Rabbi YY Jacobson with Shifra Chana Hendrie: Rebranding G-d

the yeshiva.net [Music] welcome everybody you can see from my face how sorry about the banging how excited i am about today's guest and this interview uh i'm going to be welcoming rabbi y jacobson just in a moment and we're going to be talking about something really amazing and really deep and applying to every human being in these times so stay tuned for that and without further ado let me officially introduced to you some of you know him if you are connected to the torah world you can hardly help but know of him and maybe know a lot of him if you are not as many people here are not then allow me to introduce you rabbi yosef yitzhak or more commonly known as y yy jacobson easier to say is one of the most sought after speakers in the jewish world today he lectures to both jewish and non-jewish audiences and serves as teacher and mentor to thousands of people across the globe he's considered to be one of the most successful passionate and i want to add compassionate and mesmerizing communicators of torah today calling his ideas from the entire spectrum of torah thought and making them relevant to contemporary audiences of all backgrounds and i have to say to the call of the hour which we'll get into soon rabbi y was the first rabbi ever to be invited by the pentagon to deliver the religious keynote to the u.s military chief of chaplains and the nsa he's also the founder and dean of the yeshiva.net that's the yeshiva t-h-e-y-e-s-h-i-v-a dot net link also beneath this video rabbi jacobs jacobsen is also the author of a tale of two souls which is an extensive audio series on the teachings of the premier classical text of chabad hasidis known as the tanya which has influenced torah thought for hundreds of years now deeply influenced he's written more than a thousand articles and diverse themes of jewish thought including biblical and talmudic studies jewish law kabbalah and hasidism jewish history psychology philosophy education relationships a big topic for rabbi and all of us israel and current events over the past 15 years rabbi jacobson has traveled to hundreds of communities schools and universities around the globe educating and inspiring people of all backgrounds with the majestic depth of torah and i have to smile as i say that because i didn't in my younger years i knew what torah was i grew up jewish but i didn't know what it was at all and especially not the mystical torah and um it is an infinite wellspring of majesty and depth and richness and healing and intimacy with self and god and so much more anyway that said welcome and thank you so much rabbi for being with us today thank you for your gracious introduction and it's my pleasure and honor thank you okay so i think maybe we should just start because there are people from all different backgrounds i'm sure some of whom probably haven't heard the word torah even so if you can just start with a brief explanation of why that is and even more importantly why anyone should care and then we'll take it from there right so the word torah is a hebrew word starting from the beginning and it actually means a manual or a lesson or instruction and it's basically the literature i would say of jewish wisdom communicated transcribed taught over the last 4 000 years from abraham the first jew abraham and moses all the way to this very day torah includes thousands and thousands of books most famous would of course be the hebrew bible the pentateuch the five books of moses the prophets and the writings but it also includes the entire body of judaic literature jewish law and jewish history jewish philosophy and jewish theology jewish mysticism and jewish spirituality and the jewish people have always seen it as a blueprint a divine blueprint for life today we have ways or google maps to help us navigate our journeys you remember schiff for the days before ways and when you had to get through somewhere to somewhere else remember you had to write down instructions and inevitably open a map inevitably you got lost today it's a blessing you know if that's true about a journey on a physical highway imagine the journey of life which is so intricate and so complex and so nuanced and often filled with pain and filled with tragedy and filled with challenge and difficulties internal and external so the primary function of torah the body of jewish wisdom is to provide a manual a blueprint of how do i navigate how do we navigate our lives as individuals and as part of a collective so you're saying navigate and it's beautifully explained but when you say navigate the underlying assumption is you're starting some place and you're going someplace so where are we going where are we starting where are we going and where are we on that on that where are we ways show me the overview beautiful beautiful question so one of the foundational premises of torah of of jewish mystical spirituality is that we are all conceived in oneness we were all we are all conceived and undifferentiated oneness imagine the story of a child every child every child begins as a fetus in the womb of its mother and even before that it begins in a state of undifferentiated oneness with the father's seed and the mother's egg and even as it develops in the mother's womb there's still undifferentiated oneness complete connection complete intimacy birth is a process of independence which begins with separateness that separateness evolves over the years until we become full-fledged adults and the birds soar from the nest but the key is not to forget that essentially we come from that place of oneness and that's our journey our journey is back towards oneness so what does that actually look like you know and i have to say that um a lot of the people who are listening are no doubt from what we call the consciousness space the healing space you know there's a rise in in general human let's say consciousness intuition searching spiritual searching this is actually prophecy right that it will be part of this era but um but but when people say oneness i often feel like it's kind of a general idea it's a definitely foundational que coi is the core idea if there's such a thing but what does that actually look like and how does that show up in the human process in this navigational journey or metamorphosis what is it what is the world supposed to look like what are we supposed to look like i'm going to use the terminology of judaism or what we call torah to answer that question essentially the miracle of creation the miracle of this world is out of one many in jewish mysticism pre-creation consciousness is a consciousness where there is oneness but it's a completely undefined infinity judaism kabbalah jewish mysticism doesn't use the word god it uses the word ainsaiph ain't safe in hebrew means infinity which means reality that is completely one and not defined because if it's defined it's already finite it's undefined and therefore it's all-encompassing from a jewish perspective if the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear as is divine infinity so essentially creation was the miracle that from oneness came diversity came with many in a pre-creation consciousness there's no thou and i there's absolutely no separateness there's no distinct identity we don't exist as separate we don't exist as separate beings there's no ego there's no sense of separateness existence the creation from a jewish perspective is the ability and the need for every soul every creature to face the trauma of separateness like that moment of birth when the fetus emerges or is extracted from the womb of its mother and for the first time it has to face a sense of separateness but the ultimate objective is not separation the objective is to reveal the oneness within the diversity to reveal that each and every single one of us is a fragment of the divine and each of us constitutes an indispensable note in the cosmic symphony and only together can we create the full song the full ballad the full symphonic beauty of the universe so each and every creature has its unique music to play distinct individual my unique dna sequence is the imprint of god on my personality which is different than yours we share i share 50 of my dna with a banana 99 of my dna with a chimpanzee so what really makes the difference between me and the banana or me and the chimp or me and my brother and my sister really share dna and the answer is that unique individual alteration from a jewish perspective is the divine imprint on you a unique imprint that makes me me and you you the talmud says an astounding statement every person is obliged to say every day for me the universe was created now it sounds like crazy narcissism really i'll tell my wife the world was created for me and she'll say the world was created for me it's a great way of living a great way for relationships what it really means is what the talmud is saying is that there's something at stake in your life that the whole world needs the day you were born is the day when the creator declared that the world is incomplete without your contribution without your light so when each and every one of us brings to our life our unique divine light that flows through my consciousness like it flows through your consciousness together we create a much deeper unity than the unity of pre-creation the unity of pre-creation was just undifferentiated oneness the unity we can create today and i think we're called on to create today and that the world is inviting us towards is a unity that does not ignore diversity on the contrary it's created from diversity from our differences from our distinctiveness from the fact that i can create space for you and you can create space for me we create a much deeper consciousness that synthesizes the infinite and the finite the oneness and the diversity the undifferentiated undefined infinity together with every single individual aspect of every single creature in our planet and in our cosmos yeah i'm actually hearing this on kind of a three to a multi-dimensional way feeling in a multi-dimensional way like it's quite multi-dimensional right but i don't you know it's yeah no of course obviously way more than the mind can encompass but i i sometimes i think about the example of uh the analogy of the of a puzzle a jigsaw puzzle you know how annoying it is like it has 5000 pieces and each piece you know you have to take it out of the box that half the pieces are upside down they're on the wrong order you have to have a big space spread them out figure out where and where i start where do two pieces fit together and then the only way you can actually create recreate the puzzle is through the picture on the top of the box which seems i sometimes think of the torah as that like that general you know that's beautiful that's a beautiful way of saying it showing you the bigger picture but it's obviously multi-dimensional and the destination and the destination right but it's so annoying what is more annoying than doing 4 999 pieces and then you're missing less great question except what you're saying right annoying and frustrating and uh how can it even be done there's a beautiful line in the ethics of the fathers which is one of the very famous tractates in