for truly great people” to someone who suddenly is on that level and is that type of person.

You kept passing by that open door...

...but now you finally took a step into that new & better world.

Fantastic!

2) You Actually Do It

Second, by cutting down everything to bite-sized pieces, it encourages people to actually do it.

Even a discouraged person, a lazy person, a busy person, or a totally nonspiritual person can sit on his or her bedroom floor for 1 second and say, “I’m so sorry about the destruction of Yerushalayim, Hashem.”

You can make yourself feel sorrow over the destruction for 1 second.

Even if you’re depressed, nonspiritual, completely stressed out, or distracted, you can still mouth the words, “I love You, Hashem.”

And even the most attention-seeking narcissist can force him or herself to do one act of chessed without telling anyone—even something small, like throwing away the used coffee cups at work or or dropping a coin in a tzedakah box or parking one’s car farther away from the store entrance (thereby freeing up the closer spaces for other drivers).

So people end up doing powerful things they would never do otherwise.

3) When One Turns into One Thousand

Finally, the accumulative effect is tremendously more powerful than we realize.

Truly great people understand the transformative power of any mitzvah.

Many of us are already familiar with the Vilna Gaon’s insistence that for every word of lashon hara NOT expressed (whether via speech or facial expression), we create a light so great that even the highest angels cannot imagine it.

But such powerful behind-the-scenes effects occur with all spiritual efforts.

Truly great people understand the power of 1 second of mourning for the Beit Hamikdash.

Truly great people understand the power of saying “I love You, Hashem.”

Truly great people understand the power of focusing your entire mind on Hashem from one lamppost to another.

It’s really only the more ignorant or spiritually small people who say, “One second doesn’t matter. One utterance doesn’t matter. If you daven a Mincha in a flash with no conscious kavanah, then it doesn’t matter.”

It DOES matter.

It matters A LOT.

And because of this bare minimum, you can have 1000 Jews mourning the Temple who wouldn’t have otherwise (outside of Tisha B’Av).

That’s 16 minutes of mourning on a regular day.

Over time, this 1 second spread out among many people adds up to hours of powerful mourning.

And how many people have now said, “I love You, Hashem” simply because Rav Miller suggested it in such an easy and approachable manner?

Over the years, even if each person who heard this suggestion only said it once, how much is that?

And likely, many people decided to say it several times—maybe daily or weekly or even just yearly.

Regardless, that’s tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands (or maybe even a million?) of expressions of love to Hashem.

That certainly sweetens dinim & brings bracha!

Those fleeting acts, those tiny seconds and passing minutes…

It really truly is the small things that count.

We just need to do them.

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One Minute of Hashem's Overwhelming Love For You

28/12/2018

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Today's post features an excerpt of yesterday's post (which is excerpted from A Life Apart) because it seems like something so many people struggle with.

Yet in all the classic mussar sefarim, knowing that Hashem loves you is a key part of wanting to do teshuvah, being a better person, and doing Hashem's Will.

It's very hard to do a true cheshbon hanefesh and make real improvement if you think that the Creator of the Universe isn't so fond of you, chas v'shalom.

So you need to know that He's actually VERY fond of you.

So for 1 minute, say the following (or some variation thereof):

"Hashem, I know You're right here with me and that you're listening to me.

You love me more than I can imagine.

You love me more than my mother loves me, more than my father, more than my friends love me.

You're taking care of me, everything You do to me is for the best and I love you too!"

(By the way, just saying the above on its own for the few seconds it takes to say it is a million times better than not saying it at all. Just saying it has a beautiful effect on your neshamah. And doing it for a full minute internalizes this essential Truth even more.)

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How to Break Out of being "Ordinary"

27/12/2018

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Guess who recommends the following:

Try thinking about Hakadosh Baruch Hu for one minute straight...Think Hashem loves you. "Ahavti etchem ne'um Hashem" -- "I love you," says Hashem.

Do you think about that ever? Do you ever stop to think that Hashem loves you?

He loves you a thousand more times than your mother loves you and you never thought about it?!

You never once thought that Hashem loves you immensely, infinitely?!

That's a wonderful thing to think about in your one-minute excursion into solitude, your minute of being alone with Hashem in your thoughts.

So you're thinking..."Hashem, I know You're right here with me and that you're listening to me. You love me more than I can imagine. You love me more than my mother loves me, more than my father, more than my friends love me. You're taking care of me, everything You do to me is for the best and I love you too!"

Who recommends all that lovey-dovey hitbodedut?

Rav Shalom Arush? Rebbe Nachman? The Baal Shem Tov?

Nope! It's all a direct quote from Rav Avigdor Miller.

And there's a lot more where that came from. (Also, this uncompromisingly Litvish rav emphasizes the Baal Shem Tov as an example to follow in this dvar Torah -- Am echad, lev echad, one Nation, one heart.)

If you want to see the above inside, plus read more about hitbodedut & talking to Hashem with a Slabodka Litvish flavor, then please see Rav Miller's dvar Torah on Parshat Shemot: A Life Apart. (All quotes used with permission.)

Rav Miller possessed a unique wit that was dry, wry, and slipped in with brilliantly poker-faced manner. And if you're into that kind of wit and tongue-in-cheek humor, then it makes his mussar much more fun to swallow.

Here's an example of Rav Miller's makes-you-chuckle-out-loud wit from the same dvar Torah:

Ask Hashem that He should help you with everything:

“I am going for a walk, Hashem. Please help me I should succeed in gaining good health, and that I shouldn’t have any difficulties with rude people that bump into me. And while they are 'bumping into me,' they put their hand in my back pocket and take out my wallet."

