Feeling Joy without arrogance

I finished a treatment last week and smiled. It was a good treatment: there was a lot of power in the room, I had felt a very clear disharmony in the patient's cranial rhythms and was able to return it to proper functioning, and the client was one who I had a personal stake in the treatment's success. It was a patient who is well connected in the local community and I knew that if I was able to give him a successful treatment, it could directly benefit my business.

When the patient left the room, I pumped my fist and smiled a broad smile and said "I did it!" Then I paused and checked in on myself. I hadn't done it. God had done it. The power, the clear vision, the healing the patient felt happened as a result of God working through me, and working directly on the patient. But here I was taking credit for it.

I'm a person who has long struggled with arrogance. In my youth, I think it was a defense mechanism: if I was better than everyone else, then I didn't need to work hard or measure myself by their measures. So if I failed at something, it wouldn't matter to me. Like most things, I think it was generated out of fear. In particular, a fear of not being the best - of not succeeding. So rather than trying and failing, I found a way to convince myself that I didn't need to try. And then, if I failed, I could always say that I failed because I didn't try, but if I had tried, I could have succeeded. I know now that it did matter a great deal to me, but back then I didn't have the tools to succeed, so I fashioned an attitude which allowed me to fail and not feel bad about it. It was neat little knot I had tied myself in.

These days, I'm always worried that the arrogance will come back. So when I find myself taking too much credit for a good treatment, I feel the need to do some introspection. The first place I look is at my fears. I knew there was a small fear that my business wouldn't succeed, but that's always there. I think that I need that fear of business failure needed to keep me motivated to keep working on my business.

There was also the fear that I am not a good practitioner. Again, the fear of not being proficient is necessary to keep me growing. But what I saw was that alongside this fear was my Yetzer haRah (urge to self-destruction). The fear opened a small place inside me when the Yetzer HaRah started telling me to beat myself up over taking joy in a good treatment.

It was an interesting energetic thing - I was not criticizing myself for the quality of my treatment, I was going after myself for my reaction to the treatment. The patient received a good treatment. His symptoms were lessened, and he was in a much better place when he left then when he came.

My feeling on how to overcome the Yetzer HaRah is to be aware of it. I haven't found a lot of traditional sources for ways to deal with it energetically. Most places simply talk about suppressing it or overcoming it, but not much on how to actually do that. I treat it much the same as fear: know when it's present and be aware of it. Then you can decided to listen or not to listen to it, but it no longer has any power over you.

In this case, it was trying to lead me down an old path so that I get caught up in myself and stop moving forward. There is no fault in taking joy in a job well done as long as I realize my role in the treatment and don't take credit for the parts in which I had no part. The tricky part is that this moment can lead me down two opposite bad directions: either getting arrogant and taking all the credit for the treatment, or taking no credit at all and beating myself up for feeling joy. The delicate middle path is where I ended up, but I had to sort out where the energies and inclinations were coming from.

My next post will be about the role of the healer in the healing which was also a result of the same moment as this post.

The tensions that move us forward

I've been thinking more about the Ba'al Shem Tov's tips for perpetual growth - sowing tears and harvesting joy (though he really just focuses on the tears). I have been taught that one of the differences between Judaism and many eastern religions is that in Judaism there is no concept of becoming enlightened. In Judaism, there is a dynamic tension created between the world as it is and the world as it could be. We are always trying to find ways to do tikkun in the world, and, more importantly, on ourselves. The Ba'al Shem Tov is outlining one of the methods for using that tension to continue to grow.

(As a side note, the goal of all of this tikkun is to repair the world so that the messiah can come. My personal feeling is that when the messiah gets here, no one will notice. We will bring about the messianic age bit by bit and tear by tear. We repair the world slowly, as we repair ourselves gradually. There will be no huge event when the messiah comes, no great jump forward, he will just show up and, God willing, be like everyone else. The messiah is not a person who will come to save us, we will save ourselves and thus bring the messiah to us.)

I have been spending some time looking at my life and seeing the tensions that drive me forward. I am old enough to start seeing patterns in my behavior and to see that many issues in my life return after I thought I had dealt with them. I have changed my focus now in how I follow the patterns of my life. What I am looking for now is the tensions that create those issues. A clear example is my marriage. I can see the differences between my wife and I that create friction, but they also drive us to deepen and strengthen our relationship. Though the will probably never be resolved, they push us both forward to become better people.

