How to Heal Through Meditation

bh

I'm interested in what you think about the two perspectives on meditation presented below.  One is a (very) brief YouTube video and the other an excerpt from a (rather lengthy) letter written by a mystic to a young woman seeking answers in 1939.

Meditation training is part of The Method for Self Mastery which launches in just a couple of days.  It's with that in mind that I thought I'd share the two perspectives on the subject.

As mentioned, the first is a YouTube video called, "How to Meditate in a Moment."

When you scroll down, you'll see a translation of a remarkable letter written in 1939 by a spiritual master, the Rayatz, to a young girl in Riga.  In her late teens, she had written a letter to him explaining that "her actions were empty," devoid of vitality and inspiration.  The reply she received is a five page letter elaborating on how profound contemplation and mindfulness bring healing to those who practice it.

Do you meditate?  Is there such a thing as a "One-Moment Meditation" and if there is, is it in contradiction to the Kabbalistic practice of contemplation?  I'm interested in your thoughts on the topic.

If you'd like to participate in The Method for Self Mastery's Kabbalah based program call our office at 718-493-2859 to find out more.

The Method is rooted in ancient mystical teachings, but it’s amazing just how its strategies and methods can be so relevant to your life today.  You’ll experience inside-out solutions coupled with a fresh and practical approach to Self-Mastery and personal transformation.  It’s time to unleash your true self so you can finally live the joyful, prosperous, fulfilling life you were meant to.

Our upcoming enrollment is January 21 2013.  Call our office at 718-493-2859 to find out more.

20 Tevet 5699 (1939)

To the student Chaya Sima,

Blessings and Peace.

I am writing to you in response to your letter of the 14^th of this month, wherein you tell me your “deeds are empty” and ask what you should do to fill them.   It is difficult for me to know what you are alluding to.   A clear answer can only and exclusively be addressed to a clear question.   When you articulate your question clearly, with G-d’s help, the answer will come.

In general this concept of Divine service – in which a person strives to rectify their thinking and mental focus, as well as their emotional traits – requires that he have a solid foundation and a structured path.

I have already discussed in a previous teaching that just as one has to know ones lacks one must also know ones strengths.   Anyone who thinks that he has no strengths is just as mistaken as someone who thinks he has no lacks.  For every person by virtue of being a human being contains both within themself.  This is true both with regard to intellect and emotions.   The mission of a human being is to heal the lacks.   In other words, our mission is to enable (spiritual) form to prevail over the matter of the emotions and undesirable habits.   This is accomplished through the inner (mental) powers of the soul and through one’s abstract senses and will.  The beginning of this healing involves knowing and deeply recognizing what true good and true evil are.

Next examine yourself.   You need to look at the totality of who you are; observing all your spiritual faculties.   These include your soul’s intellectual capabilities; your senses and intuitive faculties; your emotional traits; and the garments of your soul which are thought, speech and action.   Do this assessment in the same way an artisan inspects the parts of a vessel that need to be fixed.   As you proceed, mark for yourself which aspects need to be fixed and what parts need to be changed.   (These are two different tasks.)  You can only achieve this rectification with orderly spiritual practice and only when you focus on one aspect at a time.   Do not attempt to address all of them together.   Furthermore, this must be done with spiritual effort and focus.   Once you rectify one point within yourself you move on and address the second, and so on with all the points within you that need fixing.

Accurate recognition of what is good and what is bad comes through diligent study and contemplation.[1]  Take for example a concept which might help you rectify your lacks.   It could be beneficial in one of two ways: either because it addresses the lowliness of the quality you are lacking, or it speaks about the advantage of a strength (which is the opposite of your lack.)  Study the concept well until you know it and it’s clear to you in all its details.   At this point, you should be able to speak about it at length.   Only once you have reached this level of familiarity with the idea can you begin to gaze at the concept in-depth.   This must be done with mental effort.   The mental effort and contemplation will generate a unity between your consciousness and the idea you are exploring.[2]

It is at this point of mindfulness that the rectification of our lacks is to be found. 

Many make the mistake of thinking that “good” study is quantitative.   They think it applies to learning a lot of pages or many concepts.   But in truth that isn’t the case.  The essence of diligent learning is to review one idea many times until it is clear to you in all the details of its details, until you are able to speak about it, describing it with clear articulation.

In addition, many make the mistake of thinking that complete contemplation has to do with being particular about (technical aspects such as) what’s missing, what’s extra and what’s connected, repetition and the like.  In truth this is not so.  All-encompassing contemplation is the unification of an individual with the soul of a concept.  In other words, your mind becomes bound with the essential identity[3] of the concept. 

Every original concept[4] and every idea that is processed by your mind so as to become relevant to you in a personal way[5] has both a “body” and “soul.”  Certainly the “body” of both the original and processed concepts is also spiritual.  But we have access to a higher consciousness.  Thank G-d for His great goodness that He has graced us with Wisdom, Understanding and Knowledge.[6]  Praise also to our holy Rebbeim who taught us how to use our intellectual faculties.  Thanks to all of this, we have the ability to recognize and distinguish (not only between physical and spiritual but the ability to make subtle distinctions) between spiritual and spiritual.  The meditative contemplation we are discussing happens at this level and involves connecting and uniting with the soul of a concept.

The way to attain this level of mental focus is through training your intellect to focus on one idea with great depth and concentration for a long hour.  This must be done by habituating yourself to concentrate in this way.  Over time this habit will become your nature and you will be able to sustain focus on one idea for a lengthy period of time.

When you can do this, you will experience the spiritual delight that results from the unification of your intellect with the (inner essence of the) concept itself. 

The main impact of this spiritual delight is that through constant practice you will have the ability to use this strength at any time you like.

How is a person to accustom themself to dig and reveal this wondrous sense so as to be able to use this ability at any moment at will?  How can one become capable of using this form of contemplation in the same way that one uses those spiritual powers they are habituated to?

A path is to be found in the commentary on the verse, “It is not in the Heavens and it is not across the ocean.”  The Torah is found neither in those who are arrogant (whose egos rise heavenward) nor within a person who spreads his (arrogant) heart like an ocean.

It is important to note that the arrogance and broadness of heart referred to here are not those in the base category of undesirable traits.  Regarding these a person, simply by virtue of being a human being, must uproot them.  Each individual must uproot these traits as one would a leprosy.