See? He's so funny.

But really, he's giving us mussar about not wasting our time with mundane thoughts or gazing around at things we shouldn't. He's telling us that even a walk needs siyata d'Shmaya (especially if there are pickpockets around). He's reminding us to think about Hashem constantly.

But he makes us laugh as he does it.

A Woman's Kitchen: On the Level of the Baal Shem Tov's Forest or the Novardoker's Holy Hut - If She Wants It To Be

And this is from a different parsha on Toras Avigdor, but Rav Miller's speaks about how a woman in her kitchen can achieve the same as the Baal Shem Tov doing hitbodedut in his forest or the Novardoker in his hut:

When a woman is by herself in the kitchen, it’s a glorious opportunity.

Do you know what she’s doing?

She’s practicing one of the biggest virtues, the virtue of hisbodedus, solitude.

The old nevi’im, the old prophets, used to go out in the wilderness.

Even the gedolei acharonim, the Ba’al Shem Tov, went into a forest for weeks to be away from people.

Rav Yoizel Novardoker had a hut hidden in the forest. He had two huts. One that his wife knew about. He was unlisted. Nobody knew how to get him, but his wife knew. But there was another hut that even his wife didn’t know about. Only his talmid, Rav Yoel Boronsik, knew about that hut, the second one. Even his wife wasn’t told about that one.

He had two degrees of hisbodedus because that makes a man great.

A woman in a kitchen, all day long she’s alone. All day she has an opportunity. She can listen to Torah tapes. She can think noble thoughts.

It’s a great thing for a woman to be alone if you utilize it properly.

But maybe you aren't all day long in the kitchen.

He's taking the extreme example because this is something looked down on in society, something many women want to escape.

Yet Rav Miller sees this as an opportunity for the highest greatness.

Now let's look at something else many people want to escape...

How to Do Hitbodedut amid Raucous Music

Personally, I really dislike the unending blasting music at weddings.

But Rav Miller has a positive take on it.

He thinks you should use that opportunity to talk to Hashem. Seriously!

He advises you to use that opportunity to ask Hashem to bless the new couple with all sorts of good wishes.

He recommends davening amid the overpowering music in the following way:

You could say it with your mind and nobody's listening.

But even better, you can say it with your mouth - the music is so loud, nobody will hear you.

They think you're singing along.

Picture the above scenario in your mind, picture yourself sitting at a fancy table talking out loud to Hashem and looking like you're just singing along -- it's so funny!

I hope I can work up the guts to actually try it...

Also, someone at Toras Avigdor is a genius with titles & subheadings. For example:

Would You Choose Uncle Harry to be Your Rebbe?
Moshe Rabbeinu Doesn't Need the Movies
Getting Your Mind Cleaned at the Dentist
Great Men Skip Shul
It's Good to be a Hypocrite

So you end up getting some pretty heavy mussar, but it doesn't feel so heavy because you're chuckling through the entire thing.

Hashem Wants More Than Ordinariness

But here's some serious mussar from A Life Apart that is so applicable to our generation (especially against the popular yet erroneous idea that any level just one baby-step above the current one is "only for great tzaddikim," etc.):

Now, I know people will listen to me and they will just dismiss these ideas. They think that it's a middas chassidus, it's something that only very great people should do.

But that's wrong.

Don't think that what we're saying here is going overboard.

Just because ordinary people will often live like they do with hesech hada'as; they daven as ordinary people daven and mostly their minds are occupied with ordinary things, doesn't means that you have to do the same.

Hakodosh Boruch Hu wants more than ordinariness.

He wants you to be close to Him because those who are far away from Him will eventually go lost. And even though you seem to be a shomer mitzvos, but actually you're far away from Him if your mind doesn't concentrate on Him, if you're not living with Him in your mind.

And therefore, as much as possible you spend time talking to Hashem.

You can also read/print out another geshmak dvar Torah for Parshat Shemot here:
https://torasavigdor.org/parshas-shemos-the-real-test-of-life/

Also, if you wanted to know more about a certain someone, you can see:
Rav Miller on Yoshkeh

May we all merit to spend as much time as possible talking to Hashem.

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How to REALLY Appreciate Shabbat

What Came Before "Beresheit"?

​Can You Really Imagine "Nothing"?

Table of Contents

Tape #463: Still Not Observant...and the Paradox Within

The Way Out of Spiritual Bankruptcy

Why It's Not Your Fault

Some Sagely Statements

I Protest!

You Can't Collect Scattered Feathers

Lessons Learned

The Penitent Peddler

Baalei Ra'atan Don't Count

3 Types of Trepidation

Failure Never Erases Success

Good is Always Stronger Than Bad

The Only Opinion that Really Matters

Make a List

Get a Head Start

Using Time Wisely

Anger & Emuna Management

Do Teshuvah

Getting Started

Minimum Tefillah for Women

10 Minutes Earlier

The 1-Minute Hitbodedut

10 Steps to Greatness

1) Instant Self-Transformation

2) You Actually Do It

3) When One Turns into One Thousand

A Woman's Kitchen: On the Level of the Baal Shem Tov's Forest or the Novardoker's Holy Hut - If She Wants It To Be

How to Do Hitbodedut amid Raucous Music

Hashem Wants More Than Ordinariness

Myrtle Rising

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