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9 Elul 5767, 8/23/2007
Secret of Success
It is no secret that western society is success oriented. Everyone wants to be a success, whether it be a successful basketball player, a successful actress, a successful lawyer, a successful stockbroker... the list goes on and on. Success is championed as one of life’s greatest values. Everyone loves success stories. Everyone envies successful people. From the earliest ages, children are taught to admire success. Parents push their kids to be successful. The drive to succeed is reinforced in schools. The competition is fierce to get into top colleges, because they are seen as the doors to success. Working your way up the ladder of success is the mainstay of capitalism. Accordingly, bookstores are filled with guides on how to succeed. 
Chances are that the faces we see in this world on the cover of People Magazine are not the faces which we are going to see in Heaven in the world to come.
 All of this means that the poor soul who does not succeed is a loser. In western society, if you are not a success, you are probably very unhappy. Your self-image is bound to be low. The successful people are the winners, and you are nothing more than a bum. The Torah, however, has a very different understanding of success. Our Sages teach that the beginning verse of this week’s Torah portion, “When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the L-rd thy G-d delivers them into your hands, and you have taken them captive….” is not only speaking about military encounter, but also about a person’s war against his evil inclinations. The hero in this war is the person who overcomes his passion and remains true to G-d’s will for the Jewish People as set down in the guidelines of the Torah. This is life’s true success. So if you are a loser according to the standards and values of modern Western society, all is not lost. You too can be a winner. You too can succeed. How? Through t’shuva. That’s right. The key to success is t’shuva. When life is looked at through spiritual glasses, the most important thing is neither money, nor honor, nor power, nor fame. The most important thing is getting closer to G-d. For real achievement is actually measured by what is important to G-d, not by what society flaunts. In G-d’s eyes, a woman can be successful without looking like Barbie. A man can be a success without having a six-figure salary. The real successful individual is the baal t’shuva, the person who is forever seeking a deeper commitment to Torah and a healthier relationship with G-d. In his book, “Lights of T’shuva,” Rabbi Kook teaches that the fundamental force of life is the will to get ever closer to G-d. The will to be connected to G-d finds expression in the longing for goodness. Just as G-d is good, we should be good. Just as G-d is giving, we should be giving. Man is the only creature who possesses a free will. Our task is to align our will with the will of our Creator. For the Jewish people, living a life of goodness means living a life filled with Torah, which is G-d’s will for the Jews. This is the path to true happiness. Sin acts as a barrier between man and his Maker. When a person defies G-d’s will, he distances himself from G-d. He falls out of harmony with existence, because all of existence is doing G-d’s will. The sun rises every day just as G-d has decreed. Rains fall, flowers grow, birds chirp, all in harmony with G-d’s will. Only man has the freedom to turn his will against G-d. If a person’s will to do good slips off the right path, he quickly comes to transgress. Rabbi Kook explains that every sin weakens the will to do good. With a weakened moral desire, a man can fall into the clutches of sin completely, G-d forbid. For example, this explains how so many people fall into viewing pornography on the Internet. A seemingly innocent glance at a website containing erotic images involves the Torah transgression of not going astray after one’s eyes. This falling away from the Torah invisibly weakens the will for goodness. Since the person has already succumbed to his desire once, he succumbs again, then again and again, until his will for goodness is decimated and he becomes addicted to pornographic sites. This moral decline and subsequent severance from G-d can only be cured by t’shuva. It is through returning to G-d that man recognizes the value of goodness. This recognition strengthens the will to do good and gives the penitent power in the battle against his yetzer hara. The more a person learns about the goodness of G-d, and the more he learns Torah, the more ammunition he has in the fight. When he fervently prays to come closer to G-d, his will for goodness is fortified and he re-attaches himself to the Divine “superwill” for the world. This gives him the inner spiritual resources to overcome his evil inclination and turn it toward the good. The winner in this ever-raging battle is the man who clings to G-d in all of his doings. He is the true hero. His is the truest success. T'shuva Knocks Outs the Yetzer
This understanding is startling because it stands in total conflict with all of modern western culture. Today, who are the “successful people”? The movie stars, rock stars, billionaires, political leaders, and sports heroes. These are society’s champions. These are the role models whom young people emulate. They are considered successful because they have successfully achieved honor, power, money and fame — values which Judaism places at the negative side of the scale of character traits. You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog
