TheYeshiva.net - Rabbi YY Jacobson

If You'd Only Know Who You Are

The Error of King Shlomo: Not Grasping the Infinity of Our Actions

1 hr 48 min

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Class Summary:

This weekly women's class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Vaera, 28 Tevet, 5781, January 12, 2021, live from Rabbi Jacobson's home in Monsey, NY.

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SZ
S. Zeblisky -2 years ago
Only being able to read English, I'm hoping to find the source sheets in English, if only it were possible. Baruch HaShem. Toda.
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Anonymous -2 years ago
Hello dear Rabbi Jacobsson!

Your videos are an elightment and a source of strenght since many years. Thank you for all your work!

You said in this video about Boaz and Ruth that Boaz helped her even when she wasn't a Jew. I am a bit confused.

Hasn't a convert a jewish soul which brings them to conversion? So to say, to return home and repair. Or are converts in fact no Jews but only their offsprings?

Sorry if this seems totally unconnected to the topic. It's just something that bothers me personally and I can't let go of thinking about what you said. And I try to sort it.

Thank you much!
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Anonymous -3 years ago
To add,if we would know the effects of the acts we do when we step outside ourselves to help even a simple jew at the times when it goes against our nature and the future outcomes that result,we would be dancing etc.
from ber yosef parshas vayera

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DMR
Dr. Mark Rutenberg -3 years ago
This Sfas Emes is about breath.ולא שמעו אל משה מקצר רוח

How often do you pay attention to your own breath or notice the depth of the breathing of another?

You may have heard the expression “people don’t change”. There is a general truth to this aphorism simply because many of the most deeply seated, unquestioned beliefs that we have about ourselves, and our most powerful emotional responses were set in stone when we were very young children.

Beliefs and emotional responses that were programmed into us when we had the limited insight and independence of a child have now become automatic, and many decades later we continue to believe and practice them regardless of whether or not they have any validity, are particularly healthy, or in any way serve us well as the adults that we are today.

However this general rule that “people don’t change” does have a few exceptions. One of them is the lasting, fundamental personal change that can occur as a result of psychodynamic psychotherapy. When a person as an adult is willing and able to revisit his childhood with an adult level of insight and independence, the childhood mental computer can be reprogrammed by that adult mind, and really deep and positive change can occur.

Whether seeing a psychotherapist is a pleasant luxury because a basically healthy person feels that he or she can attain even higher levels of self-confidence and inner peace, or is more of a necessity because the beliefs and instincts established as a child are now dictating the responses of the adult in a painful and/or damaging way, the ability to continue to work with that psychotherapist has become an important and beneficial part of his or her life.

Then comes Covid-19 and the ability to continue in-person psychotherapy almost completely stops. Psychotherapists and their patients have found over the last year that while the telephone session is generally not a good substitute for meeting in person, the Zoom, Skype or FaceTime session comes close.

When asked why this is the case they generally point to their ability to continually observe the depth or shallowness of the patient's breath.

A deep breath taken during or after the discussion of a sensitive or important topic is a strong indication of increased psychological integration and health, while a shallow breath, a נשימה מקוצרת indicates exactly the opposite.Our Sfas Emes provides a clue as to why this is the case.

The first מדרש רבה in פרשת וארא tells us that Moshe Rabbeinu and Shlomo Ha Melech both stumbled in a similar way.

Even though Hashem told Moshe at the outset that Pharaoh would not listen to him, when that in fact occurred Moshe questioned why Hashem had send sent him. The Torah gives a reason why a king should not have too many wives which is that they could influence him in a negative way. Shlomo felt that since he is not susceptible to any such influence he could have as many more wives than the Torah permitted.

He was wrong and this same Medresh states that given the choice Shlomo would have preferred not to ever have been a king but instead to have been a latrine cleaner his entire life and not have the Torah state that the multiplicity of his wives turned his heart.

The common failing here was that Moshe and Shlomo were in these two instances insufficiently cognizant of their own Infinity.We know that our mind has several levels, a conscious, a subconscious, a preconscious etc.