jewish wisdom it's known as the ethics of the fathers it was written around 2000 years ago 1900 years ago and there's a line over there in hebrew it's which to translate you do not have to complete the work but that should not be an excuse not to begin your journey you know it's been said by greater and wiser than i that perfection is the enemy of progress when i look at my life and i say you know it's my responsibility to put the entire puzzle back together then it seems like such a daunting task and often the result is just resignation or cynicism or despair the jewish perspective is you never know the impact of an individual and you'll never appreciate the power of one person's light there's a beautiful old story that they say that illustrates this there was once a young girl standing at a beach in california and as the tide was retreating the ocean was spitting out all of these starfish and she felt bad for all the dying starfish so she would pick up the starfish and throw them back into the water to give them back life and one old cynic looked at her and said you foolish little girl this beach stretches for dozens of miles even if you stand here 10 hours a day and you throw in starfish by starfish you're not making any difference you're not having an impact there are millions of them stranded here and the girl looks at them and she picks up one fish and as she throws it back in the water she said for this one i made all the difference and that i think is a very fundamental jewish idea you know there is that one person that one the starfish that one young man that one young woman for whom i can make all the difference and when i make all the difference for that person that makes a very very powerful impact i also want to remind all of us that the first world war the first world war which used to be called the great war before the second world war that broke out in 1914 summer 1914 and as a result of the first world war and the terms with which germany was allowed to continue functioning as a nation at the end of the war ultimately led to the second world war these are the two wars that changed history completely and how did the first world war began begin began from a 19 year old gabriela princip a 19 year old kid who pulled the trigger and murdered the ear and his wife of the austria-hungarian empire and that pulling of the trigger is literally what sparked the first world war which not only it on its own had an unbelievable impact a devastating one but literally changed everything not only for the jewish people for the entire map for the entire globe judaism says never ever underestimate the incredible influence and impact of an individual soul in the positive so when i when i work on recreating that puzzle even with my own tools and in my own limited way maimonides makes a statement my mondays was one of the greatest jewish thinkers he lived in the 12th century considered one of the greatest jewish philosophers and also world philosophers in history and he writes a line he says from a jewish perspective you should always view yourself and the world as a scale as a balanced scale and he says if i do one mitzvah which is one good deed one act of kindness of love of compassion imagine that that may tip the scale and change the whole world now sometimes i would read it and think you know it may be a little exaggerated and maybe a little dramatic but then when i realized that it took one simple man in china in to sneeze just to sneeze and a few months later 7.7 billion people were brought to their knees with the sweeping of the coronavirus all over the world i understand what he means the impact of a person if it's true in the negative it's even more true in the positive so our attitude should never be i don't think you know who am i i'm a nobody i'm a nothing there's a big puzzle it's way beyond me let me just retreat into my little cocoon our attitude should be much wiser and much more historically accurate and that is you are an ambassador of infinity you are an ambassador of divine energy and just like atomic energy it's not about quantity if you can tune in to your deepest nuclear levels of energy the impact is beyond anybody's imagination is that why i was going to ask you before but you might have just answered it but is that why i was going to ask you why is it that the that deposit if one person can change the world for the negative wise it's so much so more so for the positive i think you may have answered it but if you want to just explain that a little bit more like what is the why is the power for the positive greater than the power yeah because you still help us it's a great question and it brings us to a much larger question which force is more powerful in my life the force is the positive and the negative sometimes it seems that negativity has so much more power the powers of depression the powers of hatred alienation disassociation this connection they just come so easy and so fast you know i'm in a bad mood i'm in an angry mood i'm frustrated i'm hateful i'm angry i'm vengeful you know positivity i like you know stories that we tell ourselves and more like you know poetic dreams and nice songs but the truth is it's the other way around it's the other way around because you see all negativity essentially this we have to understand all negativity essentially lives because of concealment it's basically thriving of blockages and anything that lives only because truth is concealed has a limited life term because the moment is revelation it dissipates it ceases to be if i can give a very simple illustration if i have a company or i have a business that's running a ponzi scheme completely illegal transactions and so forth its entire power is that nobody sees the truth the books are closed yeah so it may be very tempting i mean we all know you know about madoff's panzer scheme and other schemes but the moment truth comes out it's all over it's gone take the soviet union take communism for 70 years it cast its fearlessness over the world like putin is doing today right and then one day in 1990 it just died without a single shot fired no other revolution in history was bloodless yeah it's true it was bloodless what happened was because it was all based on life it was all based on lies the cover-ups were so thick and so dense as churchill once said that one day it just plots plots as a yiddish word which means it just it just melted away into thin air the power of negativity could be very very powerful and fearsome in our own lives and in the world but ultimately it's skin deep because it doesn't have reality to back it up because when reality emerges there's oneness there's love there's compassion when reality emerges we're full of love we're full of light we're full of joy we're full of possibility now reality doesn't always emerge we are also filled with blockages i have traumas that block me i have fears and insecurities and anxiety and stress and unresolved stuff that block me but they're all based on blockages and therefore i always have to remember that the power of love and positivity will always defeat hate and negativity because one is rooted in truth in authenticity and the other one gleans its power from blockages and cover-ups like clouds like when you go rising up through the holy day in a plane and all of a sudden it's it's really really bright right and we all know in our own lives i may be living with a lot of blockages and it's eclipsing my light yeah and it's very easy to fall prey to those blockages but if i dig a little deeper and if i excavate my inner depth then ultimately the darkness vanishes in the presence of light you know you can have the darkest of room of rooms and you light a candle and the light expels the darkness you don't have to battle it you don't have to get into a debate with it you just have to light a flame of truth in a house of lies and the lies just dissipate and that's our role in this world our role each one of us is a candle the book of proverbs says the soul of a human being is the flame of god which means each and every one of us is a candle but a candle could sometimes remain unlit you have the candle itself you have the wick you have the wax i have the oil i have the candelabra but then i have to ignite the flame and when i ignite that flame of warmth of compassion of truth the darkness dissipates well there's a lot here um i want to ask you a few things at the same time um so let me just sort through for a second i i want to know first of all you do you describe the world the creation of the world the the reality of the world is undifferentiated infinite oneness and self and then you described how that's concealed in order for individuals to emerge so that what you're saying makes it sound like even this that god is concealed is skin deep not just goddess and i want to lead into that soon we want to talk about god because people have all kinds of preconceptions and conceptions and it's so important to to really look at those and bust through but first i want to ask you like is does it are we in a place where it's skin deep because it seems like i mean creation has been going on for a long time concealment of of divinity has been going on for a long time suffering has been going on for a long time lies have been going on for a long time why does it why would you say that it's skin deep and the other question that goes with that is how does a person bust away those clouds or bust away that darkness or turn on the light like when you counsel people what are the some of the core things that you suggest that make that difference right so one way of looking at it is when i say skin deep i don't mean that it's not powerful or scary or has not wreaked havoc what i mean skin deep is that ultimately it will not prevail you know the pharaohs of the world the hamans of the world the tituses of the world the stalins of the world the hitlers of the world have wreaked havoc and we the jewish people know this i think better than any other nation the amount of bloodshed and violence and suffering and yet when you look four or five thousand years later it's amazing in the bible there's a scene where god speaks to abraham the first jew and he says i will bless those who bless you those who curse you will be cursed and all the nations of the world will be blessed by you and when you read that verse and you think about the fact abraham was an individual person who commanded no military owned no empire had very little resources didn't even have a child to continue his legacy and yet four thousand years later half of humanity considers themselves spiritual ears of abraham and the ideas of abraham monotheism oneness the search for the laws of nature science today have completely redefined the world and what that means to us what that means and what it shows us is that ultimately reality prevails that's its nature reality comes from the word real right so we we as the jewish people i think are living witnesses to the fact that yes history has been challenging history has been difficult and there's no denying that and there is so much pain there was so much pain and so much evil and darkness have often prevailed in the lives of individuals and in the lives of nations and cultures and we still