This verse is referring to the arrogance and broad heart of those who study and know the Torah.  It is about them we are told that they are not repositories of the true Torah.  (In other words, you can’t have even a private arrogance about how you do this process.  There can be no ego whatsoever in this process of mindfulness and deep contemplation.)

But do not be discouraged.  We are taught that, “The thing is very close to you.  It is accessible to you in speech, thought and deed.”

Thus through understanding the aspect of the three garments of the soul (action, speech and thought) the practice of contemplation can become very close to you. 

---

1] Iyun in Hebrew

[2] Masig and Musag in Hebrew.   These refer to the person who is processing the information and the concept being processed respectively.

[3] Etzem ha’Mahut in Hebrew

[4] Muskal, often associated with the attribute of Wisdom (Conceptualizing)

[5] Musag, associated with the attribute of Understanding (Analyzing)

[6] Chochmah, Binah and Da’at in Hebrew.  A useful way of framing these terms is as our ability to Conceptualize, Analyze and Internalize an idea respectively.

This marriage thing is my one big failure

How many people do you know who'd (albeit tacitly) agree that their lives are on track - except for their romantic relationship.  They may be happy with their career (or at least feel they're on the ladder to success;) work out; eat right; have even managed to kick a bad habit.

But...

The marriage thing eludes them.  Either they're still looking for love or are in the relationship they thought would deliver happiness only to find themselves alone or lonely in love.  And for those who do say, "I'm happy," the happiness is often simply a state of relief that they're not in despair?

I'd venture to say that, "This marriage thing is my one big failure" is a phrase many of us can relate to.

With that in mind, I've created Gender Blender, a 3-part teleseminar to help you debunk your relationship myths and access the happiness that is available to you.  

Interested?  You can visit my website to listen to a couple of interviews with me on dating, love, marriage and intimacy.

Ready to call in your Soul Mate?  To jumpstart your relationship?


Go ahead, sign up now.

I look forward to meeting you on the call.

Shimona

I Found the Panorama Button!

This is a wide-angle view of our living room.

Want a wide angle view of life?

Sign up for The Method for Self Mastery today. Visit The Center for Self Mastery and begin your journey from unmanageable to unimaginable.

Dating, Love, Intimacy - Live Coaching Show Tonight

Call in for tonight's radio show on marriage and dating. Live coaching. Free, fun, informative!

Your dial-in number is 714-202-9936.

Listen on the web by visiting this link.

Bring your passion; your problems; your dreams and doubts. It's all up for discussion.  I look forward to connecting.

WIN 1-Year FREE: The Method for Self Mastery

Experience The Method for Self Mastery for yourself. Inside-out solutions coupled with a fresh and practical approach to Self-Mastery and personal transformation. Read more about the method and what the curriculum encompasses here.

Is Israel an Apartheid State?

bh

As someone who witnessed the horrors of Apartheid, I feel compelled to speak up.  Come hear what I have to say, and join in the conversation.  I will be addressing the rally tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday 20th November 2012) at 1pm.

 

Looking look forward to seeing you there,

Shimona

 

 

Update:

I have been asked to change the focus of my address and speak on behalf of Mira Scharf, Chabad representative to New Dehli, India, one of three victims in the attack on Kiriat Malachi.  Aharon Smagda and Yitzchak Amselam were also killed by the rockets.  Remarkably, their death coincided with the anniversary of the murder of Rivky and Gabi Holtzberg hy"d in Mumbai in 2008.

 



Mira Scharf Hy"d



Mira's Funeral

 

Are you a Fallen Heiress?

My friend Sandy is the founder and sole member of The Fallen Heiress Club.  The child of a wealthy business man and a mother who was a movie star – or at least looked like one – she grew up in silence and boarding homes with the richest kids in the neighborhood.  Today, she wears the remnants of their wealth around her neck in the form of antique pearls.  They are apricot colored and in places chipped.  Her other necklace is strung with aquamarine fish which move on her neck as if floating in sleep. 

 

After her folks died within weeks of each other, the lawyer who handled their estate took the money and left her to her bereavement and a sixties-era search for meaning.  At the time she drove a red Porsche, arrived in New York wearing a floor length yellow sari and couldn't care less about what she no longer had.  She feels differently today.

 

I once asked Sandy if I could join her club.

 

"No," she said emphatically.  "You were never rich enough, and you're not poor enough now."

 

She's right.

 

I've thought of myself as having plenty, and I've experienced myself as being without.  But truth be told neither of those two perceptions had much to do with the external reality of my life.  Emotions, not facts, generally drive our responses to money; and our assessment of our personal financial situation often reveals little of what the facts on the ground are.  Instead they reveal much about our inner state and way of relating to the world.  Sandy’s hit it on the nail.  I might feel as if I fit the criteria to join her club but the facts belie the feeling because, as with most folks, my relationship with money is about more than what it appears to be on the surface.

 

A while ago my friend Ru sent me a great excerpt from, “Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure” by Paul Auster.  He captures the notion that money is always more than it appears:

My father was tight; my mother was extravagant.  She spent; he didn’t.  The memory of poverty had not loosened its hold on his spirit, and even though his circumstances had changed, he could never quite bring himself to believe it.  She, on the other hand, took great pleasure in those altered circumstances.  She enjoyed the rituals of consumerism, and like so many Americans before her and since, she cultivated shopping as a means of self-expression, at times raising it to the level of an art form.  To enter a store was to engage in an alchemical process that imbued the cash register with magical, transformative properties.  Inexpressible desires, intangible needs, and unarticulated longings all passed through the money box and came out as real things, palpable objects you could hold in your hand.  My mother never tired of re-enacting this miracle, and the bills that resulted became a bone of contention between her and my father.  She felt that we could afford them; he didn’t.  Two styles, two worldviews, two moral philosophies were in eternal conflict with each other, and in the end it broke their marriage apart…For the life of me I could never understand how such a relatively unimportant issue could cause so much trouble between them.  Money, of course, is never just money. It’s always something else, and it’s always something more, and it always has the last word.