I would suggest to everyone to take a moment and consider the recurrent issues in your lives, and then examine the tensions that create those issues. Are there tensions that create growth? Are there tensions that create self-destructive behavior? Are there tensions in which you get to choose a nourishing or a destructive path? The next step is to strengthen the tensions that force us to grow, and get out of the destructive ones. The goal is not to become enlightened, but to meet the tensions with wisdom and grow from them. To give power to those things which help us to do Tikkun, and take the power away from those things that lead us to Yetzer ha-Rah (evil inclination).

Mishnah Berachot 5:5 - R. Hanina's Healing

There is a very interesting mishnah about healing found in Berachot mishnah 5:5 (translation is mine):

Some who prays and makes a mistake: it's a bad sign for him. If the prayer leader [shaliah tzibur – emissary of the public] makes a mistake, it's a bad sign for all who are led because those who send an emissary are just like him. It's it said of rabbi Hanina ben Dosa that when he would pray for the sick, he would then say: this one will live, and this one will die. The said to him: From where do you know? He said to them: if the prayer is fluent in my mouth, and I know that it will be received, but if not, I know he will be consumed by the illness [literally torn apart or devoured].

My first response to this was of course that's how it is. If R. Hanina was connected to God, he will know when his prayers are having an effect and when they aren't. By connecting to the sick person and then praying, he knows if the person can heal or not.

I had a teacher in school who described a certain type of pulse that indicated that the patient would die in the next few days, and that he had felt this pulse in the past and the patient did pass away soon after. When I asked another teacher about it, he described a different pulse, but said it doesn't work that way in reality, only in theory. I asked a third teacher, and she said that was bunk, she'd worked on terminal patients who died shortly after she saw them and she felt nothing in the pulse. My conclusion was that the first teacher had a gift for knowing when a person would die, and the tool he used for it was the pulse.

Similarly, R. Hanina had a gift for knowing when a person would recover or die, and the tool he used was how well his prayer for the patient came out of mouth.

People have different “tells” for when the spirit world is communicating with them. When I started this work, my tell was pressure on the left side of my head. Whenever there was spiritual energy in the room, my head would feel like someone was pressing on the side. Others feel it in different places in their bodies, or they just know. After a while, I learned to distinguish between my imagined or internal feelings, and those that were connected to the spirit world. At first I relied solely on my “tell”, but after a while, I started to recognize the qualitative difference in my feelings.

R. Hanina's “tell” was how well his mouth worked when he said the prayer. The text asks "From where do you know this?" R. Hanina answer is a response to this question, and he is telling us about his indicator or "tell" for his receiving a message from the spirit world and God. It is unclear if is when he said the prayer itself or just the person's name, though he knew that if he stumbled during one of them, the prognosis was poor.

Praising the growing, not the growth

From the Sefer Ba'al Shem Tov , Mishpatim 16.
Below is my translation and then my interpretation.

It is based on Psalm 126:

(1) A Song of ascents.
When the lord restores the fortunes of Zion
--We see it as a dream --
(2) our mouths shall be filled with laughter,
our tongues, with songs of joy.
Then shall they say among the nations,
"The Lord has done great things for them!"
(3) The Lord will do great things for us,
and we shall rejoice

(4) Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
Like waterways in the Negev.
(5) They who sow in tears
Shall reap with songs of joy.
(6) though he goes along weeping,
carrying the seed bag (or spreading the seeds he carries),
he shall come back with songs of joy,
carrying his sheaves.

The Ba'al Shem Tov teaches:

If he walks from [spiritual] step to [spiritual] step and desires to achieve more, he is really like the Ayn Sof (without end - a name of God) in that there is no end to his potential. Thus is the man who has the attribute to obtain the stream that comes from Ayn Sof.

But the man who says I have enough in what I can learn. This is not success only straw and hay which are klipot (shells - spiritual blocks).

And the explanation of the verse: "(6) though he goes along weeping" is that it says that if he wants to walk from [spiritual] step to [spiritual] step then all that he has obtained is already not enough for him. This is the "carrying/spreading the seed bag," that Ayn Sof has given him.