watch so much injustice so much pain so much abuse so much tragedy the question we have to ask ourselves is they say there are three types of people there are those who make things happen there are those who watch things happen and there are those who want to know what happened as jews our mission is not to watch things happen and not to ask what happened but to make things happen now you say as jews would you include everybody listening here there are plenty of people listening here who are not jewish so i would include every single person the reason i connect this to the jewish people is because i think historically the jewish people have seen themselves as identified with a mission to be able to share with humanity some of these fundamental truths about every person's responsibility non-jew and jew alike people of every race and every culture and every religion and every tribe you know the torah judaism calls the jews the chosen people and somebody once asked you what does that mean what are we chosen for chosen for benefits chosen to be persecuted and i said the answer is we were chosen to teach every person that he or she was chosen we were chosen to teach every person that he or she was chosen that you're not a random mutation you're not just a consequential valueless meaningless insignificant blimp on the surface of infinity who will one day just become father of the worms no you were conceived in love and you each and every person constitutes an indispensable note in the cosmic divine symphony so when we say evil is skin deep it doesn't mean it's not powerful what it does mean is we should never take our eyes off the target and know that the ultimate story of history the arc of history is bent towards creating more harmony and more oneness and there's a lot of good that we also have to celebrate you know i said yesterday at a lecture that in the last few years for the first time in history more people died from drinking coca-cola than from starvation for most of history you woke up in the morning and you did not know if you're gonna die from one of three things famine a plague infectious diseases or violence today not in all of the world but most much of the world we wake up in the morning and we're not concerned that we're going to die that day from violence or from hunger or from an infectious disease this does not take away the many tragedies and loss of life we have to understand we have to understand that for thousands of years things were very very different and there's a reason there's the world is developing there is a progress there is progress the consciousness of oneness is becoming more and more pervasive we speak to people around the world and you see the openness the openness for people to realize that we want to be in a space of harmony we want to become conduits of compassion we want to become conduits of love so we should never be naive and not live in la la land and ignore injustice and ignore crime and ignore toxicity and ignore hatred and bloodshed on the contrary our responsibility is to stand up to injustice with dignity with conviction and with potency but on the other hand it's our equal responsibility to remember that our role is not to become cynical or to surrender to the spear but rather to help repair the world that's why each and every single one of us is here you ask a question about how i would guide people to help remove our blockages that was your second question and i think you know every person's journey is extremely individual but there's a few things i would say that i think are pretty generic the first element is we need a real so every person needs a support system you need to connect to people you need to be connected in the hebrew bible the first thing that the torah the hebrew bible says is not good the torah the bible describes how god creates the world and every day he says everything is so good and beautiful and then there's the first scene where god says something is not good and you wonder what will that be adultery idolatry murder sin no the first thing the hebrew bible god says is not good lo tov it's not good for the human being for adam for a human being to be alone as we know today in research the antithesis of addiction is not sobriety the antithesis of addiction is connection the first thing we all need is attachment we all need connection it's not just because of evolutionary psychology that historically we have been you know hunters and gatherers and therefore as we forage we needed the support of the group from a jewish perspective it's much deeper it's because we are we were conceived in a space of oneness undifferentiated oneness we're really attached to each other we are destined to be attached to each other so the first element of healing is we need support we need people who believe in us we need people who are connected to us we have to reach out and reach in and connect to people we need that we need this semantic attachment we need spiritual attachment we need emotional attachment we need psychological attachment so that's the first thing i would encourage you want feedback from people you want to connect to people and it's really this may be a very difficult step for many of us especially those of us who stopped trusting and so many of us stopped trusting we were forced to stop trusting so that's the first thing that's really applicable we need those relationships one two three relationships with another person with other people with groups who can help us on this journey to remove blockages i can't do this myself you can do this yourself on adam we cannot do this alone as smart as i am as brilliant as a person may be and as wonderful as you may be that's number one number two i really need to be able to open myself up to all of the opportunities that there are we live today in an amazing time through so much opportunities and methods of healing various models of therapy various models of treatment open yourself up to it you know speak to somebody who's in the know learn about it there are quite a few of those presenting in the summit so yeah yeah so that's incredible there's so many different and at the end of the day i don't know that it's one model or another model that wins color war i'm not sure about that i think it's more the fact that there is connection there is attachment there is support there is tuning into what's going on that allows us to open ourselves up and finally yeah i just wanted to reflect back and ask you isn't it true that when when somebody like you're saying it's not necessarily modality but it's this connection but i'm wondering if it's also i'm thinking that it's also the fact that when someone when you go to someone and they support you they see your potential they don't see your despair as the reality they see what you're describing a hundred percent now you have to be connected to people who know how to connect i was the other day i did a weekend with 2 000 people in florida who are in recovery active recovery from sex addiction uh drug addiction and other forms of addiction alcoholism etc and uh just i got a just the middle of one of the lectures god graced me with this line i told them i said listen my friends you know if i have not worked out at all my own crap when i encounter your trauma your trauma triggers my trauma and then my trauma gets entangled with your trauma and instead of helping you i sometimes become a force that actually is unhelpful but if i do work out at least somewhat my own toxicity my own issues then your trauma will trigger my empathy rather than my own trauma and that's the key because sometimes i can go to a therapist or i can go to a rabbi i can go to an imam i can go to a priest or i can go to a friend or i can go to somebody but if they or i have not really worked out my own issues if i'm in denial if i'm still stuck in my own traumas i'm not judging you but then what often happens is i can't really be here for you because i'm just trying to survive so i'm responding to your trauma by just trying to cope myself yeah instead of being an agent of healing i sometimes become an agent of destruction even if not deliberately so it's so important for each and every one of us to be able to have the courage and it takes courage to really look into myself and to have the people who will help me do that and to really ask myself not to heal i don't think we can all heal in one day but at least to be aware the moment i'm aware of my blockages the moment my brother once told me that somebody came to him for advice so my brother says to him my friend is it possible that you have a blind spot he says yes of course i have a blind spot but i know what it is right so the moment i know what my blind spot is you know i may be a little dangerous so it's so important for us to be able to open ourselves up and it's a very humbling process it's a very humbling process but there's so much love and opportunity out there that i don't think any one of us is excluded today from the responsibility to be able to confront my uh you know to confront my issues and for each of us to confront our issues i think you could say when a person gets triggered by someone else that is a pointer to a blind spot if we allow of course of course and the call of the hour is curiosity you know i always tell parents when your children say something to you and you're really triggered before responding can you be curious when your spouse says something to you and you want to implode or explode or run away for three months emotionally can you really remain present and be curious and ask yourself what just happened because that will be a portal a vista to greatness you will you will touch something that's been hidden for many years and there are deep sparks there are deep sparks of leadership and of greatness that are hidden there and that's called a soft spot so you know pursue it don't run away from it this was an opportunity and from that perspective jewish mysticism says every obstacle or what we call today trigger every trigger is really a boulder that can be transformed into a stepping stone towards incredible profound depth awareness and spiritual greatness and we must seize those moments so those moments that are making you crazy and really are bothering you don't run from them those are good those are good places there's a lot a lot of hidden treasures there yeah it's it's a it's a practice to be able to um to to use that opportunity and to understand that you know sometimes i can do it now i didn't used to be able to sometimes i can say wait i'm really triggered what's going on what's the next lesson what's the next step that's not when i'm really really triggered and it takes a lot more time and you know processing and work so it takes a lot of discipline a lot of inner work and it also takes something else and i think this is a key fundamental teaching of jewish spirituality that is i think so important for all of humanity it's always recognizing that your core is never damaged your core and to use jewish torah language your core is divine your core is godly your core is filled with potential and infinite potential no abuse no dysfunctional home or family no mental illness no trauma no mood disorder no personality disorder and nothing in the