Amazing news, outright miracles

I have beyond incredible news – Reb Shimon Arush and his family – all four of them – left the hospital today!!! Outright miracles!!!

That being said, it is not easy. The family still needs treatments (I don’t know details) and physical support, especially since neither parent is strong and healthy enough to deal with 2 healthy kids, let alone 2 sick kids just out of the hospital. Additionally, emotionally, now the reality of little Faige Chana z”l is really hitting them – I spoke today with Daniela, and my husband with Reb Shimon, and both of us felt the same thing after getting off the phone – they both sounded really weak, like we could hardly hear them. Hardly themselves. But Reb Shimon was really strong with my husband: “Rak Todah. Rak Todah” – “Only thank you.”

I hear Harav in my head over and over again: thank you Hashem that the rest of the family is alive. That in the merit of Faige Chana z”l who was taken as a korban for all of Klal Yisrael, they are alive to live through the suffering in the first place. Alive. And out of the hospital. To not deny the good done for us, in our pain over the loss.

Harav Arush was very strong in his shiur tonight – one way or another, a person must speak to Hashem. If you are not at the level of emuna to say thank you for everything, OK. So go to Hashem and say “It hurts me. It is hard for me. I don’t understand. Give me emuna. Give me the emuna to say thank you.” But go to Hashem!!! And to focus on your will – maybe you can't do something. But go to Hashem and say “I WANT to do this.” The only true free choice (bechira) that we have is our will, our good desires. The success (or failure) is only up to Hashem, but we can choose what we want, what we yearn for.

Holy yearning is the highest thing. In a class for Rebbe Nachman’s yahrtzeit a few years ago, Rabbi Arush spoke about the tremendous importance of good will and yearning for holiness, for emuna, for Hashem. The yearning creates angels which run around the world. A person can run into that angel, and suddenly, they wake up and desire what you yearned for! Even the biggest rasha (evil person), if he runs into that good will you created, and he has just a single thought of teshuva – just a thought! (hirhur) of doing teshuva – all his sins are erased, and now he can truly do teshuva because he doesn’t have harsh judgments on him. In the next world, you get the merit of this person doing teshuva, and you’re like – I don’t know him! Yes, but he did teshuva because of your desire!!!

So don’t get frustrated if you want to do something, and it’s not your level. You want to thank Hashem and not deny the good He did in healing Reb Shimon’s family, but you just can't get over the pain of losing Faige Chana z”l. It’s OK. Ask Hashem to give you that level, to give you complete emuna, to help you not kick the suffering and deny the good. Want to be at that level, and do your very best to thank Hashem. So you wanted to do that mitzvah, and you could not. Don’t let the Evil Inclination get you down – your holy will, and prayers to fulfill that mitzvah in the future are so precious. More precious, in fact, than even doing that mitzvah without will. In whatever you do or don’t accomplish, the main thing is the will!

Turn Around!

I had a funny occurrence this week. I read and speak Hebrew quite well actually, but the weird cursive fonts used on some packaging can still be very confusing. A particular brand name had me confused forever – it just didn’t make sense and I knew I had it wrong, but didn’t know how to pronounce it. As I was doing hitbodedut earlier in the week, I suddenly saw the package and realized that I didn’t know what it said because I had been reading it with a peh and really it was a shin (in cursive, they are basically the same shape, just the direction is reversed – one faces right, and the other faces left). Once I realized that I had the opposite letter, it read easily and it made sense!

So there I was, thinking – “OK Hashem, why this now, in my hitbodedut, while I'm trying to do chesbon hanefesh (spiritual accounting of my actions)?” The answer was apparently obvious once I asked it – clearly there are things in my life, and everyone’s life, that we cannot understand. They just don’t make sense. We try to wrap our minds around it, and we just end up more confused. What’s the problem? We are looking at the problem from the exact opposite angle of the truth – just like from one direction it is a peh, but see it from the other direction (ie flip it around) and you get a shin. I am looking po (here, seeing myself, the “I” or the ego) and the truth is understandable once you look shama (there, seeing Hashem).

And this is where we make our mistakes, and this is why the essential and most important aspect of doing teshuva is turning around. If G-d forbid we’re facing away from Hashem, then everything we see will be backwards. And unfortunately sometimes it does sorta look like it makes sense, even backwards, but we’re not seeing the truth at all. We have to first turn and face Hashem, and be willing to honestly look at our lives and where we are holding, and where it is leading us. Here are some simple examples, generalizations from my own life, Hashem has helped me see recently:

-I am so frustrated with my husband not filling his responsibilities, and he really isn’t! But I can't see that the pushing is making everything worse, just like the rubber band that bounces back the tighter you pull it…and as I am learning Women’s Wisdom (enter the importance of the good advice of the tzaddik in your life!!!) and working on appreciating him per the advice in his book. Everything is turning around so quickly, because instead of looking at my husband, I'm focusing on myself AND working on appreciating him, and now I see that he has been doing so much all this time, even if it wasn’t everything I expected…and big surprise, admitting that I am not fulfilling all of my responsibilities 100% either. All I had to do was turn around to see that the situation was the exact opposite of what I thought it was.