 

This association between money and feelings is captured in an ancient teaching.  “Who is wealthy?” the sages ask.  And answer, “One who is happy with his portion.”  I can hear the groan – not that line again!  But it’s a cliché because it’s true.  Despite our delusions, having more doesn’t equal being more content.  It’s learning to live life on G-d’s terms which brings both inner peace and happiness.  And once we’ve got that down, we feel wealthy; we experience a real sense of abundance.  Wealth happens on the inside.

 

 

This truth is communicated in an abundantly clear way in a commentary on the Biblical story of the Golden Calf.  It’s the archetypical symbol of making an idol (out) of gold.  If only for a moment, the Jews in the desert bought in to the “fact” that Money is Love – or Meaning, or Happiness, or Whatever.  The delusion constituted a prime failure of being.  So big was the fall that it took something cosmic on our part to heal.  As part of the restoration, the People of Israel had to build a sanctuary; an Embassy for the Divine one might call it.  The project was funded by the people themselves.  Twice they donated a half coin of the standard currency towards its construction (which came to ten ge’ira each time) and once they gave a varying gift of any amount they chose.

 

The reasoning behind this is profound.  The people were spiritually, mentally and emotionally engaged in the whole process.  They also gathered around the idol as they danced and laughed; ate and drank in celebration.  And each one (excluding the women and Levites) gave of their money to its construction.  In other words, they served the calf with their souls, their bodies and their wealth.  The donation of the two coins and the personally designated gift offering were each an act of repair targeting these three dimensions which needed fixing.

 

Start with the spiritual component.  Your soul has ten innate abilities – three ways of thinking and seven emotional capacities.  That goes for every one of us whether intelligent or dull, loving or strict.  It makes no difference at a soul level if you’ve got a genius IQ or can’t wrap your head around numbers; or whether you’re a visionary dreamer or a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.  Your soul comes from G-d.  And so does your neighbor’s.  At our core, we’re the same.  As such, to repair the damage done by serving the Calf with their souls, each person had to give ten ge’ira corresponding to the universal ten powers of every human being’s soul.  A uniform amount for the entire nation.

 

Their service of the idol was physical too.  The people got up and laughed and danced and celebrated.  Regarding our bodies, the sages of the Talmud teach that, “There are three partners in a person – the Holy Blessed One, the father and the mother.”  As mentioned, G-d gives us the ten soul powers.  In addition to that, each parent contributes five physical components: the white of the child’s bones, sinews and nails for example from the father; and the red of the flesh, blood and the black of the eye from the mother.  Every person’s body is formed in the same way.  Each human body, athletic or clumsy, strong or weak, has uniformity to it whether you’re male or female; a newborn or aging; a triathlete or confined to a wheelchair.  Thus just as with the atonement at a spiritual level, so in this case the atonement was the same for everyone, ten ge’ira corresponding to the ten building block we each inherit from our parents.

 

However when it came to rectifying worshiping the Calf with their wealth, the course of action changed.  “Donate whatever you’d like,” they were told.  Why not a third half shekel?  Because this time they were fixing up having served the idol with their wealth, and wealth is a subjective reality!  It would be meaningless to say, “Let the rich give more and the poor less.”  Who’s to say whether someone’s rich or poor?  By definition that’s something which is determined on the inside.  And so G-d invited the people to give whatever they desired – in accordance with their subjective experience of their own financial status.

 

On the one hand, Sandy’s right.  When it comes to the facts I was never rich enough and thank G-d never that poor.  At another, doesn’t what we’re saying mean that membership in Sandy’s club is open to all of us?  If you ever simply felt like a million bucks and then plunged into despair about how lacking you are then it’s my guess that you qualify.  If in your own head you’re Down-and-Out; a Fallen Heiress; a Nouveau Riche; a Millionaire, then at the level we’re talking of you probably are.

 

The remarkable thing about which club you belong to is that the one you belong to in your head can have a whole lot to do with the one you connect with in the physical world.  But that’s another topic altogether.

Join us for "Business, Blessing and Balance," a 3-part teleseminar designed to reawaken your purpose and passion in life and at work.  With Shimona Tzukernik and Naomi Shapiro Salberg.  Register here.

The Butcher and the Bone (Or When NOT to Say, "I'm Sorry"

 b”h

There are more people who won’t talk to me – nay look at me – than I care to think.  Truth be told, even one is too many.  No?  Well I have a handful.  But not for lack of trying to repair the breeches.  I’ve apologized.  In one case, make that fourteen conciliation attempts.  Now it wouldn’t be nice if I just blurted out and told you everything.  So I’m going to knead these women up into one person.  I’ll call her…I’m tempted to say “Pinkellafant”, akin to the proverbial white elephant we allow to sit on the living room rug while we peek round its chunky hips and make pleasant conversation.  But that doesn’t feel comfortable.  You see, I really like her.  For all the cold shoulders, I do.  So I’ll call her Penelope instead.

We were friends for over a decade.

On the evening of our fall out, I needed to get out of the house for a bit.  The apartment felt sticky to my soul.  “Penelope!” I thought, and off I went.  Outside it was even stickier but at least there was space.  On my way across the street, a cop car idled by and pulled into action just behind my shoulder.  The siren hit me with a slap.  Maybe I should have paid attention and gone indoors.  But I just kept right on walking.  I knocked on Penny’s door.  No answer.  I knocked again.  No-one.  So I called her on the cell.  Often she’d be playing music in the back of the house and not hear the bell.

“WHAT!” she barked.

That’s the way she’d been picking up of late.  Stressed, feeling down.  I mostly let it ride.  Just walked straight past the “what!” right into the relationship, like a guest missing her queue at the door.  But that night was different.  I was feeling too vulnerable to push past.

“Uh.  It’s okay.  Nothing.”

Silence.

“WHAT!?”

“It’s okay Penny.  Nothing.”

“Why d’you ring?”

“Listen, I can’t talk.  I just have to go.”

“Don’t hang up!”

“I’m not.  I just have to go.”

“Shimona!!”

“Listen, I can’t talk.  Everythings OK.  I have to put the phone down…”

At the bottom of the brownstone steps lay leftovers from someone’s Wendy’s dinner.  The cops and a crowd were gathered at the corner.  It was too many lights and sounds for 9:30pm.  I sat down against the low wall outside our building where grass from the garden offered fragrant relief.

On the corner, I saw Penny.  She was advancing towards me with the same force she puts out on her evening route round the park.

“What’s going on!?” she demanded.  Her concern was spiked with anger.