world can snuff out your core goodness and wholesomeness your core goodness and wholesomeness may be in exile it may be hidden away winston churchill once said in a time of war truth is so precious we protect it with bodyguards of lies come back to our blockages but at your core your core eye is never ever ever damaged when i can really be cognizant of that so then that eye can observe all the triggers almost as an outsider who observes it and watches it and even though it's hard it's gripping me it's overwhelming me i want to scream i want to break the window i want to run i want to freeze fight flight whatever my reaction is i could always remember that there's an eye observing all those triggers and i can then watch my inner child playing in that sandbox being terrorized in that sandbox and ask myself what just happened and begin a journey towards so much more awareness i think it was viktor frankl who once said between stimuli and response there is a tiny empty space and it's in that space where all human freedom lives so you know you may say something to me that was a stimuli that just came into my brain and i'm triggered and i'm ready to respond or react but in between the stimuli and the reaction there's a tiny little space where freedom lives that tiny tiny little space you know if i can go into that space if i can cultivate that space and i can watch what is happening to me i can be curious with compassion with love with sensitivity not with judgment because when i do it with judgment and criticism i'm never going to get anywhere it's just going to go back into hiding but when i can do it with compassion it will almost open sometimes open itself up to me and slowly there is this journey towards towards inner redemptiveness right this is a core teaching in jewish spirituality literally a core teaching and it's helpful to know that to know that your goodness could never ever be compromised that your mental challenges whatever they may be are part of your journey they never define you completely and what is the purpose i think you've spoken to it a bit but um how would you sum up what is the purpose of the infinite loving god giving these kinds of challenges to people and i'm sure you've answered that question and asked that question that's uh you know that's one of the greatest questions that's one of the greatest questions that we all confront and i don't know that our brains can intellectually give a satisfying answer to this certainly i cannot give that answer to somebody else i can maybe give that answer to myself and i can hold somebody else and serve as an empathetic witness to help them on that journey but i would say two points that i have found in my own life and that people have shared with me as i served as an anchor for them in their own journeys number one i told this to somebody the other day um this person opened up to me and told me how you know as a child they were molested for five years and raped and when he finally when this boy had the courage to come to his father all his father said was i don't believe you and he told me that that was worse than the five years of rape because the five years of rape were done by some sick pedophile but this was his father who didn't even give him the dignity of believing and he turns to me and he said these words he said rabbi why why he says you want me to believe that god exists after this experience maybe if you could tell me why tell me why it happened to me i looked at him i shed a tear because it was very sad to hear this from a person obviously and then i said to him i said i'll never know why i will never know why i don't know that anybody could know why but i just want to tell you something i feel i feel and that is i don't think you can approach your tragedy your experience with an intellectual question seeking an intellectual answer almost like it was a mathematical equation why because right i think it would be far deeper if instead of asking why you'll ask another question and that is how can you turn your experience into a mission statement i don't know that any normal person can answer why why why would the child like this have to go through this and if god exists and god is compassionate why we why would he allow this to happen in this world i don't know i really don't know i cannot wrap my brain around it but i told this boy i said but i want to now ask you a question and that is if you had a choice and your choice is to look at your tragedy and say i am messed up this world is an evil sadistic barbaric place and i am a victim of it and that's the end of my story i'll just live the best life possible okay i can't judge that reaction i can't never but i said i want to ask you would it be possible for you to muster the courage and respond differently and say as follows yes this happened to me it's devastating i need a lot of grief work and i need a lot of help and you know what till my last breath i will have been affected by this no question a certain part of my childhood was robbed and because of that i'm going to ask how can i take that and turn it into the most defining powerful mission statement of my life because i told them the way you understand pain nobody does and the way you could look into the eyes of another person who was abused nobody can and the way you can offer empathy and love and compassion nobody can and the way you can become a leader in our society fighting injustice and not allowing criminals to get away with cover-ups nobody can do it like you so i wonder if you can take all this horrible horrible darkness that you experienced and turn it into the most powerful defining mission statement of your life because if you can i said then our children will be living in a much better world because of your leadership and i have to tell you he stood up he gave me a long hug we were both crying and he told me two things he said thank you for not answering the question why and thank you for believing that i can still have a defining mission statement and i have found in my experience of counseling people and talking to people that to answer the question why is sometimes very unwise and often cruel and stupid first of all because i don't know and even if i would know intellectual answers don't deal with pain we're learning philosophy if we're learning math if we're learning physics we all cherish the intellect and we cherish our analytical ability and our prefrontal cortex capacity no question and if you're a jewish rabbi learning talmud the intellectual creativity of the mind is a blessing when we're talking about pain when we're talking about raw pain and somebody says you know why did this happen to me why did my father die when i was a child why did my mother die why am i going through this illness why did i lose this lovely beloved one i think our job in this world is not to give explanations first of all because we don't know and even if we would it's hugely irrelevant our job is really to be there for people to be there for people now i would just add that sometimes and i think a person has to be able to say this to themselves i know in my life some of my struggles my personal struggles i would have never asked for them and i would not wish them on anybody that i love or anybody else and yet i also know that there are certain places i have reached in my own internal soul that it could have never reached without this absolutely true does it justify it does it rationalize it does it explain it i don't think so i think we're talking about a different realm of reality sometimes a human being has a very very deep light and in order for them to discover it and to own it they have to be able to work very hard and they have to sift through a lot of debris and a lot of a lot of uh in the indus we have a word meshugas which means a lot of complicated stuff in order to be able to discover that light and own that light sure god could have just given me that light and say rabbi why why light up the world it would never be mine i would not own it i would just be a robot in this world go ahead in this world we are called to become the authors of our own biographies it's one of the most beautiful teachings of judaism sometimes we see religion as being very passive it's almost you know just be a obedient slave of the lord just do what he wants but in judaism there is a beautiful expression it's an expression of the talmud god wants you to be his partner in the work of repairing the world should have a my separation a partner is not passive if i bring in a partner in my company 50 i don't want the partner to be an obedient passive bystander i want the partner to come in with his or her full creativity bring something to the table yeah bring something to the table that i can't bring i can't bring so this is a very gearing idea in the talmud god was looking for a partner and the question is what can't he bring to the table what can we bring to the table i look for a partner because he either has the money to invest or he has the wisdom to manage or to strategize that's why i bring it apart if not i don't need a partner i want the revenue for myself so the talmud says god was looking for a partner in the work of healing the world this means that there's something the partner brings to the table and what is that and the answer is it's human vulnerability it's human vulnerability that's what we bring to the table we bring to the table the authenticity the non-judgmentalism the compassion the striving for growth that comes because of our deficiencies because of our imperfections as we go on our journey we can then discover something from within that becomes ours through our work through our initiative through our creativity and if you could look at your challenges as an invitation to go on a jeep deeper journey your challenges are transformed into opportunities it doesn't mean they're not hard it doesn't mean you don't need to do a lot a lot of grief work it doesn't mean you don't need to work through a lot of pain and it doesn't mean you wish it would happen it would have happened it doesn't mean you become just this you know zombie zombie you know the other day and i know i'm bringing up something very personal that you are unfortunately very well aware of i was visited by parents who lost a child and they lost a child in a car accident a 16 year old boy and the father said something fascinating to me it was such an interesting question i didn't expect it he said to me you know as i was sitting shivering judaism is a ritual that after we lose a loved one we sit for seven days in our home and we do nothing we don't go to work we don't sit on our emails we just are visited by people who come to talk and console and tell stories and just offer emotional support it's a psychologically brilliant law with injuries with the seven days you don't leave the house you don't go to work you just sit and people just come and visit i remember how amazing it was sadly amazing it was a sad but it was also very powerful when i lost my father and i was sitting shiv and people just came all day and most of the night and didn't stop coming and just sharing stories and episodes and memories it's just a very very powerful way of transitioning from one life into a really new life