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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:PIRKEI AVOT CHAPTER 4
Jewish Spiritual Renewal:Shabbat 5/16/09 Torah,TaNaK,Talmud Spiritual,Ethical Views
Shavuah Tov to my beloved Chaverim v' Talmidim:
Like many ListServes that almost all of us subscribe to, many times we are busy, and delete them, or say to ourselves we will read them later....and never do. I am just as guilty as this as any of us. This week's d'vrai Torah (double portion), please read, because if you're concerned over the economy, over Madoff, over banking and stock markets, and crazy loans, our sages had the answers and forecasted these problems millennia ago. And the below d'vrai deals with this, ethically and spiritually, especially the d'var Torah on Behar.
Also below are some of your fellow Talmidim's comments including a lovely modern psalm about the Omer, the season we are presently in.
Since we are still in the Omer counting, which our Rabbis of Judaism turned an agriculture holiday of Hebraism into another one about spiritual growth, we are still studying along with Jews throughout the globe, Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers. The full text (only 6 chapters), is : Text of Chapter Four - Chapter 4 .
(By the way, for those who have never studied Talmud, if you read these entire 6 chapters, you will have finished a tractate of Mishna. I say Mishna, because there is no gemorah discussion on Pirkei Avot, so academically it isn't Talmud which is Mishna plus Gemorah. But never the less, you will have finished a Tractate by Shavuot making this Shavuot a special siyyum for you and your family and friends. And just as when we finish Deuteronomy on Simchat Torah we immediately start Beresheit, Baruch Ha Shem, you may be motivated, to study another Tractate of Talmud, perhaps Beracoth, the first one. Or join a daf a day study group, (online even) and in 7.5 years complete all of Talmud!!).
So on to chapter 4 of Pirkei Avot.
4:11: ''Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov said: He who fulfills one mitzvah acquires for himself one advocate, and he who commits one transgression, acquires against himself one accuser. Repentance and good deeds are as a shield against retribution. ''
As we have discussed many times, the Hebraic God who smites when we do wrong is not the Judaic God of mercy, forgiveness, and kindness, teaching us how we are to act to our fellows as well.
I personal believe in retribution for living a life of sin, and when I mean sin, I would prefer to use the word chet, or missing the mark, or better still character defects. And I do not think that God is sitting in some throne looking at us from afar sending thunderbolts our way. Hence when an evil person gets into a car accident, that is not him getting divine retribution.
But as I have written in the dvar Torah on Bechukotai below, when we live a life of ego, of jealousy, of gossip, of disrespecting others, (and all of these are symptoms of someone who does not have true faith, belief, trust, and daily experience with God), we step on the toes of others with the same spiritual defects and they retaliate. Hence we see in so many synagogues today, [and I mention these institutions because I am a Jew, but I could mention any institution], where we have rabbis or even lay leaders taking on the roles of rabbis, whose egos bump into the egos of lay board members. All this causes is a constant makloket, strife, and a revolving door of rabbis, board members, and congregants.
Hence when rabbis dishonor God, Judaism, our basic traditions, close synagogues on Shabbat, pretend they know more than the Talmudic scholars of old who gave their lives, literally martyred for Judaism, who gossip, put down other rabbis who are more learned or more spiritual than they are,practice inclusiveness, Pirkei Avot teaches:
4: 6. ''Rabbi Yossei would say: Whoever honors the Torah, is himself honored by the people; whoever degrades the Torah, is himself degraded by the people. ''
4: 6. ''Rabbi Yossei would say: Whoever honors the Torah, is himself honored by the people; whoever degrades the Torah, is himself degraded by the people. ''
One rarely sees an Orthodox rabbi run out of his Synagogue or a rabbi who is spiritual and ethical.
Why? Because the rabbinate and certainly synagogues were not meant to be a business.
4:5: '' Rabbi Tzaddok would say: Do not make the Torah a crown to magnify yourself with, or a spade with which to dig. So would Hillel say: one who makes personal use of the crown of Torah shall perish. Hence, one who benefits himself from the words of Torah, removes his life from the world. ''
Simply put: a rabbi or lay leader (on the bimah or the board room) who uses his position to do anything BUT promote Torah, Talmudic Judaism, and God, and our ethical and spiritual way of life, and who uses his position to gain personal benefit, be it ego-strokes, party invitations, giving his friends building contracts, gossiping about his enemies, (even having enemies!!), will cause himself a 'death.' Eventually he will be removed. He will be separated from the Sunlight of the Spirit into the Darkness of the Winter.
Hence as the Talmud teaches us right on the 5th page of this 1000 year long massive 63 tractate long text, we cause our own problems.
When we do Jewish Spiritual Renewal, www.JewishSpiritualRenewal.org, one of the many things we do is a chesbon ha nefesh, a moral inventory of our soul. We realize the defects of our character. But what happens to all who do it, when we bring them all into basic categories, they all fall into a few basic ones. Hence we loose our terminal uniqueness and realize we are no different that anyone else. We all have the same defects, perhaps manifested in different ways.
In The Handbook To Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Rabbi Arthur Segal : (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal we learn how to rid ourselves, with God's aid, of these defects, daily. But we are now able to recognize them clearly in others. But we do not damn these folks, we pray for them, and make ourselves available to them to help them when they wish, if they wish, because we were just as spiritually ill as they are.