“I told you.  I’m okay.”

“I came all the way over.”

“Penny, now’s not the time.”

Her mix of anger and concern was shifting with each push to talk and each “not now” I countered with.

“I left what I was doing…”

“It’s okay, you can go back to it.  We’ll talk another time.”

Penny spun round and walked away.  “I’ll call her from the cab on my way to the airport,” I thought as I watched her go.  But she called first.  She called minutes after I discovered that both my driver’s license and passport were misplaced along with $500 to boot!

“Penny, I was just about to call you.  Can’t find my license.  My ride’s waiting downstairs.  I’ll be in the cab in a few minutes.  Will call you then…”

My check, license and passport were still nowhere to be found and I was relying on some miracle to get past security at the airport.  Mine was not what one would call an elegant state of mind.  As soon as we pulled away from the curb, I called Penelope.  But by the time I dialed, it was too late.  I left numerous messages that Sunday.  And I apologized when I met her on the street Monday morning.

“I want to apologize for having hurt you,” I said.

The road to reconciliation was closed and despite calls, a letter, more calls, an invitation that she join me for lunch, going over there…well, other than a hello, or a sentence about nothing squeezed out of air; that was the last we spoke to each other.

As the expression goes, “It blows my mind!”

Each time something like this happens, I find myself confused and in pain.  I’ve been told I’ve apologized too soon, that I needed to “let the bird sit on the egg.”  I’ve apologized too late, in the wrong way, I should try again, or let it go, or I didn’t apologize at all because my words were “I want to apologize”.  There seems to be an art to this and it sure is one I don’t have the knack for!  I’m left muddling over whether it’s only me, and how much of this is about her.  Here’s a journal entry from my diary of a few weeks back:

Penny’s husband advised that I send yet another email.  This is where I’m at though.  I’ve spent many years apologizing to people for things that were not bad or mean acts.  They were mistakes or decisions that others disagreed with…

Maybe I’m sick?  All this running to fix things up.  Does it stem from low self-esteem and feeling that the other is correct in refusing to forgive me?  The relationship has always been more important to me than who’s right or wrong.  At least that’s what I think. If I’ve shared what hurt me and inadvertently caused pain, or allowed myself to not be “on” in a dynamic, I made a mistake yes, but is that something for which I should not be spoken to for months, years, a decade!  Where does one go when the response to an apology is, “Forget about it!  It’s passed” – when in reality it’s the relationship, not the tension, that has come to an abrupt halt?  If our relationship was so fragile that I couldn't share my experience of what-is, was there really one to talk of?  The question I ask myself is, “Has it been holy or unhealthy behavior that has driven me for years to ask Penelope for forgiveness?”

I’m fully aware that one need only ask for forgiveness three times.  It’s Jewish to forgive.  That’s one of our distinguishing traits.  The sages tell us that G-d expects us to say, “It’s okay.  Let’s move on.”  And to then really do that!  I’m also aware that it’s noble to keep on trying and to go beyond the letter of the law when someone can’t forgive.  But is persevering with an apology ever undesirable.

I need to figure out the meaning of a story in the Talmud.  Here it is:

Rav had a complaint against a certain butcher.  When the butcher did not come to him on the eve of Yom Kippur to ask his forgiveness, he said, “I’ll go to him and calm him down.”

Rav Huna met him on his way there and asked, “Where are you going?”

He replied, “To soothe the butcher.”

“You will cause his death.  He should be mollifying you.  He will be punished on account of your degrading yourself.”

But Rav went anyway.  When he arrived, the butcher was sitting and chopping the head of an animal.  Rav stood next to him.  The butcher raised his eyes and saw him.

“You are Abba,” he said with contempt, addressing the sage by his first name.  “Go away!  I will have nothing to do with you!”

While he was chopping the head, a bone jumped off, stuck in his throat, and killed him.

Some story.

Who’s culpable?  Rav or the Butcher.  Rav Huna warns the former, “Don’t go.  It’s not the time.  Your attempt is going to backfire, and with disastrous consequences.”  But he goes anyway.  Sooooo, if Penelope was not ready, I should have “sat on the eggs” – just as her husband suggested!  When I rush head-on into an attempt at resolution and make things worse by forcing the situation, then who’s to blame?  I ponder, and rest much of it on my shoulders.

But the butcher had his issues too, to say the least.  It was the eve of Yom Kippur and he was sitting chopping the head of an animal.  Can you see it?  Everyone else is dressing in white, going to the mikva, thinking of mending things, and there he sits with his butcher’s knife chopping at the head of a beast.  I’m not pointing fingers.  I do that too.  Obsess over what’s gone wrong and indulge in grievance that is.  But a couple of hours before the Day of Atonement?!  When Rav walks in, you stand up.  You wipe your hands and say, “I’m sorry.”

Both felt wronged.  Ditto with Penelope and me.  Her sister later told me I’d, “Slammed the phone down on her and essentially told her to ‘get lost.’”  That was her reality.  For my part, I felt let down by a friend and pushed to the limits of comfort when she wasn’t there at the time I needed her; and then demanded that I open up when she was ready but I wasn’t.

I’m not playing Rav and putting her in the role of the butcher.  Not at all.  I myself am “Rav” and the “butcher.”  I pushed too hard for reconciliation.  And I’m choking on my own bone.  Stuck in my throat, plugging my life force is the desire that there be peace.  It sounds like a noble ideal but m-a-y-b-e it’s just my ego.  As I asked, has my pursuit of peace been coming from a holy or selfish place?  That’s my question this eve of Yom Kippur.  If I send Penelope just one more birthday gift, just one more bunch of flowers, or email, if I call again, then I run the risk of standing at the door of her discontent and being party to her gagging on her own negative feelings.

So I say to myself, I think this Yom Kippur, I’m going to sit tight.  I’m going to listen to Rav Huna and a different voice within.  I’m going to draw the arrow backwards with the intention of shooting it forwards.  My sense is that my yearning for harmony is largely about wanting to appear to others and myself as a “good person.”  Well it’s time to let that go.  The Work in this moment is to just do my next best effort and let-others-live. 