Thus someone who says "He shall come back", as if he has already been to top of the steps, and he is in "joy" all the time. And who says my soul is at peace because he has learned a lot of Torah, and doesn't need any more. This is "carrying his sheaves", and they are nothing but straw and hay.


My interpretation is more cyclic. You need to keep walking, keep searching for knowledge. Keep spreading and sowing seeds to rise up from step to step. Otherwise, in the passage of time, you will be left with only the fruits of the harvest - straw and hay. Because if you stop planting, the straw and hay will soon be used up or be blown away. And you will be left with nothing.

The cycle is sown with tears and harvested with joy. To grow, we need to look to our tears. To find the frustrations and short-comings in our learning and practice so we can grow. If not, we will soon find ourselves surrounded with only dead straw, with no young plants to nourish us in the future.

When a person is always happy, he is not moving forward. Each challenge in life follows this cycle: we get frustrated with ourselves about something so we work hard to grow in the area. At some point, something happens to make us realize how much we have grown and find we are no longer frustrated in the same way. A wise person meets their problems with wisdom and grows. A fool doesn't engage in their problems and doesn't grow. A wise person welcomes the cycle of tears and joy, but looks for the tears always knowing that there is further to go.

I am reminded of an article on how to praise children by Carol Dweck. She would say that one should praise oneself and others for the process of growing, for the tears, rather than for the accomplishment, the joy. I think the Ba'al Shem Tov would subscribe to her philosophy - he praises us in the teaching above for always striving to be better, not for the success in having grown.

After a Spiritual Journey: Bread and Wine

I heard a wonderful teaching today from my teacher Avraham: according to Jewish tradition, when a person returns from a mercavah journey, having visited the heavenly palaces, and stood in the presence of God, the best thing to do is to eat and drink.

To me, this is pure technique: when someone has been meditating deeply or journeying, one of the best ways to ground oneself and bring oneself fully back to the physical world is to eat.

In Genesis 15:18, during the meeting of Avraham Avinu and King Melchizedek of Salem, we are told that "Malchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine". He then gives Avraham avinu a blessing.

Another story Avraham my teacher relayed was of a Hasidic rabbi who was known to rise up to the heavenly realm during prayer. He had a hasid (disciple) who's job it was to hand the Rabbi bread and butter when he finished praying so that he could return fully to this world.

I believe there is another textual source, but haven't been able to find it yet. I'll post when I do.

Gevurot Geshamim

Sometimes it seems that I am led to certain topics. The latest is Gevurot Geshamim, גבורות גשמים, the strength/powers of the rain. At the end of Sukkkot, we change the rain prayer we say twice during the Amidah from blessings to rain.

The prayer occurs twice. The first time is during the prayer for reviving the dead, מחיה המתים, and the second is during the prayer for a good year. The Talmudic explanation for this is because when the rains come it is like reviving the dead. I remember being in the Negev desert many years ago and watching what I thought was a dead branch start to sprout immediately after the rains. There are certain plants in the desert that remain dormant for years and then come to life after the rains. Thus the rains can easily be understood as bringing life to the dead.

Interestingly, during this prayer, we mention the rains, but don't request any. Later, during the prayer for a good year, we specifically ask for a blessing during the summer, and dew and rain during the winter. In any land, rain is essential to agriculture, and too much or too little rain can determine who lives and who dies in the coming year.

Traditionally there are three things for which God alone is responsible: creating life (babies), reviving the dead, and the rains. This leads to very interesting discussions about the effect of modern technology on human power to effect those three things, but in my mind we are still technicians. For all the medical advances in IVF, we still have no idea how life is created. We can help it along, but if it works or not is far beyond us. We can predict the rain, but we have no control over it. We've just gotten better at observing what God does, not influencing it. Though human actions do seem to have an effect on the climate, we are just a small part of a very big system.

My question here is really about the term Gevurot Geshamim. In one sense it could mean just the strength of the rains meaning that we want strong rains and not just a drizzle. In another term, it might mean the power to cause the rain to fall. In that light, I called the soul of Honi the circler who was a Talmudic figure who actually did cause it to rain.

