• SG

  Sarah Goldberg -2 years ago

  "Perfection is the enemy of the good"

  Getting depressed because the whole entity or project isn't perfect can result in giving up on working on  the  parts or less than perfect success. 

  "I can't do it perfectly so I won't even try!"

  The fallacy is  that perfection of the whole only consists of eventual perfection of each part, or only partial success can eventually lead to complete total perfection.  

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• SG

  Sarah Goldberg -2 years ago

  The whole comprises the sum of its parts AND MORE

  Everybody knows about the synergistic effect of combining components to form a united entity that is synergistic, i.e. greater than the sum of its parts. 

  Take each part of a car, a computer, anything complex. Even the Mishkan.  The perfect combination results in an entity that is far greater than any of  its parts. It will only function if all the parts are there and united properly.  

  Conversely if one part is  missing, the complex unified whole entity cannot function. 

  Counting days are the various parts, the components.  But a week with all its days results in a complex entity that is far greater than any or even all of its individual days.

  Therefore counting days is one thing, a particular part, but counting each weeks consists of counting complex entities that are synergistic result of 7 of those parts. 

  One can count days but not have weeks. But one cannot count a week unless all of its days are there and united properly. 

  "Avraham came with his DAYS.....". Our primordial father perfected each day, each week, each month and each year. His life, the sum total of his days, weeks, months and years, was perfect precisely because each component day was perfect.  

  Make each day perfect and the rest will follow automatically.  One can't have a perfect week, a perfect month or year without each day being perfect. .  

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• SM

  Sara Metzger -2 years ago

  Someone asked...

  Rabbeinu Yerucham position seems strange, as if weeks are on derababn. We are saying that one week represents one middah eg chesed in an all encompassing manner so how can refining days be biblical when this is the detailed refinement yet the overall week is not biblical?

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• MC

  Motti Cohen -2 years ago

  It seems that you need to tackle the days before you can tackle the weeks?

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• SM

  Sara Metzger -2 years ago

  As you know,

  Your brother Rabbi Simon Jacobson breaks down the days very specifically. Eadh day, he breaks it down into the specifics of the weekly (emotions) and daily focuses. Helps me a lot to understand the differences between and nuances of the week and then the days.

  Example for   DAY 25   NETZACH OF NETZACH: Endurance in EnduranceWednesday evening, April 21, we count twenty five days of the Omer.
  
  Everyone has willpower and determination. We have the capacity to endure much more than we can imagine, and to prevail under the most trying of circumstances. Ask yourself: Is my behavior erratic? Am I inconsistent and unreliable? Since I have will and determination, why am I so mercurial? Am I afraid of accessing my endurance and committing? Do I fear being trapped by my commitment? If yes, why? Is it a reaction to some past trauma? Instead of cultivating endurance in healthy areas, have I developed a capacity for endurance of unhealthy experiences? Do I endure more pain than pleasure? Do I underestimate my capacity to endure? Exercise for the day:  Commit yourself to developing a new good habit.

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• SG

  Sarah Goldberg -2 years ago

  First comes working on the "moychin" the intellect, the brain

  And only afterwards comes working on the middos, the emotions. 

  I.e. get your thinking, your intellect straightened out first and then you can begin, with that straight intellect, to straighten out your middos. 

  This squares with my understanding of the Tanya that in the battle between the brain/intellect and the heart/emotions, the former should rule the latter. 

  Emotions, tho they motivate and saturate, should not rule the intellect and the brain.  On.the contrary...

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• SM

  Sara Metzger -2 years ago

  Someone commented

  This feedback loop between mochin and middos makes so much sense. Ultimately then to be "human" or spritual person is to lead with the mochin hence Chabad.

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• SG

  Sarah Goldberg -2 years ago

  In the year the yidden left mitrayim

  They counted 49 days and then came Mattan Torah on the 50th day. Huge.

  In later years in the midbar with the mishkan did they plant and harvest barley or wheat  to bring a korban Omer? Again 49 days of counting and then the grand 50th day of Shavous as a yom tov, also huge and the korban Omer.

  Later in Eretz Yisrael they indeed planted and harvested barley and wheat and counted 49 days and had the yom tiv if Shavous and again brought the korban omer in Shilo or the Beid Hamigdash. 

  Today besides the annual.countband yom tov  we count 49 also, 49 years of planting and harvesting and then comes yoyvel. 

  Surely there will a certain amount (49x49?) of yoyvels till the ultimate Simcha and yom tov of the Geula Shelayma

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• SG

  Sarah Goldberg -2 years ago

  Yes, we harvest the barley on the second day pesach

  But the night before, the first day of pesach we already ate which obviously presupposes planting and harvesting and processing wheat and the other 4 types of humanly edible grains.

    So human food preceded the animal food.  

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• Anonymous -2 years ago

  what happened to #3?

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Chassidus: Maamer U'sfartem 5711 #4

Rabbi YY Jacobson

• April 22, 2021
• |
• 10 Iyyar 5781
• |
• 678 views

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