So Penelope, if you’d prefer to hack at a grievance, then go ahead.  And if you want to tell me the conflict’s all over, that there are no pink elephants in the room or gripes on the table, then so be it.  My sense that I can change your way of being in the world is a delusion.  I want to wear white (at least I’m going to give it a shot) and leave you be.  Let’s do things on your timetable for a change.  This Yom Kippur I’m going to try spending the day confessing my own sins and not worrying if you have any.  And maybe I’ll look up from my prayer book after a moment of intense concentration to find you beside me, and you’ll say, “Shana Tova.”  To you too my friend.

But instead, I ignore the voice of Rav Huna. Call it co-dependency, call it lack of self-esteem, or call it anything else. I have to ignore the labels. Because just maybe my impulse to call is a real desire for peace and it’s hidden inside those cloaks. So I pick up the phone to call “Penelope.” I find it a more compelling notion than the thought that there’s ever a time not to say, “I’m sorry.”

p.s. This piece was written a while ago.  I'm going to give you the post script on this evening's Kabbalah Class Teleseminar.  You can sign up here if you want.  In the meantime, climb in to the fray.  I'd love to know your thoughts.

This article was originally published on www.TheJewishWoman.org.  Thank you Sarah Esther, my dear friend and editor for getting me to put some of what's in my head into print.

What is Kabbalah?

B”h

On my Facebook page, I invited friends to submit their questions to (yours truly) the Kabbalah Coach.  A bunch came in.  After hanging out exclusively in Mamaland and getting the twins back to school, my daughter to Milan (MISS you Chan!) and son Levik…well, he only needed me to write and sign a letter…Where was I?  Yes, after hanging out in Mamaland, I finally got to the list of questions and began writing a response to the one that to my mind came conceptually first.  As I wrote, I realized it merited a blog post.  So here you have it, my first post to one of the questions asked:  What is Kabbalah Coaching?

The reason I couldn’t bite into the question itself right away is because that question begs a different one namely, “What is Kabbalah?”

The “Eternity in a grain of sand” answer is that Kabbalah is a blueprint of reality.  It addresses the Identity of The First Cause.  Kabbalah explores the Who and What of G-d.  It fleshes open the mystery of G-d's Oneness yet immanence within all the infinite details of Creation.  It articulates how this Divine entity interacts with Existence.

And Kabbalah explains the purpose of it all.  Yes, even the purpose of slipping on ice, falling in love, losing your job, having a baby, dying slowly and painfully in a smelly hospital, the reason your venture took off, the reason your venture failed, why you invested in the right stock and why you invested with Madoff!  I could go on.

One of the root words from Kabbalah is derived from is lekabel, which means “to receive.”  Another is lehakbil, which means “to align.”  I will explain.

Kabbalah is a received tradition.  It can be traced back to the Revelation at Sinai and then some, all the way to the Garden of Eden itself.    To become a vessel for this wisdom we must a) become willing to receive its truths and b) to seek and find our teachers.  Kabbalah cannot (only) be learned from books.  It is an Oral Tradition.  And those who teach should be those who live it.  Eat (receive) only from masters who embody the teachings.

All easier said than done!  We may say we are willing to receive the truths but…well…we just ain’t.  Recently I shared an insight with someone who professes to love the teachings of Kabbalah and the KC method.  Truth is she likes to listen to me talk to others!  It all sounds good and easy, all fits together so well when the focus is on someone else.  But when the principals were applied to her, my primitive mind coulda sworn she turned into a cat with claws.  Don’t worry.  I’m not talking about you.  I’m talking about her.  And me.  To become willing is a great blessing.  I think it takes Grace to be able to GET HONEST and GET OPEN.

The second aspect of receiving involves imbibing from Holy sources.  Meriting this also takes Divine Grace.  I’m not going to get myself into a law suit (thank you very much.)  Suffice it to say there’s a robust troupe of imitators on the loose.  When you touch and taste the truth from the source, you get it!  Rare.  Delicious.  Divine.  And truthfully, once in a lifetime is enough.  It helps weed out the charletans.  Keep looking; keep asking until you find the authentic thing.

So much for the “receiving” of Kabbalah.

The second meaning has to do with “aligning,” making one thing parallel to another.  My all-time favorite school teacher taught me about Correspondances by Baudelaire.  It prepped me for this understanding.  In their source, all things are aligned with each other.  But in the Garden we slipped a spiritual disc.  We got out of alignment. 

Kabbalah is a chiropractic adjustment for the soul.  Our purpose is to recover the balance and alignment we once had, even if only for a few brief hours.  In so doing we don’t only find our way up the river to the Garden, we generate something radically new.  So Kabbalah is the body of teaching which helps us re-access and even surpass our original state.  It aligns us with The Way Things Are.  We uncover the delusions, we recover the Truth.

I want to say one last thing about it before I fall asleep.  And that is that Kabbalah loosens the delusion of independent existence.  G-d creates ex-nihilo.  Our creative contribution happens in the reverse.  We must reveal the Nothing within the Apparent Somethingness of Existence.  It’s an inverse creative process.  Practically this means we surrender our ego.  THAT feels like death.  And THAT’S what the sages mean when they say, “There is no such thing as a free person other than one who toils in the study of Torah.”  Dying is the most life-affirming thing we can do.  It means we become G-d centered.  We surrender the ego.  In surrendering our sense of self, we discover who we are.  Holding on to the Tree of Life, we gain the courage to let the Ego die.

Having said this, it becomes obvious that Kabbalah is largely about the letting go of our sense of self and discovering who we actually are. But I’ll go in to this more at another time. The clock just turned 2:46am. Cinderella is long gone, her carriage turned into a pumpkin. My mind feels like a pumpkin too. Goodnight. I will look for the rest of this answer among the seeds and pips of my mind by the light of morning.

Exchanging Supermom for Everywoman

by: Shimona Tzukernik

About a year ago I spoke to a group of women in Pittsburgh.  The topic was, “Will the Real Jewish Woman Please Stand Up?”  The energy was already upbeat and intimate by the time I made reference to the famous text, “Woman of Strength” which Jews customarily sing at the Friday night meal.  Before I could work my way into the point I intended to make, a woman blurted out something to the effect of, “I hate that song.”  I turned to her inviting her to elaborate.

“Well…She’s just so…perfect!  I feel like a complete failure every Friday night.  I mean, do you know anyone like her?”  Laughter all round.

