Monthly Archives: March 2019

BS’D
Emuna empowers us to hope and trust in G-d when beset with misfortune. Though we may lack understanding of why we suffer, pain is not ‘senseless’.  Emuna enables us to accept the pain and know intrinsically that somehow, in some way our pain is necessary for our spiritual repair and growth. This awareness and inner faith should help steer us away from assessing our difficulties and judging whether they are good or bad.

One reason why difficulties arise is to remind us of G-d’s presence and motivate us to change our ways. We should think of them as signposts instructing us towards detours. Emuna is a superrational soul power, an inner knowingness that nothing is random; everything is precisely calculated and designed just for me!

Feel and heal exercise:

Next time you meet a challenge think to yourself, “which direction am I being summoned to turn to?”

BS’D

It is written in Tehillim (32:10) in the most clearest of terms, “…haboteach b’Hashem chesed yesoveveno (…but as for him who trusts in Hashem, kindness will encompass him).  Trust in G-D is so potent that it practically guarantees results.

This doesn’t mean to simply hope that G-D will help and maybe mix that hope with a bit of doubt as to whether it will in fact come to fruition.  It implies a trust that does not bring to mind any questions; an unwavering knowledge that Hashem will send the remedy to whatever challenge we are facing.

This is a difficult notion to intellectually grasp let alone implement in our daily lives.  Nevertheless, we should not lose emuna in ourselves that we can attain this lofty level since if it is commanded of us, thus we can strive to reach this level of trust.

Feel and heal exercise:

Think to yourself “G-D is sending me a solution to … (name an issue). I may not know how, when or where, but I trust that it is on its way B’H”

BS’D

“For B’nei Yisrael, the nation close to Him” written in Shir HaShirim refers to Hashem’s great love and closeness with us. We are called Hashem’s ‘twin’ which expresses how Hashem shares the pain we might suffer. 

We are even referred to as Hashem’s inheritance She’ereet Nachalato, an extension of His place and a sense of kingship with Him. Our pain is His pain and in many places in the Torah our pain is described as unbearable for Him to beset.

Yet, in order to hasten the redemption and enable the end of the exile, each of us must also feel the collective pain of the other and the pain of Hashem at the forefront of it all. In doing so, we come closer to Him and enable Him, so to speak, to put an end to it.

Feel and heal exercise:

Hashem wants us to unite as one, as we were and know we should be. Let’s make an effort to empathize with our fellow Jew. 

BS’D

The Vilna Gaon ztk’l teaches in his commentary on Berachot that man posseses five powers
1) pulling power – when the food reaches his throat to pull it into the body
2) power to hold – hold the food so that it does not exit immediately and leave us unsatiated
3) power to digest 
4) power to distribute – through which the body is nourished
5) power to reject – discard waste

Each one of these powers is contradictory yet they all work together in a coordinated fashion – for this we praise G-d’s wisdom for fashioning man so perfectly in the prayer Asher Yatzar.

Feel and heal exercise:

Let us contemplate the wonders of the body’s physical functioning at least once a day.

BS’D

Why does the end of the bracha Asher Yatzar call Hashem “Healer of all flesh” – healing is referred to a state of malfunction when something has to be repaired? Instead should it not just continue to theme of praising Hashem for the wondrous wisdom of the body He created?

Essentially, the wording of the bracha speaks of the malfunctioning and problems that the body takes care of on its own. We praise Hashem for creating a body with systems that can detect and treat them directly. The immune system goes to work and the body goes into self-protection mechanism naturally. How wonderful Hashem our Healer is!

Feel and heal exercise:

Meditate over the fact that the body heals itself naturally. At the very moment a person gets a cut, the body begins to send healing to the wound, without any outside intervention.

BS’D

Our soul emanates from the purest source, from the Holy Throne itself. 

Therefore when we refer to the soul, we are speaking of that part itself that came down directly from Hashem in its purity – it was created, fashioned and breathed into each of us. In addition, it is preserved within us while sojourning in this world, will be taken after the body dies and restored in the future.

For that and so much more we should be grateful and recite our blessings with even more intent and focus.

Feel and heal exercise:

When a person feels alone and afraid the words “I’ve got your back” really calms him. Hashem ‘has our back” always!

BS’D

What is the deeper meaning behind showing compassion towards another?  We need to first remind ourselves of the deep spiritual connection all Jews have with one another. We are one, literally one being, made from the same G-dly ‘stuff’ -> a singular entity, one soul. Ya’akovs household is referred to in singular in contrast to Eisav’s family in plural (nefesh vs. nafshos, parshat Vayigash).

Even if we are not conscious of this special union of souls in Heaven we are all intertwined. Every Jew has within himself a portion of every other Jew for which he is responsible. In showing compassion towards another Jew we are in effect showering it upon ourselves.  We are all one in the same!

Feel & heal exercise of the day:

Consider how one part of your body interacts with another and is dependent on the other. It is exactly the same when it comes to interacting with another Jew.