without your loved one in any case it's called shiva shiva means seven because it's you do it for a period of seven days of a week and i turned to him and i said i don't know but i just will offer something that may possibly be true maybe not i said think about it and if it resonates it resonates if it doesn't you know scratch it from the files and he said what is that and i said is it possible that some of us are trained to deal with tragedies by amputating our emotions by not failing our emotions we almost choose between god and our emotions if you want god cut out your emotions if you want your emotions you're gonna have to say goodbye to god and religious people who have grown up with god and faith in god say well i'm not rejecting god it's almost like in that woody allen movie i think crimes and misdemeanors with his niece turns to her very religious uncle who has this long white beard and she turns them and she says uncle if you had to choose between god and truth which one would you choose and the uncle says of course god and it's of course it's woody allen's way of describing what religion looks like in the 20th and 21st century you know you're choosing between god and truth so but they would say no i'm not reading god in truth i'm choosing between god and my own very human uh primitive finite small-minded directionless and and petty emotions i said you can't do that you never ever choose make that choice between god versus your emotions because if these are your human emotions they're real they're authentic they're part of god's gift to you they're the way you play out undifferentiated oneness in this world through your emotions that's all i have i have my experiences in life i'm not infinite i'm not god i don't have to be god remember god wanted a partner partner means you're going to contribute something to this endeavor to this enterprise a partner is not passive so if faith is all about surrendering your emotions not feeling there is a danger that something human shuts down and when people speak to you they just feel that there's something human that's missing and therefore what i would encourage is you know be present with all your emotions be present because if this is your emotion this is your emotion you know work with it embrace it cherish it have compassion with it and you will grow with it is this number three when i interrupted you a long way back you were you were talking about getting support from other people and seeing that the the greatness and in the depth you know in the blind spot is this number three to be present with all the emotions as you i'd have i had asked you if you've consulted people to get rid of the blockages this sounds like this i know this to be very very powerful and so key oh my gosh it's it's it's very very key it's so important we also need support for it because sometimes it's very scary sometimes it's scary but this is another key element to be able to really be present and not afraid of any emotion you know your soul is larger than your pain your soul could contain it all you don't have to cut anything out you don't have to amputate enough to be afraid of it you can really be present with it and you can bring it to the conversation you could bring it to the fore you could bring it into the relationship with yourself with your close people and with your god you know bring it into the relationship the the the last point i wanted to make earlier i was thinking about something else which is i would always encourage people to be able to define their life as a story of blessing which comes when i get involved in actual positive endeavors so wherever i am in the world it's important to be able to dedicate some time of my life to be an ambassador of love and light and hope whatever that means for you to get involved in some project to create an organization a movement a website to become you know get involved in volunteer work to get involved in some form of work that is about love and kindness and giving and generosity and benevolence because ultimately ultimately actions of positivity have a very very powerful impact on our heart on our soul and our psyche they create new neural pathways you know when we engage in certain habits for 60 times and more we literally create new opportunities in our brains new opportunities of how we think about things so that would just be another element get accustomed to engaging in rituals and habits that are consistent that are positive that are loving that are kind they will have a very powerful impact even if your heart you don't feel you're fully emotionally ready for it right right that was just another component that i would add to this conversation but talking about amputating emotions this is such an important thing people have to trust the fact that every emotion that i'm experiencing is part of my blessed journey it's not part of my curse even if it's a very difficult emotion it's there to teach me something it's an alarm clock we don't like alarm clocks you know if i'm sleeping i really don't like my alarm clock to ring but the alarm clock is not a curse the alarm clock is there to wake me up it's to make me alert we have a lot of alarm clocks and they can make us alert and make us conscious and aware of things so that we don't sleep through life well there's some way you started out more or less this conversation by talking about the court it really struck me when you said it the core trauma that that happens as we're initiated into living into life and birth which is separation and you also talked about how the nature of the of the universe is that there's a cover or blockage over reality which is indivisible undifferentiated oneness and um definitely that has the overtone and the color in the creation has the according to mystical torah has the undertone i should say of divine love and divine goodness of bringing something new into being through and through that partnership you know revealing the reality so i'm just wondering and i almost don't even know how to frame the question but i'm just wondering if this these experiences if it makes sense that these experiences of the of the traumatized emotions are somehow homeopathically or um or through consciousness or through contrast are showing us what isn't working about the blockages so that we go it always drives us deeper it always if we allow it to it always brings up different dimensions of awareness that we didn't at least speaking for myself that i didn't know existed very profound very profound question very profound so let me say two points number one all traumas can be traced back to the primal trauma and that's the trauma of existence or to put it differently even the person that theoretical person who may live in new zealand i don't know who grew up in the most functional perfect loving nurturing home the person who grew up seeing and safe and secure and soothed you know the four s's of dr siegel and the person who grew up in an ambiance of absolute attachment so there's no attachment disorder etc that most sensitive wonderful spiritual person still has to face the ultimate trauma it's the trauma of existence it's a trauma of a soul that is one with infinite divinity descending and experiencing itself as lonely broken fragmented detached living in a universe that eclipses that true reality that is a very deep trauma i want to tell you something sometimes we look at children who ostensibly are in functional homes and functional schools and yet they're experiencing a pain and nobody knows why like what what happened nobody abused them they're being fed they're being nurtured mommy is good tati is good they're good good people sometimes they are too spiritually sensitive and they are experiencing the trauma of separateness the separateness between people the separateness between nations between cultures the wars and the violence that exist on our planet the fact that there's so much distrust that's what they're experiencing and when we can remember that we must remember that all the traumas we face in our individual lives ultimately stem from that one and when we can trace it back to the core and we realize this is our job in the world our job in the world is to face this trauma and to look at the darkness and say and i know that above the dark clouds the sun is shining above this trauma and within this trauma there is oneness and when i work it through i transform the darkness into light i bring healing not only to me but vertically and horizontally to the planet and vertically even to the generations that preceded me because in epigenetics we know that our genes carry the trauma right of all of our ancestors healing retroactively no we bring healing retroactively to our grandparents and great-grandparents and so on and so forth because our genes carry the trauma our genes also carry the resilience and the wisdom and the love and the compassion and the good deeds and the faith and so forth but there's also another very important point to be made about all of this from the perspective of jewish mysticism the entire universe comes from undifferentiated oneness yet creation was the act of differentiation diversity identity i am i you are you every creature has its space its unique chemistry every organism its unique dna sequence etc and that's what makes me me and it makes you you and every one of us has our functionality and our individual unique streaks that differentiate us one from another what allows us to go back to our true nature often it's the trauma that compels us to go out of our individual story and go back to a place of simplicity and oneness which is the only way we can truly liberate ourselves our traumas often force us to let go of every last vestige of ego every last vestige of vanity and allow ourselves to melt away in the ecstasy of oneness so paradoxically it's sometimes our pain that really compel us to grow to places and touch truths that we could have never touched without it because when i'm in my comfort zone and my comfort zone is working for me i could just remain complacent it's when my comfort zone is shaken and i suddenly realize how limiting my stories about myself are and then i realize that all of creation is a story that we tell ourselves about ourselves and others and i'm forced to completely go out out of the story and go back to a place of undifferentiated oneness so that a much deeper truth emerges and that's where our pain itself becomes the foundation of our redemptive consciousness and now we're healing it's so true and it's and others also and it's so complex and just really quickly want to share after i lost younger brother in 2002 you know i lost a child a six month older years before that and that was in 91 i think 1991 right wow remember yes i remember i was i was i was a student in a rabbinical college and i remember that story when you lost your child yeah it was early it was before it became like unfortunately there more and more you know there have been a lot more tragedies since then but it was it was much less common at the time anyway after my brother passed away like that when my when my baby passed away i i happened to be you know around the time when the bobby trevor was urging us you know to do what we could to bring this