I love when that happens – a real, visceral response to the topic at hand (especially when it resonates with my ownself’s inner passion, hesitancy or conflict around a particular idea.)  How many times had I balked at the words?!  Using the Hebrew letters as a springboard it is a veritable Alphabet-Soup of Perfection.  I won’t overwhelm you with all the details but how’s this for starters?

·         Alef – She’s an Eishet Chayil, a “strong” woman.  The word chayil connotes the power of war.  She’s a warrior.  And a spiritual one too, with all the attributes needed to carry out any task at hand.  Friday night rolls round, we haven’t even gotten past verse one and I’m up against “Jewish Tiger Mom!”

·         Beit – Batach bah lev ba’alah, her husband’s heart trusts in her.  Hmm.  I can count on one hand (okay, two fingers) the number of girlfriends whose husbands’ are at peace with their wives’ take on life and what’s best for them.  Verse two and I’m dealing with not only a powerhouse but someone who’s wise and gentle enough to inspire confidence in her mate!

·         Gimmel – Gemalthu tov, she imparts goodness and kindness to him, never evil.  Who is this gal?

In short, a brief read-through of the song reveals that Kosher Tiger Mom has a loving, trusting husband; she’s an entrepreneur and successful business woman; she’s industrious, charitable, wise, empathic and intuitive.  To boot she’s well groomed (read manicures, facials and Sacks Fifth Av if not Vera Wang) and even has the time and cash to buy gorgeous bedroom linens in mindful attention to her sex life.

Is it any wonder the second phrase, in breathless pursuit of the words Eishet Chayil, asks “Who can find (her)?”  She is not me!  All of which leaves me with the question of how to read and apply King Solomon’s song to my life – along with the implications it has for my role not only as wife but as daughter to my mother and mother to my own children.

It seems to me that Eishet Chayil is “Everywoman,” an archetype of us all.  No, I’m not just looking for a backdoor escape from my perfectionism, a way to avoid the reflections of my flaws which I encounter on a daily basis.   I ask myself whether she represents an attainable goal.  Certainly in a utopian era we may each come to embody the Eishet Chayil described by King Solomon but in the here-and-now of life-as-we-know-it, I’ve yet to meet the woman who lives up to the persona he portrays.  Rather than take the text as a description of Supermom, it seems to me, it serves to connect us with the universal image of wife and mother.  After all, the passage has been interpreted as a metaphor for the Shechina, the Sabbath, the Torah and the soul.  Doesn’t it make sense that the acrostic, spanning all twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, alludes not to one woman’s all-encompassing virtues (Supermom) but to our collective identity (Everywoman)?

Just before my marriage, a spiritual midwife told me, “King Solomon says, ‘The wisdom of a woman builds her home.’  The literal translation though states, ‘The wisdom of women (plural) builds her home (singular.)  You will build your home on the wisdom of many women.  Pay attention to how they live and what they have to say.”  How right she was.  I have enriched myself and my home through the collective wisdom and experience of the thousands of women I’ve merited to connect with.  I carry them within me and am personally empowered by who they are.  As Eishet Chayil is sung each Friday night, it affords me some brief moments of contemplation to rejoin with them and also to be eased by the knowledge that our physical and spiritual interconnectedness mitigates my own flaws, enabling me to bring their lights into my home.

By extension, I have access to the larger, cosmic Everywoman, namely the energies and insights of the women who have come before me all the way back to Sarah.  (In fact, one reading of Eishet Chayil is as the eulogy Abraham said for Sarah before he buried her.)  It may be a span of thousands of years between me and my first mother but it’s not more than around 175 generations.  That’s not an impossible divide.  I want some of the wisdom and joy of the women between the two of us.  I now know how far from the truth my youthful stereotype of the shtetel Bubby – naïve, somewhat simple, lacking emotional subtlety – is.  Today I’d love to have her over for brunch and glean her insights and tools on how to handle my life.  The same goes for all the women throughout those interceding generations each of who has her own shining letter from the Alphabet-Soup of Perfection to impart to me.  As their daughter and grand-daughter I am bound with their point of perfection.  Thereby, at some level, despite the fact that I’m no Supermom, Eishet Chayil is in my home each Friday night.  More so I even carry her, the collective “Everywoman”, within my own being.

In this way, I gain access to a dimension of myself that is way beyond my highest personal aspirations for if the totality of who I can be is purely a result of my own endeavors; I will be very small indeed.  Rather, it is in surrendering to my imperfections and humbly admitting the bigness of Eishet Chayil that I open the window to the full expanse of who I am.

But to me, the collective gestalt of Jewish womanhood embodied by Eishet Chayil allows us even more than access to this larger, truer self.  In addition to this priceless gift, she affords us the possibility to reconfigure our relationship with our mothers.  I know, easier said than done.  The most potent reaction I ever got to a presentation was a lecture called, “Moms, the Magic and the Madness.”  The audience – and yours truly – wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or weep.  Our relationship with our mothers is incomparably multi-dimensional, complex, overlaid with love and with anger.  It’s a real big one to navigate but one which we are nonetheless expected to manage and even heal.

It’s not that we can disregard the relationship if it’s uncomfortable for us.  “Honor your father and mother” made it to fifth on the list of the Big Ten!  Yet for many, this instruction on how we ought to relate to our parents is something they find absurd.  I can hear the disdain: “My Mom hangs out at the gym all day and gossips non-stop.  She’s dishonest in business, self-centered – nay narcissistic – and materialistic.  She never had the courage to face her wounds so I get to be the beneficiary of her dysfunctional inheritance!  Yadda, yadda…”  Alright, this is Everymom we’re talking about.  But you get the idea.  How are we to honor and respect our Moms despite their often startling imperfections?

Ultimately the reason we honor them has nothing to do with their personal or moral stature.  G-d’s directive is rooted in the fact that at the moment of conception, our parents take on something of the Divine.  They become co-creators with G-d in bringing us into being.  That’s why honor of our parents is immutable.  It’s not about the gym or manicures, how they do or don’t pay taxes and show up in life.  It’s about the fact that in relation to us they are G-dlike in a certain respect.  That’s the ground-zero of honoring our parents and until we get it most nothing else we say or hear will be of use to us in moving the relationship forward.