-I used to think that people holding this or that chumra were insane. Now that I'm sitting and learning pashut Halacha, I see that many things I thought were chumrot are not at all. In actuality, I was holding by many, many heterim, albeit that everyone around me also holds – but they aren’t the simple halachah. They are incredible leniencies that I can clearly see result in many halachic problems because people inevitably use (and I know they are using) the gaping holes created by them in ways the heter does not expect, and in some things, people aren’t even holding by the heter – the heter is being used in conditions that are clearly against the original conditions in the original teshuva that people are supposedly holding by! I am changing my life in big ways just to hold by the Shulchan Aruch plain and simple (as Rabbi Arush says – halevai, if only every person could just follow the Shulchan Aruch simply, forget one single chumra! And Rabbi Nachman requires everyone to learn Halacha every day, if only 2 halachot a day, for this reason as well – how can you hope to fulfill the Torah if you are not learning what you need to fulfill?). I thought the truth was one thing, but I see that it is the exact opposite.

Humility in teshuva

Harav Arush stresses the importance of 30-60 minutes daily of cheshbon hanefesh (but no more or you might get depressed!), which cannot be superseded by anything, not even thanking Hashem! This time is important because in doing teshuva daily, we clean our souls every day. This helps us be happy because without strict judgments, things go smoother and faster in our lives. Additionally, we can actually do proper teshuva because we generally (hopefully, even with “pregnancy/nursing brain”!) remember what we did in the last 24 hours, from the last hitbodedut to the current one, to confess and speak to Hashem about everything we did. If we just try to do so Erev Rosh Hashanah and Erev Yom Kippur, how could we possibly hope to remember everything we need to confess?! And the more detailed the teshuva, the greater the future impact. Besides which asking Hashem for help with a particular chesron is of course much more potent than just asking for help once a year! It’s like cleaning your clothes – clean them when they are hardly dirty after one wear and they can be in good working order for years, always fresh and clean. Clean the same shirt only once a year after wearing after day and well, what is going to be with that shirt? A quick gentle cycle isn’t going to get it clean anymore, is it? And instead of mostly only needing water (which is Torah and prayer, sweet teshuva) you are going to need lots of soap and harsh detergents and G-d knows what suffering to get clean.

OK so here I am, now trying to start doing 30 minutes a day. And I start talking to Hashem about how hard it is! After all, I remember hearing way back when from rabbis who said people nowadays should not even try to do a real cheshbon hanefesh because we are too weak in this generation, we will just fall into depression if we see how low we are. Rabbi Nachman does not agree, vehemently so – this is just another example of pandering to the lowest part of a person instead of strengthening them to do the right thing. But truly, if cheshbon hanefesh can indeed make a person fall into all sorts of self-blame and frustrations, then it definitely does more harm than good. So I asked Hashem to help me do it properly.

Suddenly I realized, and this is the point: The problem with self-blame is actually that I think I should be at A, and when I discover that really I am at B, I will be upset with myself, blaming myself, how could I be only at B? What’s wrong with me? Etc Etc. But this is actually a sheker, a lie based on geiva, arrogance. It is arrogant to believe that I should be at A instead of B, because who am I anyway, that I should be in any particular place?

But it is really so much deeper than that. The truth is: WHO CARES WHERE I AM??? HASHEM DOES NOT!!!

Hashem does not care that a person is at level A or B, high or low. Hashem cares only that each person on their level 1. Knows there level and is happy with it and 2. Strives to go up, to come even closer to Him.

That is it! No more. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you have done, or what place you may find yourself in now. Not at all! Hashem does not care. He only cares that you are truthful with Him about where you are, where you are holding, what your actions, thoughts and feelings are – and that you want, strive and pray to do better!

Hashem loves you just the same, no matter what your level is. In fact, He actually loves you more and is more proud of you for coming to Him with humility as outlined above, as opposed to being angry or upset that you aren’t someone else on someone else’s level, because the former is truth and the latter is falsehood and arrogance, which Hashem hates. And if you fall into complaining about being on a particular level, oy va voy.

And with this new understanding that I have NOTHING to be upset or ashamed about whatsoever! And Hashem loves me very much on my level, trying to be honest and come closer to Him! Then I was able to honestly speak about what I am struggling with without the shame that has kept my mouth shut until now.

I hope it helps you too!!!