Our Sages teach that we should flee from honor and pride. Our prophets tell us that it is not the powerful and egotistical who shall inherit the earth, but the humble and righteous. Our Rabbis warn that the pursuit of wealth and fame brings misery in its wake. In other words, chances are that the faces we see in this world on the cover of People Magazine are not the faces which we are going to see in Heaven in the world to come. Rabbi Kook writes: “All of the talents in the world are merely to implement the person’s will to do good, which becomes stamped into his being through the light of constant t’shuva. A great influx of G-d’s spirit falls constantly over the penitent, and a holy will increases in him, far surpassing the aspirations of ordinary men. He comes to recognize the positive value of true success — the will for goodness, which is solely dependent on the person himself, and not on any external condition.” When a person connects to the moral and spiritual world of the Torah, he realizes that talents are not ends in themselves, but the means we employ in serving G-d. One realizes that the goal is not just to be a good singer, but to sing the praises of G-d. The goal is not just to be a good writer, but to use one’s talent as a writer to bring people closer to G-d. All You Really Need is T'shuva
The greatness of one’s talent is not the measure of success. Nor is monetary reward or public recognition the yardstick. Rabbi Aryeh Levin, the “Tzaddik of Jerusalem,” lived a life of one good deed after another, but outside of Israel, he was hardly known at all. Who in G-d’s eyes do you think was a greater success, Rabbi Aryeh Levin or Frank Sinatra, “Old Blue Eyes,” who was known all over the world? The answer is obvious when we judge our lives by Jewish standards, and not by the standards of western culture. So friends, take down the posters of rock stars and actors from your walls and replace them with pictures of the true heroes of existence, “the heroes of t’shuva,’ as Rabbi Kook calls them, the Tzaddikim and baale t’shuva who bring blessing and goodness to the world. “They are the elite of existence, who call out for its perfection, for the victory over evil, and for the return to true goodness and joy.”
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8 Elul 5767, 8/22/2007
T'shuva Now!
Continuing our magical mystery tour of t’shuva, let’s have a look at what Rabbi Nachman of Breslev teaches about the month of Elul and t’shuva. Try to put on an imaginary pair 3-D “t’shuva glasses” and see the spiritual powerhouse in the days of Elul. Take a look behind the physical curtain.
The month of Elul is a rope ladder that G-d lowers down to us to rescue us from our fallen state. But it is our task to grab a hold of the ladder and climb back up. In his book, “Advice,” Rabbi Nachman teaches: The dominant spiritual theme of the month of Elul is the “tikun habrit,” the rectification for the abuse of the sexual covenant. A person who achieves this will find his true partner in life, a partner who will help him in his aspirations rather than fight against him constantly. Elul is an especially favorable time to attain “Da’at,” the knowledge of G-d. A person can come to know and understand what he did not know before. New clothes are fashioned for his soul, and he is released from all of his troubles. Elul is the time to circumcise the foreskin of the heart. Only then does a person have the sensitivity to feel real pain in his heart over the sins he has committed. His sensitivity will become so acute that the very hearts of all of the drops of seminal seed he cast away will also feel the pain, no matter where they may have fallen. They will all rise up in a great commotion and also return to G-d. Elul is the time most suited for t’shuvah, the return to G-d. It is a period of Divine favor because it was at this time that Moshe went up to receive the second tablets of law and opened a wide path to G-d. The key to this path is to realize that G-d is present in every place and every situation. No matter how far you may have fallen, G-d is with you there just as much as He is present in the heights of the universe…. His dominion extends over everything. No matter how low you fall.
To make amends for one’s sins and rebuild what was damaged, the role of the Tzaddik is of paramount importance. Anyone who wants to attain the ultimate good must make every conceivable effort to draw close to the true Tzaddik and his followers. He must pour out his heart before the Tzaddik and confess his past deeds. Then all of his sins will be forgiven. Even when a person knows he has achieved perfect repentance, he must still make amends for his earlier repentance. For what he has achieved then was good only in proportion to the perception of G-dliness he had at the time. But now that he has advanced, compared with his present perception, the earlier perception turns out to have been grossly materialistic. When a person wants to return to G-d, he must become expert in halachah, Jewish Law, (halachah literally means “going). Even if a person falls into the lowest pit of hell, G-d forbid, he must not despair in any way, regardless of his condition. He should remain firm and search for G-d even there, pleading with Him and begging Him to help in whatever way. For even in the lowest pit of hell, G-d is present, and even from there it is possible to be attached to Him. No matter how greatly a person may have sinned, as long as he is still called by the name of Israel, he is still a Jew in spite of his sins, and the radiance of the root of his soul can be transmitted to him wherever he may be by means of the study of Torah. Then he will return to G-d. When those who were far from holiness draw closer – whether they are proselytes who convert, or Jews returning to their roots – G-d’s glory is exalted through their drawing closer, and His Name is glorified in the upper and lower worlds. Glory is raised to its root, and through this shalom spreads over the whole world. When those who were far away from holiness are roused to return to the light of the Torah, they may experience tremendous obstacles. It takes enormous effort to strip themselves of their “filthy garments.” These “filthy garments” are as difficult a barrier as a river which is impossible to cross. Do not be discouraged if you find yourself confronted by all kinds of obstacles. This is inevitable. It takes great effort to strip off these “filthy garments” – the sins of the past. At times the experience is very bitter. But in the end all of the barriers which separate you from holiness will disappear. Don't let the obstacles scare you.