But this immutable point of greatness aside, each Friday night Eishet Chayil reminds us of two key ideas which can change the way we negotiate our very first relationship.  The first is that, as mentioned, none of us is perfect – and that’s okay!  The second is that in some mysterious way we can, if we choose to, receive what we need through the collective Everywoman.  In this way, we learn to lower the bar on our mothers.  We don’t have to hold them to an impossible standard.  Whew!  In fact we can begin to accept our mother for who she is and learn to get our needs met elsewhere if she is not able to do so.  We can stop blaming our unhappiness on someone who would not – or more accurately could not – come to the table in the way we needed her to.  Eishet Chayil, Everywoman, becomes a reservoir of healing and nourishment for our being.

Through this forgiving of her for her imperfections, we become able to put down the aspects of our own emotional and mental inheritance we’d rather do without.  One of the first things we learn about our father Abraham is that he smashed his parents’ idols!  I am embarrassed to admit it but it was only well into my thirties that I realized I had to do the same.  I’d spent decades bowing to my folks’ false beliefs, accepting it as fact that I was doomed for time everlasting to live with the limitations those beliefs generated.  Then one day the teaching about Abraham took hold in my mind with a vigorous vitality.  I took an inventory of what I’d inherited.  In addition to the abundant goodness and wonder, it included beliefs about how much I was likely to earn, how to respond when angered, what the appropriate response to suffering is, who I am and a whole lot more.  I trust you get what I’m talking about.  How liberating to realize that I could systematically smash those idols – without betraying my parents!!  I was not being faithless to them in subscribing to different truths and happiness.

The catch in doing so is to disown the false beliefs yet remain in the relationship.  Abraham smashed Terach’s idols but he continued to live with him – for another seventy-two years.  Granted Terach came round to Abraham’s way of thinking but our first father would have managed to negotiate the relationship regardless.  I believe that is because connection with G-d was the singular driving force in his life and as such he was able to a) see his father’s flaws but b) not take them personally and c) not feel limited by them, thereby being able to d) detach with love so that he could e) actually help Terach.  He was able to not own another’s dysfunction and yet remain connected to the one he loved.

To accomplish this mode of conduct, we must discover a new mental set and learn to shift our reading of the events and relationships in our lives.  Most of our pain in relation to our parents (and pretty much everything else) has to do with our own perception.  We interpret things to mean what they are not.  As such, we tend to live in the rather unhappy space between the way things are and the way we think they should be.  We walk around confessing the sins of G-d and others in our life.  And of course, we know our mothers’ sins best of all!  To be whole with her, we must find that new mental set which allows us to let go of the expectations we have of her as well as of our interpretation of the interactions between us.  For me, Eishet Chayil enables me to at least begin to navigate this.  It teaches me that I am not perfect but that that’s okay – and the same goes for my Mom; that I no longer have to hold her to an impossible standard; and that I can be enriched by my universal family of sisters and mothered by generations of women whose sterling qualities are inestimable.  In other words, although I’m not Supermom I have access to the superlative perfection of Everywoman.  Turns out that Jewish-Tiger-Mom liberates me through the abundant truth that although none of us is perfect, we have access to a flawlessness that is way beyond pearls.

Written for, "More Precious than Pearls," edited by Mark Pearlman.  Check out his site   Sinai Live

Transformation Through Self-Expression

Sefirat Ha'omer, Part VII

By Shimona Tzukernik

The African image that most captured my imagination in school was the repeated theme of a body with a head at either end of the torso. It's really a sculpture of a woman giving birth as the baby's head emerges. In some ways, the two-headed torso is the exact opposite of the more Eastern image of a snake eating its tail. The latter prompts one to think about disappearing. The former is all about self-expression.

 Whilst we all desire self-actualization and the ability or forum to express ourselves, on the whole we humans resist being the crowning infant. We want to be the top head, to come in first, have our name up in lights. Our sages advise us, "Better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a fox." But seriously, how many people can you think of who pick up on that?

 

The "bottom end" of life is something we shun in our search for fame and importance. Our leaders position themselves as heads but are by far and wide the rattled ends not of a lion's, but a fox's tail. That aside, let's not project. We needn't look outward. We need just look at ourselves to find testimony to the predilection to take the lead no matter what, and at all costs. Whether in a personal relationship where we want to be the one dictating the rules, at work or at play, we're consistently aiming to be the top head of the sculpture.

 

That's sad. I don't say it in a judgmental or abstractly philosophical way. I mean it for real. The orientation prevents us from becoming who we're really meant to be. It also prevents us from fulfilling our true purpose in the word because, as we will see, it is precisely in the bottom head that our ultimate raison d'être and power lie.

 

The crowing head of an emerging infant epitomizes the last of the soul's inner powers. In Hebrew, that ability of the soul is called Malchut which literally means "sovereignty." It is the place that we first begin to reveal our inner selves to the world. Through giving expression to our self, we gain the opportunity to be a shining light. We can become leaders the moment we put ourselves out there. That's why the sphere of Malchut is also associated with royalty and dignity. It connotes all the wonder that comes with the expression of our truest self.

 Kabbalistically this soul power is associated with the bottom of the body, the very "crown" of the reproductive organs – the corona in the male and the labia in the female – and with the appearance of the head of the child.

 In this light Malchut, or self-expression, embodies a contradiction. It is the lowest of the soul powers yet the birth point of an entirely new reality. This is only possible because its root is higher than any of the previous six core emotions or three minds. Its origin is the highest, most abstract dimension of the soul, our spiritual unconscious. That's why the emergence of the baby's head is called crowning. The top of its head breaking through the bottom of the mother's body reflects her crown both in terms of the physical fontanel and so too the point where her consciousness is so high it ceases to function in the way we generally associate with regular awareness.

 That's the contradiction.

 The newness that is born of self-expression is entirely dependent on what's come before it. Self-expression brings us to the front door of why we're here but cannot exist without all the other abilities that inform it. And although it manifests last, it precedes all the other abilities in terms of its spiritual source.

 It is for this reason that our sages tell us that the soul power of royalty "has nothing of her own." Like

the moon who receives from the sun and illuminates the night, your ability to manifest in the world must first absorb the totality of who you. Only then can it shine outwards. Before you can be in the world in a powerful, dignified way, you'll have to choose to open yourself to all of who you are, from the crown of your supra-conscious, through mindfulness and love and respect, all the way down to your ability to bond with another. You can reveal who you are to the world only by virtue of absorbing into yourself the other nine powers of your soul.