The last time I talked to him about this, he showed me that he could connect to the weather and influence in much the same way that I heal clients. If God meant for it to rain, then he was able to help that process happen, and if God did not, there was nothing he could do.

This time, he showed me how to connect to the energy of clouds. They felt very scattered, like touching something that has a form but very little substance. The process of helping the rain was one of filling the clouds so that they became fuller, more dense. When the cloud became too "pregnant" with energy, the rain would come forth. I practiced it awhile, connecting to God and then connecting to the clouds, though I don't think I'm much good at it. And it is very humbling to realize how little power one have over this process. The analogy that comes to mind is of pushing a truck. If you are going downhill, it will roll with your help, but if you are trying to push it uphill, there's not much you can do. Maybe the strength of the rains is the strength to push that truck?

I need to do some more study on this topic, so hopefully will write more in the future. I suspect also that this is one of those topics in Judaism which energetically comes up every year around this time, so if I don't get back to it soon, I'll probably be back next year about this time.

Knowing when to Heal

I heard a wonderful story last night told in the name of R. Shlomo Carlibach.

A barren couple went to a famous rabbi in a neighboring village who was known as a great tzaddik. They asked the rabbi for a blessing to enable them to have children. After they had received the blessing, the rabbi's gabbai (assistant), with great confidence, told the couple that in a year they would be back to visit with a new baby.

Sure enough, a year later, word came to the rabbi that the couple had just given birth to a baby boy and requesting that the rabbi please come for the great honor of being the Sandak during the bris (the person who holds the baby while it is being circumcized).

On the day of the Bris, the rabbi and his gabbai set out for the bris. As they were traveling through a field, a storm came upon them suddenly. The rain came down in buckets and the wind was blowing fiercely, so much so that they needed to stop and take shelter. The Gabbai grew worried that they would not be able to reach the bris in time and the rabbi would not be able to fulfill this honor. So he began to pray that the rain would stop and the wind would cease.

Sure enough, soon after the gabbai started to pray, the storm stopped just as suddenly as it had come, and they were able to continue to the Bris. The Gabbai was amazed and impressed that his prayers had been answered so quickly, but the rabbi did not even acknowledge them. For the whole celebration, and on the way home, the rabbi remained stern and did not acknowledge or thank the Gabbai for what he had done.

As they arrived back in their own village, the Gabbai could bear it no longer and spoke to the rabbi, "Didn't you see what I did? Why don't you thank me for stopping the rain and wind so that we could make it to the bris?"

The rabbi looked at the Gabbai sadly and said, "Do you know why it was raining? So that the village would have enough water to grow their crops and quench their thirst. It's been a very dry year. Do you know why the wind blew so hard? There is a swarm of locusts heading this way, but the wind would have prevented them from coming and eating all the crops. Now that you stopped the rain and the wind, you have caused immeasurable harm to the village."

The story was told to me with the moral that if one doesn't understand why things are happening, then it's best not to interfere with them. This is a common theme among Jewish folktales, that something that appears bad is actually for the good, and it's just our lack of perspective that makes it appear bad. The story was told to me in the context of a discussion on healing, and knowing when to heal and when not to.

I see the gabbai's mistake as threefold: he wanted the rain to stop for the benefit of the rabbi, not the benefit of God, he did it partly to stoke his own ego (and demonstrated by his disappointment that his deed went unnoticed), and he failed to see the benefit of the rain. So what does this teach us about healing?

Always check one's motivation. What is the involvement of the healer's ego in the healing? Sometimes I find that I have a patient, who, for whatever reason, I want to impress. It could be that I hold the person in respect. It could be that I view that patient as a potential source of referrals and I know that a good treatment will benefit my business. It could be that I'm having a bad day and want to show myself what a great healer I am by making this person feel immensely better.

In those times, I try to force the situation and the flow of energy, and invariably, it's a terrible treatment. Not only am I assured of making the person feel worse, but I am assured of not getting the referrals, respect or self-flattery I was looking for. If I had been aware that I was making the treatment about my own ego and not about the patient, I would have been able to look inside myself and see that my fears had caused me to attach so strongly to the results of the treatment.