You must be “like a strong man running his course” (Tehiilim, 19:6), because even if you have succeeded in repenting and making amends for the damage you did, you must still make up for the good deeds which you could have done but didn’t all the time you were rebelling against G-d. You must be extra enthusiastic and run extra fast in order to make up for what you failed to do then. A person must take pity on himself and try to repent of his sins and pray to G-d to help him find a spiritual leader who will show him true love, enlighten him with wisdom, and draw him from his sins. There is no love greater than this. The only way to attain complete t’shuva is by passing through all the places one had been before his t’shuva. When he passes through them and encounters the very same temptations that he experienced before, he must turn his head aside and control his inclination without repeating what he did in the past. This is the essence of perfect t’shuva. There is no other way. Repentance helps for every conceivable sin, even the most serious of all, the deliberate emission of semen in vain, or other forms of grave immorality. When the Zohar says that t’shuva does not help in the case of a person who wastes his seed, the meaning is not what it appears on the surface. The truth is as our Sages have said, “There is nothing that stands in the way of t’shuva.” But perfect t’shuva can only be attained with the help of the true Tzaddikim. [From the book “Advice,” See chapters on the Month of Elul, and on T’shuva. Translations by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.]
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7 Elul 5767, 8/21/2007
Blogged Out!
That’s it. I’ve had it. It’s over. I am all blogged out. There is no way I can be honest with myself, and with you, and do t’shuva, and continue to write this blog. This is the month of Elul, just before Rosh Hashana, when we are called upon to do an accounting of our ways, and who can say that he hasn’t sinned? How can I exhort you to change your old, routine t’shuva tapes, and come clean before G-d, when I myself continue on with the same old polluted tune?
Come New Year’s, Fishman will become just another shooting star that twinkled brightly, blazed across the Internet, and petered out with a whispery silence into the trash.
First of all, my arrogance. It screams out to Heaven. The Big Blogger! As if I have something to say! What a joke! What a laugh! Yes, I could tell you how to write a screenplay, but to pretend to know something about Torah, or about the complexities of Am Yisrael – what a fake! True, I have tried to quote real Sages, so that readers may benefit from their words, but on many occasions I wrote as if I were the expert on this subject or that, when it is all a big bluff. I know nothing! Yet I pretend to be the voice box of the nation. The Almighty hates arrogance and pride. So how can I continue?
And what about all of those nasty punches I dealt to Diaspora Jews? Doesn’t G-d love them too? Is this OK? Can I pass this over as if it is OK to blast away at a Jew just because he or she lives in the stinking cesspool of the exile? Several readers commented on this lack of Ahavat Yisrael. Would Rabbi Kook write in this fashion? With satirical illustrations to boot? Certainly not!
And yes, I confess, my eyeballs have been gooooooooogled and yahoooooed out of my mind. Filters, shmilters. You search for a photo of the universe to explain the phenomenon of t’shuva, and the first image that appears on the screen is a picture of Miss Universe lying naked on a beach! TILT! TILT! TILT! TILT! GAME OVER!
I’ve had it. I quit. I’m getting a job in a yeshiva, working in the kitchen. Like some have suggested, I am going back to my cave. Maybe when I emerge, I will be a humbler, kinder, holier person.
In the meantime, forgive me, Arutz 7, for the damage I did to the very positive image you worked so hard to create. And forgive, all readers whom I have offended. Come New Year’s, Fishman will become just another shooting star that twinkled brightly, blazed across the Internet, and petered out with a whispery silence into the trash.