The Sfas Emes focuses here on the fact that we have Infinite levels. Infinite has an exact meaning – no limit.Moshe was so impacted by the pain of his people that he was living just in the levels of that felt pain. He questioned his mission because he at least momentarily did not feel the full height of his stature into Heaven.

Shlomo with his great wisdom was able to be aware of and consciously operate on many more psychological levels than most others. This apparently led him to the incorrect belief that he was a master of all of the levels of his soul.

That is impossible. It is impossible because Shlomo, and all of us, have an infinite number of levels.

Our נשמה is a חלק אלוקות , a piece of Hashem and therefore reaches all of the way up to Hashem. On one of those Infinite number of levels that Shlomo was not aware of, having too many wives was able to influence him.I believe that the early מאמורים delivered and written by the Sfas Emes, like this one written in 1871, when he first became the Rebbe of Ger, are the most difficult to penetrate, simply because he was not yet practiced in translating the transcendent vision that he had into concepts and words that most others could understand.

The Sfas Emes however leaves us in this maimor with two mind-blowing (at least for me) images or concepts, that we can practice walking around with. While the first is powerful, I find the second to be powerful squared.First image – Try to maintain a picture yourself as if you are standing on the ground but that your height reaches the highest heaven.

Moshe, Shlomo, and each of us, has an Infinite number of levels. Because they are infinite, these levels must reach up to Hashem himself.

If Shlomo and Moshe had pictured themselves standing on earth, with a conscious mind that has access to only a few of these levels, but that they in fact have an Infinite height, they would have maintained a knowledge that only the Infinite can know what can influence us a thousand levels beyond our consciousness.

Second image – Realize that you are the breath of Hashem. This does not mean that Hashem’s breath is within you, or that Hashem’s breath is a part of you. It means that Hashems’ breath is what you are.וַיִּיצֶר֩ יְהוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֜ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֗ם עָפָר֙ מִן־הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה וַיִּפַּ֥ח בְּאַפָּ֖יו נִשְׁמַ֣ת חַיִּ֑ים וַֽיְהִ֥י הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּֽה׃

This is why the depth of a human breath is such a powerful reflection of personal integration and peace. Breathing deeply subconscious connects us to who we are. You may think that it may be difficult to incorporate these two images into your daily life. The Sfas Emes assures us here that this is not the case. Try it on for a while like a new coat and you may find that it is surprisingly natural to hold onto these two images.

Just start by taking a deep breath.

Dr. Mark Rutenberg
CEO Adenocyte, LLC Sentry Laboratories, LLC Chairman Red Mountain Medical Holdings
Please join me for 15 minute Emet Zoom Sfat Emet - Fridays from 8:00 - 8:15 AM Eastern US, 3:00 - 3:15 PM Israel. To join just enter: emetoutreach.org/live You can also use the Zoom Meeting ID 929-478-7383
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RDB
Rabbi Danny Bergson -3 years ago
At end of shiur a lady asked question Re contradiction between "affecting the root" through impact of ones actions and

the concept of "tehorah hi"

is it possible to say as follows in the "letters " of kabbalah

that at the deeper core yechidah shenenefesh nothing affects the soul an extension of "ani havayah lo shanisi -malachai 3:6)

but the concept of the chidushei harim is referring to root of soul at the beginning of hishtalshelus in atzilus meaning the soul as it is shayach leolamos

i think Tanya uses this differentiation to explain how rambam fits with kabbalah on source of soul "he is the knowledge the knower etc) in kabbalah is the level of chochma of atzilus but the source of the neshama goes "beyond " that

just a thought
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Women's Class Sefas Emes Va'era

Rabbi YY Jacobson

January 12, 2021
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28 Tevet 5781
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2052 views

In honor of our parents, Rabbi Peretz and Rishi Greenwald, on the occasion of your birthdays, with heartfelt blessings for many long, happy, & healthy years, filled with joy, Nachas, and success.

Your love, warmth, and leadership in Long Beach, California, over 40 years, have impacted thousands. Your selfless devotion inspires us daily.

Dedicated by your loving family