I have fears: that I'm a bad healer, that my business won't succeed, or that I will lose the respect of the patient. When I am able to change my relationship to those fears, then I am able to let go of the results and provide a good treatment.

I can't emphasize how much fear damages the connection to God. When people talk about annulment of ego, my feeling is that if one works on one's fears, then the ego loses power and slowly disappears on it's own. Trying to suppress the ego on it's own has always been a fruitless exercise for me, but after I changed my relationship to fear, the ego issues quieted on their own.

Another lesson is is to remember God's place in the healing. I am not a seer, so by the rabbi in the story's words, I should stop healing. I often have no idea why a person is sick or how that sickness fits into the world. But I know that if a client has ended up in my office, then it's my responsibility to do everything I can for them. My assumption is that if God caused our two paths to intersect, then I am supposed to work on them, but I know that I can't force things. I connect to the client and I connect to God and I see what happens. Sometimes that means interacting with, and forcing energy to change, sometimes it means creating a healing space for the client to do their work in which I have no role other than to sit there and watch. Sometimes it means that nothing happens (though that is rare at this point). But if I am connected to God then I can feel what is the best way for healing. If I'm not connected, then I risk harm.

My ultimate barometer of the treatment is how the client feels at the end. I know that there are times when he/she won't feel better or even feel a difference, but I can feel changes in them: their pulse is stronger, there energy is more present, or they are more connected to themselves. And when they come back the next week, I'll hear about the results of the treatment because the client's often take a few days to fully process the treatment.

In acupuncture school we were taught to look at barriers to healing, meaning reasons why the patient themselves does not want to heal. One of the big ones was that the patient was receiving some kind of benefit from the sickness: sympathy, lack of certain responsibilities, someone to care for them, or something similar. This has its own feel when I encounter it in the office. The patient actively resists my energy and the connection that I create between the two of us. Or they try to take control of the treatment and don't let themselves be nourished by the treatment. At this point, my response is to back off my energy as far as possible. And then just wait. When they see that I am not trying to interfere, but just to connect, their energy will reach out to me and we can connect. Or we don't.

I once had a patient with whom I tried to force a connection and force the healing while she was actively resisting it. She felt wonderful immediately after the treatment and I felt like I had really accomplished something. She left the treatment room, tripped on the stairs on her way out of the building, and called me three days later to cancel her next appointment because her ankle was really badly sprained. I didn't hear from her again.

I think that the Gabbai should have just prayed to God. His fear wanted the rain to stop, so that's what he prayed for. But a better way would have been to connect to God and then pray that they get to the bris. He gave his fear of missing the bris power, and as such, missed out on the connection to God. When his fear's prayer was answered, his ego took hold and gave him pride in what he had done. If he had felt the fear, not given it power, and then prayed for what he really wanted, he would have clearly realized that he didn't stop the rain, God did. Or he would have known that it wasn't God's will to stop the rain, and hopefully have found another way to the Bris. Or maybe he wasn't supposed to get to the Bris at all.

If one knows him or herself, and doesn't give one's fears power, then one can maintain a connection to God. Then one can know when one is truly healing.

Dealing with Prejudice

I received an disturbing email today from a list-serve of which I am a part. The list-serve is for alternative practitioners here in Israel. The email began with a blatant fallacy: The word shaman comes from the word שמן (Shemen) which means "oil" in Hebrew and refers to the practice of anointing animals with oil. My eyes just about bugged out of my head as I read through the list of basic misconceptions about shamanism and it's interaction with Judaism. The writer's conclusion was that it's too dangerous for Jews as it can lead us astray and keep us from the "real" truth.

Aside from the mystical chauvinism, which states that Jewish mysticism is better and more powerful than any other kind, and all her other misconceptions, I was most concerned with how to approach people with her attitude. My initial reaction was to correct her facts and leave it at that, but the focus of my studies is the interaction between shamanism and Judaism so I felt compelled to answer her a bit more directly. I feel that for some religious Jews, the notion of shamanism is a bit too far out, and their fundamental beliefs won't allow room for it. But for others, they are open to it, though may have issues with the word "shamanism".