redemptive healing to the world and i just felt like the soul was pushing me and i got very activated in ways that were way beyond my identity then when my brother passed away in 2002 a younger brother i kind of i think i went into ptsd and i remember every day i was sitting at my desk just like why what the heck and i i was able to move less and less you know just was sitting there day after day for about two or three months and and at one day i just remember having this sudden visual it doesn't even make sense but it changed everything for me it was like i saw suddenly saw myself where i lived in morristown new jersey and there was a lake there and i saw myself in the lake as a duck from nowhere from nowhere and i was swimming and i was looking it was cold it was winter and i was icy and all the houses kind everything seemed kind of gray i was looking around and then all of a sudden my attention was drawn down to the underneath the water my little round duck body and my little duck feet paddling there and it does not make any sense logically but it was like it showed me i felt with my whole being that this is a world of peace that underneath this every down there everything is good and everything is connected was like a revelation and it allowed me to get up from that chair and move forward into the work that i do now it was one of the first it was really the first catalyst for that and so i i think everything you're saying is so utterly profound and so important and it's like there's something about the human being that you know we're creating the image of divine the divine yet you're we're human we have this reality to us that nothing else has because we have that free choice we have that divine you know essence and yet we we experience the the the decisions and the the pains as well as the joys but the pains and the travails of humanity what they call the human condition in such an intense way and somehow the blend of the two being more aware and more compassionate and more allowing of that that human self making the space for it bringing it up to heaven screaming and or crying in pain as who could not do you know who wouldn't do that you know as much as needed being witnessed learning to to hate the picture to offer goodness instead of that darkness and at the same time it seems to have the effect if it's used correctly and i don't wish it on anyone we're moving toward a world where death the torah promises death will be removed suffering will be removed that's what redemption really is but i just want to say that somehow the the work that you're talking about and the allowing that you're talking about the self-compassion that you're talking about allow for the revelation of that deeper realness of us which ultimately at his court is god and the revelation of that in turn heals all potential for suffering suffering comes from that core trauma of separation right does that make sense to you this is how i'm hearing it all you know putting together yeah there's us uh what come to as you were talking you know two really majestic majestic teachings from from jewish spirituality come to mind number one there is in the bible in the hebrew bible that dream of jacob as he's going he's leaving his parents someone going to build the first jewish family which would turn into the jewish nation he dreams of a ladder that's standing on the ground sulawesi there's a ladder standing etched on the ground and the top of the ladder reaches heaven and the rungs of the ladder are basically the link between heaven and earth and the hebrew bible is using that as an illustration of what the ultimate calling of a human being is we are ladders and that ladder on one side is etched on the ground we're earthy we're earthly we're concrete we're mundane we are physical we're sometimes very brute some of us more than others and that ladder has rungs but that very same ladder its top reaches heaven so we are the interlacing link between heaven and earth but those rungs climb through all of the layers of reality so that the human soul is actually like a violin that experiences the vibration of every dimension of reality and of every creature on earth maimonides writes that the human being is made up of every dimension of the planet and every dimension of the cosmos so our hearts are actually like musical instruments that experience the vibrations of literally every dynamic mention and that's why there is so much confusion and there are so many vicissitudes and there are so many fluctuations there are so many experiences but instead of allowing that to become a source of confusion and fragmentation and the splintering of self we actually have to see it as an invitation to be able to take all of those vibrations and turn it back into a singular symphony so don't get afraid of any vibration every moment of the day there'll be a different vibration just be open to the experience and the second major beautiful idea in jewish mysticism is why is it that naturally instinctively we love the ocean i think most of us you know you stand at the ocean and there's just this sense of of war and mystery and love and something about it and also you stand in front of tall mountains tall mountains and there's a beautiful interpretation about it the oceans and the mountains remind us of who we are we're really you know the ocean it doesn't end doesn't look like it's ever going to end from our vantage point it just reminds you of who you are and that mountain itself it reminds you of who you are and when we have those reminders of who we are it helps us live a life that is aligned with who we are well it's stunning and it sounds like this violin image is so compelling and it seems like yeah we're saying the strength theory the ultimate strength it sounds like we each contain everything that we each contain with us everything everything each and every one of us there's a classic jewish mystical word called lakute torah by the founder of he passed away 1812 in ukraine and he writes he writes the reason a person can repair the world is because everything that exists in the world is reflected and mirrored and vibrates within every person's psyche so there's a piece of the world inside of me you know when i'm watching i live in rockland county and there's beautiful birds in my backyard there's a forest and there's a red and blue bird that come visit our trees every evening before sunset and i'm watching the red bird i'm watching the red bird you know the other day during corona we stayed home so i wasn't going to the synagogue so i would pray in the morning so saturday morning i would sit with my wife and we would study texts of jewish spirituality and there was this bird that kept on coming every few minutes and almost like he was giving this or she was giving this message my wife said yeah yeah the bird is reminding you that you have to pray you did not do your morning service so you know i told it to my teenage son and he said sure you know dream on that tati so i don't know what the bird was saying but there was something so compelling about what she her interpretation because it's true there is a symbiotic relationship that we have with every creature on the planet when you're watching a worm or you're watching a caterpillar or you're watching a squirrel or a groundhog or i often watch the deer here i'm not watching someone or something that is separate from me no the job of the human being is to reveal the oneness we are all interconnected just like there's a food chain and there's a food web there's an ecosystem and the balance is perfect and the balance is essential every one of us is a giver and every one of us is a taker every creature contributes and every creature receives we all need each other on one level or another and it's the job of the human being who has the consciousness of oneness to be able to reveal that synchronization and that unity within humanity and within the entire planet and within the entire universe wow okay this leads me to the real core question that i wanted to bring up that i want to bring up in this amazing interview it's really hard not to go down all of these or go through all of these doors that you've opened up like the light is just shining you know calling but um we talked before the call about the idea of what i what i'm starting to call rebranding god and i want to say that you know a lot of people as i'm sure you know better than many people a lot of people are have a visceral aversion to the word god they were brought up with a sense of being judged and not not good enough and sometimes in very severe ways sometimes with punishments and beatings at least with threats and fear and even in very beautiful households that are very connected to religion and even within the torah tradition not the mystical torah which is revealing this oneness which you know only started to be really revealed in bigger ways you know to 300 years ago a couple hundred years ago and now much much more than ever because of the times but anyway we're still wed i feel i feel very much and i'm i'm saying this is a statement it's really a question i feel very much that we are being invited and even more strongly than invited we are being begged to step into a new relationship with god the old relationship with god was trauma-based we're all traumatized by god anybody who believes in god is deeply traumatized by god and there's no way to move into a relationship of love and oneness which is the promised and and emerging you know evolutionary destiny that we're moving toward the awakening as some people say there's no way to do that from that traumatized relationship like you said people either turn their back or check out or whatever so people either walk away from a relationship or redefine god to fit their own you know thoughts which god is way beyond our thoughts you can't create a universe and be beyond that if you're stuck in my mind um and limited by that so anyway how do we get it it feels very much that we're being urged like i said to move to a new relationship and the last thing i want to say about that and i'm turning it over to you is and i don't say this in public i've said it a couple of times in smaller venues in public but i people are always talking about like asking god for forgiveness and asking other people for forgiveness and you know that's that's important when it's not when it's appropriate and forgiving ourselves really important but on a much deeper level it feels like we cannot move into a new relationship with god if we can't forgive god and i'm saying this to you because i know you can handle and do something with it but forgiveness means to let the past be in the past you're not afraid that i'm gonna stone you through the zoom huh no i'm not i know too much about you thank god no but this is i really i don't want to have this even if you relate to what i'm saying so if you don't then feel free to you know tweak it bash it whatever but to me it seems like i thought i thought this over front back underneath you know side i cannot see anything else as you cannot allow you know you can't allow someone to treat you in a different way you can't see a different way if you can't let go of all of the hurt in some way not that it doesn't have to still