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Coming Back to Ourselves
The term "Teshuvah" is often translated as repentance. However a more accurate translation is "returning". The term Teshuvah is not only used by our Sages to describe a state of mind when we wish to repar some misdeed, but it is also also used to describe a higher state of spiritual consciousness than we had previously attained. So the question we need to ask is, how is achieving a higher consciousness considered as a "return"?
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The Divine Providence and I
The Purpose of Creation seems remote from us. Even though we may understand intellectually that God's ultimate purpose is to give us pleasure this is so far removed from our everyday experience that it seems irrelevant. But this is not the case. All that happens to us and all that we choose is in fact the consequence of the Purpose of the Creation unfolding right within our lives
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Blessed Be his Glorious Name
We respond to the first words of the Shema with the whisper "Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuto leOlam Vaed." The Zohar teaches that it is this response of ours that changes the challenges into opportunities and the desert into a fruitful habitation.
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The Third Root Mitzvah: Shema Yisrael
This mitzvah, the first one we are taught as Jewish children and the last one we will enact when we die, follows naturally on from the previous two, those of fearing to be separate from God and of loving God. It brings forth feelings into action and affirms the unity of God to ourselves and to others...
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Loving God 3: Loving God in good times and in bad.
Acknowledging the One's goodness to us isn't easy, yet it comes more naturally when we are enjoying good times. When we are suffering it may be difficult but surprisingly enough even our friends can show us the way. However it is important not to deny our suffering, which is why we need to combine our love with the fear of being separated from God. Loving God unconditionally gives us a chance to love the One the way He loves us...
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Loving God talk 2: Loving God as Noah did or as Abraham did
Noah walked with God; that is he needed God's support in order to come to love the One. But Abraham walked on ahead, says the Bible, and was whole. Whole in love. What does it mean for us today to love God in the way that Noah, the father of humanity did, or as Abraham did?
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Loving God, The second root mitzvah:
Is it at all possible? What does love mean? Can one command a feeling? These are questions we start to address as we learn the Zohar on the second commandment, that of loving God..
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Yirat HaShem 3: True Yirah vs. false fear
Yirat HaShem, actually means the fear of doing anything that will cause me to become separated from the Divine. Both the Divine within and the Divine without. This is not a theoretical issue, but one which actually forms both the beginning, and the ongoing experience of the most important relationship we have.
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Yirat HaShem 2-The very beginning and basis of our relationship with the Divine
Yirat HaShem, actually means the fear of doing anything that will cause me to become separated from the Divine. Both the Divine within and the Divine without. This is not a theoretical issue, but one which actually forms both the beginning, and the ongoing experience of the most important relationship we have.
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Yirat HaShem- the fear of being separated from the Divine
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai the author/compiler of the Zohar the central book of the Kabbalah, teaches that there are 14 root mitzvot or prescribed commandments, pieces of advice if you like, which enable us to come closer to the Divine. Of them all, the first and most basic one is Yirat HaShem, erroneously translated as fear of God. In fact it is the beginning of wisdom, knowledge and faith...
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Expecting a Reward
We have all been in the situation where we have given wholeheartedly to someone or to a cause, yet the recognition or appreciation of our efforts simply hasn't come through. Although our feelings of hurt are only too human we need to know that giving unconditionally, without getting a reward, was built into the very beginning of the Creation.
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Dealing with dilemmas
Have you ever found yourself in the uncomfortable position of being asked to do more than you really can? Of feeling afraid to say no when you know deep within you that what you are being asked to deal with is a bit beyond your capability? Interestingly enough, this is the very position the highest spiritual entity in the very first of the spiritual worlds found itself in…
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Further on Decisions
Sometimes life presents me with a situation which seems impossible to resolve. When sharing this with a friend I realized that this experience is not unique and I couldn’t help wondering why? The Creator created the worlds with increasing concealment in order to give human beings free choice. Yedidah continues this discussion by looking at where freedom of choice really lies, based on Rabbi Ashlag’s article on “Freedom”.
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Decisions
The Holy Master the Baal Shem Tov teaches us that before we make any move we need to consider ourselves as having infinite free choice. After the event we need to consider that the move we chose was the one God wanted us to choose. I considered this statement carefully. Does it match with my experience? I have to say it doesn’t. Before any event it feels as if I have one or maybe two choices available, certainly not a whole array of choices. I decided I need to go into this matter more carefully. After all, if a mere computer has a large number of choices just playing one move in a game of chess, how is it that I, a human being who is far more complex and sophisticated and dealing with life itself should have less?
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The meaning of the Akedah
The great Kabbalist, the Ari informs us that the essence of God is unknowable. Even the highest angels have no conception of Him as He is in Himself, as He has no Name.
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Where I am and where I'd like to be
The body and the soul have three main channels to them,according to the way the Divine channels, the Sephirot, line up. These are the right hand line, the left hand line, and the middle line. Our consciousness also lines up similarly, the right hand line being the consciousness of wholeness and perfection, that all is just as it should be, and the left hand line being the consciousness of where I really am. Which consciousness should I focus on? Which one is more real?
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