Below is my response. If there is anyone out there who has more experience dealing with people like this and has pointers on how to respond to them, what presses their buttons (and how to avoid doing that), and how to get them to acknowledge that what I am searching for is a part of Jewish tradition, I would love to hear your feedback.

The etymology of the word Shaman is somewhat in dispute. It originally referred to the traditional healers of Turkic-Mongol areas such as Northern Asia (Siberia) and Mongolia; šamán being the Turkic-Tungus word for such a practitioner and meaning "he or she who knows." (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism - you can see the academic citations in the footnotes). In the course of the 60's & 70's, and particularly by Mircea Eliade's book Shamanism, it became popularized in the west.

More recently Shamanism has come to refer to many different methods of healing that make use of, and are in contact with, the spirit world (usually connected to Briyah, the second world where the angel's reside). There are some forms of shamanism which pay varying importance to animal totems or spirit guides, but they are only several among a vast array, and are usually a less important part of the practice. Practical Kabbalah would be included in this definition of shamanism.

At the root of all shamanic traditions is that the shaman connect themselves to God, by whatever name they use, and heal by means of that connection and according to God's will. This connection is the heart of all shamanic healing. Every culture has created it's own set of rituals to create and strengthen that connection. Some of which may be connected to avodah zarah. But many of which just open the veil, and then try to describe what is seen/experienced there.

Within our own tradition there are many, many example of people entering a shamanic trance and communicating with tzaddikim and angels. Lurianic kabbalism is full of techniques for entering the spiritual world and making changes there. On a recent trip to tzafat, I saw people lying down on the graves of tzaddikim to absorb their energy. I believe it was Yoseph Karo who read mishniot until he entered into a trance state at which point his maggid would descend upon him and speak through his mouth. More recent kabbalists speak of ascending into the heavenly court to annul heavenly decrees. It is in these paths, and many more, that one may explore the shamanic in Judaism.

One thing I didn't add was that I feel that cultural background influences how one experiences the spiritual world. A Catholic is going to interpret souls as saints and a Jew as Tzaddikim, but my sense is that they are dealing with the same thing. The prohibition against avodah zarah, idol worship, is very important in Judaism, so my thinking is that a Jew should probably search out the shamanic through Jewish means. That's one of the big reasons I'm searching for Jewish ways to open up and connect to the spirit world. But I also think that experiences that people have had elsewhere can help to enlighten their Jewish experiences. It's also always bothered me that people go searching elsewhere for things that exist in Judaism because they are viewed as inaccessible or non-existent. The Shamanic has always been present in Judaism, though not always completely visible.

Throwing away the shells

I met with a teacher of mine tonight to talk about dealing with rabbis who have personal problems. There have been several very highly publicized cases in recent years of rabbis who have sexually molested students. It had come up several times recently in conversation, and I asked to meet with this particular teacher because he had known two of the rabbis.

We talked over the issues for awhile as I was trying to grasp how such a thing could have been tolerated in the Jewish community. He, who is older than I, reminded me that women's rights were not respected very well in the past, and it is only recently that things have begun to change for the better. These rabbis had grown up in worlds where such behavior was not openly discussed and though it was viewed as wrong, there wasn't much pressure not to do it. I want to point out to that my teacher never said any of this to justify the actions, just to understand them a bit better.

When I asked the question of how to deal with teachings of these rabbis, some of which are really very special, when we know that the person who taught them is deeply flawed? He responded by quoting from Talmud. There was a Talmudic persona called "Acher" (other) who was very well respected and then excommunicated (for unclear reasons - click here for an earlier post about it). People asked one of Acher's main disciples how he related to his teacher after he was declared a heretic, and his response was that he ate the sweetness inside, but threw away the shell. My teacher said that's how it is with these rabbis today, keep the sweetness of their teachings, but don't learn the lessons they taught by living badly. He also pointed out that doesn't mean deny what happened or minimize it in any way, but learn the lessons of what not to do from them as well.

I thought all of this very wise and wanted to pass it along.

Prayer stones

I don't usually remember my dreams, though I tend to have more vivid dreams here in Jerusalem then I had in Boston. I had a dream a few weeks ago which has stuck with me:

I was carrying some stones that had great importance. They looked like regular round stones that might be found anywhere in New England, but they had some significance which I couldn't quite grasp. I kept looking at them but they were just ordinary stones.