be worked out but if you're holding let's say in a relationship someone hurt you a spouse they betrayed you whatever if you can't believe that they want to be different now and that they realize and see your hurt and that they want to heal it now you can't allow that to happen and we're talking about the one business you know source essence being of the whole universe so take it away okay so shifra you ask a wonderful question and it's not just a wonderful question it is a vital question because i would say that so many in our generation experience what i call dt divine trauma divine trauma is basically trauma revolving god revolving around god and it comes from the fact that many of us have grown up and consciously or unconsciously deliberately or non deliberately the way god is experienced by us is in a very very negative and toxic way i can't tell you how many countless emails i've received from people letters personal encounters with people from all different groups of life and the common denominator is that they perceive god in a very very negative way god is out to get to me god is out to crush me god is out to kill me to destroy me and their life story are basically a confirmation of that inner belief and you know i often tell people in my lectures you know i ask them i want to know what is the first instinctive image that you experience in your brain and in your heart when the word god is mentioned i'm not talking about the images that come later after meditation and reflection and a cerebral long analytical process i'm talking about that moment the moment you hear the word what image you know is planted in your brain that very moment before you have a chance to judge it and dismiss it right and very often people will describe a very sinister image you know black scary dark eyes steering you down dark clouds somebody who's really really always looking down your back and searching through your closet to try to find your guilt or many other similar depictions and what that means is that instinctively our first impulsive reaction is one of negativity and we have to work that through because in order to embrace the consciousness of oneness the consciousness of love the consciousness that unites us all that we spoke about it earlier we really cannot judge ourselves or judge these responses because these reactions are really part of our coping mechanism you know our brain creates files for everything including for god and these are the files we have created to know what to expect to know how to position ourselves vis-a-vis god but these relationships and these attitudes must be revisited by us as we all mature and try to enhance our spiritual and emotional posture in a healthy liberated emancipated inclusive and deeply emotional and visceral relationship with god that enhances that enriches that embraces and empowers us rather than weakens us a lot of relationship but okay i i am i i'm sorry so sorry to interrupt your flow but no problem i just i it's also religious upbringing you know there's a constant emphasis on you know we're not good enough we have we failed we haven't you know at the mark we have to repent we have to ask for forgiveness no wonder these things are happening that's one thing i want to say i'll let you go and go go forward in a second yeah what you're saying you're not good enough you're not good enough you're always guilty and how do i but how who authorized anyone sorry for the blunt question but but i know that people are going to be thinking this who authorized a a spiritual leader or a rabbi like yourself or anyone else who's promoting a love relationship with god who authorized you to change the dynamic do you know what i'm saying if this is a tradition for all these most religious yeah so yeah sorry for the interruption but it's no no no it's an awesome question and the truth is if you read certain texts without context without the context of real spiritual oneness indeed those traditions are more than justified in other words what i am saying is not that people who have these feelings are coming from nowhere no they have they have long-standing tradition and rituals and certain perspectives and certain literature that really makes them feel this way education certain focus no question on a lot of religious texts that would affirm this and in fact i have to tell you every time i speak about this i always get a few emails from people who will say this is completely new stuff this is not true this is all fiction this is your own liberal pop psychology trying to make yourself popular and making hurt people feel good but the truth is fire and brimstone the truth is god is a zealous god he's a god of vengeance the truth is every wrong thing you do you're going to get punished for the truth is you know dante's furnace the fires of purgatory are waiting to consume your soul and consume your body and that is the truth that is the reality and my response is i'm not judgmental and i have compassion and i know where you got this information from i know the texts very very well i know the literature very well i know this style of education but i want to tell you that this is ultimately a distortion of the entire foundation of all spiritual growth because let's think about this for a moment are you going to tell me from a jewish perspective that god infinity had nothing better to do with his life than conceive a universe right create struggle create challenge create lots of opportunities for people to fail and stumble lots of opportunities for trauma and who who of us has not traumatized only to tell you and by the way when you fail i'm here to ignite the fires of hell to the point that you will remember who's the boss i mean this misconception is is is so beyond absurd it's almost funny if it wasn't sad uh it's funny if it wasn't saddened if it wasn't that so many religious leaders of every tradition almost throughout the ages have promoted this yeah so this is all in in we have a beautiful expression in our spiritual literature called an exile mentality versus a redemptive mentality in hebrew it's called gullus mentality versus gula mentality there's a mentality where a person is completely estranged it's an immortality of slavery you know in the ancient world of slavery you whipped your slave into obedience and the reason you whipped you slave into obedience was because he didn't want to be there and he didn't have a right and he shouldn't have been there he should have been freed so you whip them into obedience and we often use religion in the same way like god needs to whip you into obedience but the only reason you have to be whipped into obedience is because there's no relationship there's no intimacy there's no oneness in a deeper spiritual consciousness it's about organic holistic harmony it's about understanding who you are the deep spiritual masters have taught that god is really not the word to use i want to tell you that in kabbalah the word that's used in lieu of god is ain't self which means infinite reality which means the reality of oneness the term that we use for god in the greatest works of jewish philosophy and in the bible itself is yud hey vavhay which means existence reality so somebody tells me rabbi why are we taking i don't believe in god i'm like okay good but here's a question do you believe in reality of course i believe in reality so i said so so that's our definition of god god is ultimate reality we're all part of reality we're all in reality reality is not here to get you reality is you you are reality reality is you the balshempt balsham one of the greatest spiritual masters of judaism he lived in the 17th he was born in 1698 so he lived at the end of the 17th in the beginning of the 18th century he was known as the founder of the hasidic movement one of the profoundest movements of jewish spirituality and he used to say god is everything and everything is god he would say it in yiddish god is outs and also's god and his point was we are all god we are all in god we are all reality we are all an aspect of reality we are in reality it's not like god exists in heaven god equals existence it's not when you say god is big or god a smaller god is greater god as wonderful or god as this or that it's already you i'm already off because the moment i'm like god is something you miss the point god is not anything god is business i just made up a word is this i s hyphen that word all the time yes okay i s hyphen n e s s god is isness god is not the moment you're like god is feminine god is masculine god is compassionate god is big god a small god is great you're already off target because there's now duality there's god and there's me god is this and i am this god is this and you are this no the word god therefore is very inaccurate the right word is reality is not something god is is-ness business is god in other words the very core of reality the very truth of reality that's how judaism defines god so i tell them do you believe in reality do you believe in existence the name for god in the bible you'd have of hey is the essence of existence and all of us are part of that existence all of us are an aspect of existence and existence has dimensions that are completely mysterious and infinite things we cannot wrap our brains around plans and visions and dreams that we cannot wrap our brains around and existence is also part of existence is also so many you know miracles the miracle of love and the miracle of birth the miracle of creation and the miracle of relationships and the miracle of intimacy and the miracle of science and the miracle of discovery and the miracle of this search for truth and the miracle of emotional connection emotional bonding so reality is is so much of what we know and so much more of what we don't know and the uniqueness is that when we judaism speaks about god it's not just as you know a force of nature as spinoza's definition of god and it's not just a god that's transcendent and infinite above nature it's really a synthesis of the fact that there's no nature outside of god but there is also god above nature because god is not limited to nature so god is both within and without feminine and masculine imminent and transcendent and also at the core of my heart extremely personal and intimate it's something i can address in the most personal ways like i address my best friend and therefore when the torah speaks about you should listen to god another way of saying it is can you listen to your deepest deepest voice can you tune in to the ultimate ultimate truth of reality when the torah in the bible says if you follow god's ways you'll be blessed if you don't follow god's ways you'll be cursed it's almost like a geneticist talking to you and saying let me tell you about your genetic makeup let me tell you about your dna let me tell you about your chemistry let me tell you about your brain let me tell you about your blood type and let me tell you which foods are super foods which foods are alright and which foods are toxic this geneticist is not trying to mix into your life he's not trying to destroy your life he's trying to align your daily diet with your genetic makeup with your blood type so that your adrenaline and your energy level is maximized so your life is