 These nine powers need Malchut, self-expression, because they are essentially each only a part of a bigger whole. When you manage to communicate them to the world, you are synthesizing them and bringing them to actualization. In the process, you become whole and actualized because your true self is built from each of the previous abilities.

 

The soul powers associated with the left side of the tree of life – analysis, restraint or respect, and humility – flow downwards, guiding you to manifest and lead first and foremost on the basis of fear of heaven. In order to become the influencer and leader you are capable of being, you must first be open to receiving from the Supreme Leader, G‑d. Only then, from a place of humility, is leadership of the sort that people will accept. Leadership that is built upon self-abnegation becomes powerful. It is by virtue of putting aside your ego and being willing to be the "bottom head" that your soul can ascend to its highest source.

 

Next comes the right axis of the tree – creative brainstorming or conceptualizing, love and ambition. They bring to self-actualization the expansive and embracing love that leadership needs in order to flourish. Without these embracing, inclusive and celebrating components, you cannot facilitate growth for others. So first comes awe, then love. When you are open to incorporating these qualities without an agenda as to "being first" or doing things one way or another then you become the kind of person others love to be around. You manifest as a leader with dignity who can inspire true renewal for others.

 

Finally comes the highest synthesis of all, that within the third and central column of the mystical map of the soul – the Tree of Life. It is an axis of which self-expression is itself a part. The abilities on this central branch are our supra-conscious, our ability to deeply internalize and intimately know things, our heart-empathic center and our ability to bond. Each of these needs the Malchut in order to become whole. And with the marriage of the upper and lower dimensions of your being, you are able to fully manifest who you are in potential.

 

It is a merging akin to that of man and woman. Just as a woman receives from her husband thereby giving birth to the child, so too your ability to convey who you are to the world now gives birth to a new reality. Think of turning the sculpture upside down. The infant becomes the crown of the mother, herself birthing a new child. Counter-intuitively, self-expression happens through putting one's self aside. When you do that, you can give birth to a new reality both for your soul and for the world.

 What you give birth to are what Kabbalah calls the "garments of the soul," namely thought, speech and action. Now whereas we have relatively little control over our inner makeup, we have all the control in the world – and all the accountability – in mastering our "outsides." Each of us is expected to mentally focus only on those concepts that G‑d approves of. Our speech is required to be refined and holy. So too our actions.

 You don't choose to be born a person who is innately gifted in love or awe. You're born expansive or contractive, more intellectually or emotionally inclined. Maybe you're a rationalist or a mystic. These orientations are a result of our inner soul structure. That's G‑d given and each of us must utilize our gifts and attempt to minimize our weaknesses. But you don't really get to choose whether to be that way or not. Yes, it's possible to change your personality. But it's highly improbable.

 Where you do have the freedom of choice is in how you're going to put that all out there in the world. At any given moment you can decide to think one thing or another. You can say a kind or cutting word. You can act from ego or non-ego. Thought, speech and action are called "garments" for precisely that reason. You can take them off or put them on at will. Here, in the arena of your soul garments, your "outsides," get to exercise free choice.

 This is what Malchut gives birth to – the core, the essence of why we're here. It's not really our inner being that's the goal. We're here to help G‑d out and bring redemption. That's done through refining the matter of the universe which is in turn accomplished through the commandments. We fulfill them through thought, speech and action. So it is in the garments of the soul and through self-expression that we accomplish our ultimate purpose.

 We're culturally trained to think otherwise: The "lowly commandments" are "petty details" that pale in comparison with being in the flow! But that's just not true. Living a meaningful life is not so much about self-actualization as it is about helping G‑d out, on His terms. Mistakenly, we focus on the glory of being on top, being spiritual and enlightened. We dismiss being empty, receiving, doing small acts of kindness that change the world bottom-up.

 How mistaken.

 It's in the place we resist that we touch our purpose. Sure we want to be the first head and never the baby at the bottom. But right there, in the "lowest" dimension of the soul, we gain access to its highest point. More importantly, it's through this "lowest" of soul powers that we get done what we're here to do in the first place. Jews do not eschew the mundane. We celebrate matter and even – or rather particularly – the lowest dimensions of who we are.

 I got to thinking about this some years back when one of my soul sisters celebrated her daughter's bat mitzvah. She asked us to think about which woman in Jewish history we most admire and aspire to be like, or who had most influenced our course in life. I thought about it a lot.

 As I mentally scanned the women of the Bible and Talmud, I felt humbled by how far away I am from what they embody. I was searching for the person who on the one hand stood for something beyond me but on the other was someone I could relate to in an empirical kind of way. I came to the party still undecided. As I sat at the table with all the beautiful women and their breathtaking daughters, all of us sharing our hopes and points of reference with ancient women who called to us across time, I was struck by how wondrous the "ordinary" is. How many women throughout thousands of years had sat as we were, sharing and trying to come closer to what G‑d wants of us? I felt such an affinity with them. And in that moment, I felt that my personal aspiration was to be like Bilhah and Zilpah, the two half-sisters of Rachel and Leah, wives of Jacob.

 These two women are also mothers of our people but not generally referred to as such. I was taken by the sense of how much they were willing to put aside an agenda, to simply receive. Thereby they became the mothers of six tribes. They are tribes that are hidden until the coming of Mashiach. I think those tribes are like their mothers, silent and non-egotistic, willing to wait and receive before giving birth to a new age.

 Of course I want to be like Sarah and Esther and Miriam and Deborah and…the list goes on and on. It feels a little uncomfortable to admit it being that I'm so far from what they embody. But I'm certain that one of my biggest stumbling blocks is that I need to be more like Bilhah and Zilpah. I need to take in their lesson before I can approach something higher. The first step is to stop insisting on being at the forefront. I want to be willing to be the one given birth to. Then I'll become a mother.

 

This is the intent of the words of King David. He tells us, "This is the gate to G‑d, the righteous shall enter through it."1 Self-expression is that gate. First comes the surrendering of ego, the willingness to simply receive, then comes the synthesizing of all the building blocks, and finally you get to cross the threshold of G‑d's gate.

 

FOOTNOTES

1. Pslam 118:20

 This article was originally posted on www.thejewishwoman.org