In my dream, I carried the stones with me and I met some people who did not pray. As I held the stones, I could see them through the eyes of the people I had just met and they looked just like regular stones.

I continued on my way and met some people who were praying, and I knew, prayed regularly. I again was able to look through their eyes and saw that the stones were glowing!

When I awoke, the lesson was obvious. I knew that if I prayed on a regular basis, the stones would glow again. That somehow the prayers would allow me to see the radiance of the world.

Preparation for Prayer

I've been to several Jewish Meditation groups where the meditation was a 15-20 minute silent meditation followed by regular prayers. My understanding is that the source for this (I'll try to find the actual source) is in the Talmud where it describes the first rabbi's taking an hour to prepare for praying.

This has never sat well with me, though I don't know why. It makes sense that someone wants to get in the right frame of mind to pray, but doing mindfulness meditation or just focusing on the breath didn't feel right for me.

Tonight, before devening evening prayers, I felt overwhelmed with fear. It's a fear I've been interacting with over the past few days, and it felt like I needed to sit with it for awhile before I prayed. I sat for awhile and then had particularly powerful davening, lots of energy, lots of souls.

And then it hit me, the line is "the first step in wisdom is fear of God", but I could never find any particular place in the liturgy that would give us a moment to feel our fear. So maybe this is what it's referring to: sit and feel your fear first, and then interact with God. Use that time at the beginning to be with your fear and that will open the way to use the prayers to talk to God.

I'm going to have to sit with this awhile longer and play around with it, but something feels right about it.

More thoughts on Wheat and bakers - Zohar 176/a-b

I've been thinking about what I wrote and realizing that "one who comes in and goes out" probably refers to one who can enter and exit the spirit world. One of the traditional roles of a shaman is to enter the spiritual world for information. While they are there, they gain an understanding of the essence of a person or thing, and then bring that understanding back to the physical world for the purpose of healing. But often, when they are back, the shaman then needs to do some counseling or other type of healing to help the person make proper use of the information.

One reason I don't like week-end shaman seminars is that a person gains understanding and then has no structure for using that to implement change in their lives. Change seems to take place slowly over long periods of time, and as such, a weekend can be beneficial as part of longer term work, but there needs to be a recognition of the needed follow-up.

So it is with the person who enters and exits, they need to be able to live in this world and be able to travel in the spiritual world. Without either, they are limited. So this frames the work a person needs to do if they are on the shaman's path: they need to be work on easily traveling back and forth into and out of the spiritual world. They need to understand wheat, but also how to bake bread because if you understand wheat, you can make some really good bread. but if all you understand is wheat, you don't even try to cook.

I think one of the traps I fall into is dismissing people who are good bakers because they don't get the wheat. I tend to say that people are not worth learning from because they don't understand the spiritual aspects of what they do, but they may be very good at what they do nevertheless. It's then up to me to learn as much as I can from them and then add the spiritual component to make it more meaningful to me. And also to know when people are good at wheat, but not so good in this world.

Zohar 176/a-b - Those who come in and out

I started my new Beit-Midrash today and it gave me several things to think about.

We studied a section from the Zohar, page 176/a-b, parshat Terumah. It's the introduction to Sifra D'Tzniutah, which roughly translates to the Book of Modesty. It reads in my very poor translation:

Who is the one who modest of the book [What is modesty of the book]? R' Shimon said, they are five parts that include the palaces of all, and and fill all of the land. R' Yehudah asked, if they include everything, they are more preferable then all. R' Shimon said thus it is for those who goes in and comes out, but for those who don't come in and go out, it is not thus.

It is told of a man who lived in the mountains and didn't know of the city, he grew wheat and ate the wheat by itself. One day, he came into a city and they gave him good bread. The man said to them, why? They said, bread is for eating. So he ate it and it was very tasty. He asked, from what do you make this? From wheat, they answered. Later, they gave him challahs that were dipped in oil. He tasted them and said from what are these made. From wheat, they said. Later they gave him sweet mixtures kneaded with honey and oil. He said, from what are these made. From wheat, they said. He said, it's certain that I am master of all of these as I eat the essence of all of these, which is wheat.