actualized i don't feel lethargic and heavy and depressed and angry so when the torah is a blueprint for life when it gives us rules those rules are not about repression those rules are about self-actualization it's aligning your brain with its ultimate ultimate power it's ultimate calling yes there are certain foods i should not be eating there are certain behaviors i should stay away from and there are certain behaviors i should engage in so i think it's so important that our generation to trust people we don't need to whip anybody into obedience we don't need to scare people god is not your enemy you are divine you are part of infinite reality god is about tuning into your ultimate ultimate deepest strength your ultimate reality and on that reality in that level of reality beyond my blockages beyond my distortions i want to be the best person because that's who i am when we can come from that perspective the entire education and relationship with god is not just sweetened but it's completely transformed right wow [Music] it's so it's so profound and so i don't know poignant there are a lot of other words for it also without this people either have the choice of of subjugating themselves to constant self-judgment and terror guilt etc shame or to just walk away and that's neither road is going to take us where we right where we're aimed where we're aimed now which is right transcendence finding the divine within our own beings and then exactly the world that that choice is a very painful choice that many of us make it's the choice of either submitting it's the choice of either submitting to uh to cynicism and mockery and alienation and despair really because cynicism is really a form of despair it's like i won't trust anybody because i was backstabbed last time versus versus the a vision which uh you know causes me to submit and surrender and feel mediocre but there's a much more real authentic path and that is you know you don't have to surrender your individuality and you don't want to go to a place of fear on the contrary you want to go to a place of love and compassion and you want to understand that everything you're going through is really a gate to deeper awareness and the deeper awareness is where your ultimate self and your ultimate values lay and your ultimate values and your deepest yearning is for oneness for attachment for connection with yourself with all of the parts of your brain with all the all your brains all the parts of your brain with others with reality with the planet with the cosmos and with the creator of the cosmos the mystical torah texts talk about this kind of experience right we're so in a certain sense we're in an evolutionary sense we're aiming for that it's not a neutral this is i'm stating this but it's a question not a neutral experience but actually a passionate um transcendent joyful blissful experience of union and you know and they and then you know they they call the human they call what we've been going through these millennia this like crazy insane world of of terror and anxiety and worry and suffering and exploitation and domination and resistance and victimhood and tragedy god forbid you know all this we call this the human condition like that's just the way it is but really this is a metamorphosis right into another completely other version of ourselves in that relationship which will project into a different world so what what do you see and i guess i'll i i've taken so much time from you so i'll end with this question probably um how do you see that that metamorphosis how would you advise people in general on that metamorphosis how do you move from that deeply traumatized relationship with god where where and on what basis where where your life has shown you that you know it's it makes sense to be afraid and it makes sense to feel like you know either you're being victimized or you are causing these horrible things by being a bad how do you move from that into you know intimate passionate union with the ultimate is-ness how does that happen right great question the first thing is through awareness and compassion not through getting angry at yourself and judging yourself because that's part of the old voice which we have to have compassion for so don't get angry at yourself don't judge yourself the most powerful tool is observation awareness awareness means that i can watch that relationship going in different directions take take take it in your own relationships your own marriages or your own friendships your own partnerships with people you know the greatest blessing is not for me to be perfect because i'm not perfect the greatest blessing i can wish on myself is to always be aware of what's happening you know if my wife tells me something and i can observe the triggers and i could see where my brain wants to go and i can make a conscious choice to go somewhere else with compassion so i don't have to repress or deny or judge or crush what just happened i can look at it i can have compassion for it i could realize where it's coming from and then i could say but i'm gonna choose to react from a place of confidence and wholeness and inner health and inner resilience i'm gonna make believe i'm not traumatized i'm gonna teach my brain that it doesn't have to react like a traumatized little victim my brain doesn't have to become a crocodile or a lizard coping for you know valid coping to trying to survive and with compassion i can then tell my brain i'm going to respond from a place of wholeness as though i was amazingly healthy and you know what happens after 60 times there are new neural pathways in which your trauma is not dominating you now we sometimes need a lot of help and a lot of support we sometimes need real professionals to help us release our trauma sometimes my trauma is paralyzing me and i can't do this on my own i need certain external methods of people or various substances that can help me grant it but the key is always the awareness and i think this is also true in our spiritual evolution you know if you're standing to pray if you're getting up to pray or sitting down to pray or you're involved in some type of conversation or religious experience you know watch watch your reactions when my reaction is one of me tensing up and becoming uptight and angry and judgmental just watch it with compassion because then you can make choices you know if you're sitting down to your passover seder table or your saturday your sabbath table i'm talking in the religious jewish tradition or other traditions and you're finding yourself uptight angry critical judgmental judgmental towards your children judgmental towards yourself judgmental towards your spouse just be aware of what's happening and then ask yourself can i give myself permission to try to experience a vulnerable visceral experience of intimate connection and love and when we continuously do this we will all be surprised pleasantly surprised by our ability to be able to engage in a delightful blissful experience rather than one that's dominated by fear judgment scorn and most importantly dread and fright so basically turning the key of this is turning it's turning inward tuning inward yes always and rather than outward always yes yes yeah so it is it too okay this is the call of the hour this work that this is the call of the hour i i think it's one of the great calls of the hour certainly okay thank you uh thank you for staying with us so long and for all of this pressure it's obvious that there's immense wellsprings full of more but uh we want to give you we want to give everybody here a chance to actually have uh have some of that more thank you so anyway if you can just let the listeners know the viewers know what it is that you and your team have prepared for everybody who wants to get to know more about your work sure sure those who those who are interested would be my uh my delightful and blissful pleasure to be able to uh engage with you and to be able to call become closer to you and be able to uh enlarge our community of uh of mankind and womankind with love and compassion so number one i send out almost daily a short whatsapp clip that helps anchor us in the vision of oneness and the vision of love and compassion so that's a short clip that may um help you as it helps me and it helps many of my friends and students anchor ourselves you know in that inner space so you could sign up for that to receive that via whatsapp there's also days will change the brain as you said hopefully yeah if we do it constantly and the most important thing is to internalize it and to act on it you know to internalize it viscerally and to act on it so it doesn't just remain an intellectual idea if you wish i can also send you a few videos for beginners that will help initiate you into this deeper consciousness and finally i send out a weekly newsletter a weekly essay that's dedicated to these concepts of applying them and internalizing them which i'm very happy to send you um if you want to sign up and we could continue that special relationship and i think each and every one of us to remember the most important thing you know empower yourself remember that each and every single one of us is an ambassador we were not conceived randomly we were conceived with love and each of us is part of a global and personal mission each of us is an ambassador an ambassador of love light hope healing authenticity wisdom and redemptive consciousness you know each and every person that you meet in the supermarket in the street the gas station in a hospital in a doctor's office in the gym wherever it is every single person i meet people i know and people i don't know i have an opportunity to really become an ambassador of a deeper consciousness and the effects are incredible beyond our imagination and thank you for the opportunity thank you so much so to all the listeners the link to this to rabbi jacobson's special gift um take advantage it's underneath this video take advantage please do not regret it um the priceless information and connections absolutely free thank you thank you and i just want to bless everybody and i want to bless everybody ultimately it boils down to how you see yourself when i wake up in the morning i can either look at myself as just you know a heap of bones and sinews and cells which is true and a lot of neurons who are fire firing away and competing for my attention and that's one way of looking at yourself but there's another way you know i think when you wake up in the morning when i wake up in the morning you really look at yourself and say i'm an ambassador of god my soul was sent down here and whatever happens to me today is part of that journey it's part of that mission it's not a mistake whether i get stuck in traffic or my plane gets cancelled you know whether i get a ticket or i get a bill that's uncomfortable small things or big things random things intentional things it's all part of an opportunity and a mission i was sent here to really be an ambassador of light and healing and love and i want to seize those opportunities every single day thank you amazing amazing thank you so much god bless you all thank you for the honor bye bye bye this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at www.theyoshiva.net donate