Rabbi Arthur Segal : (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal we learn how to rid ourselves, with God's aid, of these defects, daily. But we are now able to recognize them clearly in others. But we do not damn these folks, we pray for them, and make ourselves available to them to help them when they wish, if they wish, because we were just as spiritually ill as they are.
This is why 4: 3 reads: '' He (Ben Azzai) would also say: Do not scorn any man, and do not discount anything. For there is no man who has not his hour, and no thing that has not its place. ''
So we will end with the first Mishna in Chapter Four of Pirkei Avot: 4:1. Ben Zoma would say: Who is wise? One who learns from every man. As is stated: ``From all my teachers I have grown wise, for Your testimonials are my meditation.''
Who is strong? One who overpowers his inclinations. As is stated, ``Better one who is slow to anger than one with might, one who rules his spirit than the captor of a city.''
Who is rich? One who is satisfied with his lot. As is stated: ``If you eat of toil of your hands, fortunate are you, and good is to you'' ; ``fortunate are you'' in this world, ``and good is to you''---in the World to Come.
Who is honorable, one who honors his fellows. As is stated: ``For to those who honor me, I accord honor; those who scorn me shall be demeaned.''
Who is strong? One who overpowers his inclinations. As is stated, ``Better one who is slow to anger than one with might, one who rules his spirit than the captor of a city.''
Who is rich? One who is satisfied with his lot. As is stated: ``If you eat of toil of your hands, fortunate are you, and good is to you'' ; ``fortunate are you'' in this world, ``and good is to you''---in the World to Come.
Who is honorable, one who honors his fellows. As is stated: ``For to those who honor me, I accord honor; those who scorn me shall be demeaned.''
A wise person can learn from everyone. I learn more from my chaverim and my talmidim many times more than I have learned in ten years of rabbinic study with some of the great minds of our times, many now of blessed memory. We can also learn from people what not to do. And in many cases, for me as a rabbi, listening to rabbis miss-teach, or truncate God, helps fortify me to do the opposite.
In Judaism, our fights are with ourselves first. Our problems are rarely on the outside. A strong person is one who knows how to tell the voice of the yetzer ha ra, telling him for example, to 'wear the crown of Torah', to bug off. How to do, specifically and successfully, we explain in detail in The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal,Rabbi Arthur Segal : (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal and I will work with anyone for gratis, in achieving such.
In these bizarre economic times, I am counseling folks who really have lost plenty, but also folks who have lost a lot, but have more than enough to live like Schlomo Melek for the rest of their lives, and they are miserable. They don't see what God has left them, they see what they foolishly gambled, but blame it on someone else. For those who have lost a great deal, I help them see, a day at a time, that God is still filling their hands, and that all of us, go thru terrible downs in our life and need the faith that the 'ups' will indeed come again in God's time.
But the last is one we all need to learn: ''Who is honorable? He who honors others.'' With the converse being true as well:'' Who is dishonorable? He who dishonors others.'' When we gossip or tear down another, others who listen, and may seem to cheer us on, do not trust us, because they intrinsically know we cannot be trusted, and one day we will be gossiping about them. Further any psychologist will agree with what our sages taught: " A vain person seeks to compensate for his feelings of lack, by thinking himself superior to people whom he can consider to be beneath him'' (Rabbeinu Yonah al Ha Torah). We gossip about and put down folks to whom we feel inferior, and are actually fearful of as they show others what we are lacking. It we are spiritual, we have done our chesbon ha nefesh, we admit what we are lacking (and all of us are lacking), and instead of dishonoring that person, we can approach them, and ask them for help in our self improvement. But when we are spiritual disconnected, we cannot do that, so we dishonor those better than us, by gossip, making them appear less than us. Hence we dishonor ourselves when we do it.
Shavuah Tov,
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
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 Click to Order | THE HANDBOOK TO JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice into a step-by-step process to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality in a concise easy-to-read and easy-to-follow manner. If you find yourself wishing for the strength to sustain you through the ups and downs of life; if you want to learn how to live life to its fullest without angst, worry, low self-esteem or fear; or if you wish that your relationships with family, friends and co-workers were based on love and service and free of ego, arguments, resentments and feelings of being unloved...this book is for you. Price: $19.99 254 Pages Published by: Amazon's BookSurge |
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 Click to Order | A SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL COMPENDIUM TO THE TORAH AND TALMUD Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us. This companion to The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew brings the Torah alive with daily relevance to the Modern Jew. All of the Torah can be summed up in one word: Chesed. It means kindness. The Talmud teaches that the Torah is about loving our fellow man and that we are to go and study. The rest is commentary. This compendium clarifies the commentary and allows one to study Torah and Talmud to learn the Judaic ideals of love, forgiveness, kindness, mercy and peace. A must read for all Jews and deserves a place in every Jewish home. Price: $24.99 494 Pages Published by: Amazon's BookSurge |
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(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal
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In The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew, Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality.
- Price : $19.99
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(002) A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud
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A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us.
- Price : $24.99
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(003) Tzadakkah Bundle
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The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal and A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud. Purchase both books as a set, and I will donate a portion of the sales price in your name to the tzadakkah of your choice. -- Rabbi Segal
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