According to this way of thinking, the refinements [manifestations] of the world are not known, and they are lost. Thus it is for whoever grasps the basic rule but doesn't know all of the useful refinements that come out from the same basic rule.

The five parts are the Torah, which then fills up the world. R' Yehudah suggests then that we just study Torah and nothing else as in it is contained everything. R' Shimon replies that if you are "one who goes in and comes out" then you can do this, otherwise best to study everything. Who is "one who comes in and goes out"?

We then hear a story about a hermit who lives on wheat alone. When he comes into the city and tries all the yummy baked goods that can be made of wheat, he declares himself the master of all these things because he grows and eats wheat. He understands wheat, the basic ingredient in all these things, so he believes that he is master of all things made of wheat. The text then points out to us, if we haven't already gotten there ourselves, that this person is a fool, and anyone who thinks they can be master of a thing just by understanding the basic rules of a thing has really missed the point.

My interpretation of "one who comes in and goes out" is a person who lives in this world. We can study Torah to understand the world, but it's only useful if we are actually participating in the world and seeing how it is made manifest in the world. If we live in seclusion, then all the study is wasted, as we're really missing the point. If a person has trouble being in this world, and is spending all their time in the spiritual world, then studying the deep matters (basic principles of the world) is a problem as they lose sight of the beauty of the physical world.

There are some people have an easier time being in the physical world and need to work to be in the spiritual one, and there are others who are exactly the opposite. Those people have difficulty getting their feet on the ground and staying present in this world. I believe this story is teaching us that if you can be in this world, then it's ok to learn to travel in the spiritual world, but if you have trouble being here, then spend your time learning to enjoy this world. For one who can go into the spiritual world and come back into the physical world, they can extract from the basic principles to all the possibilities. But for someone who is stuck in the spiritual world, they need to concentrate on learning the manifestations in the physical world.

The last question I want to address is actually the first of the text: Who is one who has modesty of the book? If the book is everything in the world, and the book is the essence of all in the world, then modesty of the book would mean that any who understand the deeper workings of the world should be modest about it. If our story man was our bad example, then we learn that even if we understand a deep principle, we don't proclaim ourselves master over it or any of it's refinements, we remain modest and humble, and know that to truly master a thing, we have to understand the basics and all of the possibilities that can come from it.

Past lives

Last night at the Rebbe's, I asked Rebbe Nachman about past lives. I was curious about how to discover my past lives as I've never been aware of them. He took me on a very peculiar journey.

The visualization was traveling into a vagina, and then feeling the warm amniotic waters surround me. At this point, I could repeat the process to go further back, or feel the energy around me and know what it felt like to be in that lifetime. I don't know what my immediate prior life was, but the first life I felt was around 1919 or so. I was a Hasid on my way to see my rebbe. The next one I saw was 1853, and I was a peasant on a hunt. I was being careful as I was poaching from a lord's land.

At this point, I asked him if there was life that had something to teach me that I could use in this life. One of the reasons I've never really pursued past lives was that I didn't see much point. We are living in the present life, so all of our issues and problems can be dealt with here. But recently, I've been bumping into Karmic issues in my life, that is, issues that I was born with and have no clear cause in this lifetime. When I would go looking for patterns of actions to understand what and why I was doing certain things, there wasn't one. So that's why I decided to look in the past lives to see if they could help shed light on the current issues.

One thing I've seen John do is jump back through a client's lifetimes to find the genesis of an issue. When the genesis is dealt with, then the person is able to deal with the issue in the current lifetime. That was what I was trying to do with myself.

At that point, I jumped to a much earlier life where I was being killed. The only thing I could see in that lifetime was the moment of death. After going through the moment of death several times, I was able to see the person who was killing me. I realized that I had known and loved that person, and now they were killing me. As I sat with it longer, I was able to forgive that person. We were both warriors, and he had been my teacher, but when the political situation shifted, he had followed the rules of his side and fought against me. We had valued the political allegiances over the connections of the heart and he had killed me for it.

As I embraced him, I felt myself heal. I'm not sure exactly how yet, but we'll see how it goes. But in this lifetime, I know that I try to value the connections of the heart over political allegiances and rules that exist outside of myself.