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6 Elul 5767, 8/20/2007
We Are Not Jews!
I don’t pretend that a single blog can rectify a distortion that has been perpetuated thousands of years. But the fact is that we are not Jews. We are Israelis. The term “Jew” is not mentioned in the Torah. The Torah describes us as the People of Israel, or the Children of Israel, but never as Jews. The term Jew is an anti-Semitic label that evolved during the Babylonian exile. For instance, the hero of the Purim saga, Mordechai, is known as Mordechai the Jew. After the destruction of the First Temple, Mordechai was exiled from Jerusalem with the captives who were carried away with King Yekhoniah of Judah. Because this mass of exiled Israelis came from the tribe of Judah, they were called Jews, which comes from the Hebrew term “Yehudi,” a person from the tribe of Yehudah (Judah). The “Me’am Lo’ez” commentary on Megillat Ester explains that because Mordechai was led away with the tribe of Judah, he was called a Jew – literally a Judah-ite, even though he himself was from the tribe of Benjamin. But in fact, he and all of the other exiles were Israelis, or Israelites. In the exile, we became known as Jews, instead of being referred to as the exiled Children of Israel, so that it would be easier for the nations of the world to steal our Land.
In the exile, we became known as Jews, instead of being referred to as the exiled Children of Israel, so that it would be easier for the nations of the world to steal our Land.
I write this in reaction to a news item I saw concerning the former Israel Consul General in New York, Arye Mekel, who recently returned home to Israel. He stated in an interview that all his life he felt that he was a Jew first and an Israeli second. In relation to the firm Israel-Diaspora connection, he said, “Only in understanding that we are one and the same, Jews first and Israelis second, can we continue to make this partnership flourish.”
Unfortunately, he has it upside down, and this is a very big reason why aliyah is so low. We are not Jews first and Israelis second. We are Israelis first, second, and third. Some of us are Israelis who have been blessed to live in Israel, and others are Israelis who live under the curse of the exile in foreign lands, but they are Israelis too. Call them Israelis in captivity, or Israelis in exile, or Outcasts of Israel. Why call them Jews? This is misleading. It is a formula for the schizophrenic thinking that so characterizes Diaspora Israelis, who think that they are American Jews, or French Jews, or Australian Jews, when in fact they are the Children of Israel. Their nationality isn’t American or French. Their nationality of Israeli. They are Israelis who live in the captivity of America, or Israelis who live in the exile of France. If you educate a child to understand that he is an Israeli living in the exile of a foreign land, then when he grows up there is an excellent chance that he will opt to come home to Israel. But if you tell him that he is an American Jew then you are dooming him to a life in the exile of America.
Under Israel’s Law of Return, every “Jew” in the world has the right to return home to Israel, with the privileges the law grants, precisely because he or she is really an Israeli in their essence. Because of an aberration of history, he or she have been living in a foreign land, but they are Israelis all the same. And being Israelis, they all have the obligation to pay taxes to Israel, and to serve in the Israeli Army, or to do some kind of national service in Israel, just like the Israelis in Israel. An Israeli in exile who fulfills these obligations should also have the right to vote in Israeli elections.
Only wih this headset will we be able to erase the mind warp that has been perpetrated upon us for thousands of years and return to our true, healthy identity as the People of Israel.
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2 Elul 5767, 8/16/2007
See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil
When animals are confronted by danger, they instinctively flee. In contrast, man will often rush forward without a second thought, as if there were no consequence to his actions. According to the tenets of Judaism, one of the consequences is Heavenly Judgment. The elder Kabbalist, Rabbi Leon Levi, warned a large gathering at the Kotel on Rosh Chodesh night that the judgment of Rosh Hashanah is only a few weeks away. In the meantime our lives are hanging in a precarious balance. Not only our lives, he emphasized, but the lives of our marriage partners and children. Our deeds affect them too. Now is the time to start a serious, heartfelt accounting, the holy Rabbi proclaimed in a voice resonating with a tangible concern for the People of Israel. The Kabbalist, Rabbi Leon Levi
The Kabbalist said that out of G-d's great kindness, He has given us the month of Elul to atone for misdeeds and to put our lives back on a holier, healthier track. The past two weeks, there has been a rash of fatal traffic accidents in Israel. The police and Ministry of Transportation are demanding more funds to combat this very grave national problem. But Rabbi Levi said that the true of cause of the accidents isn’t because of the condition of the highways or the recklessness of the drivers, but because of our sins. “An accident that happens today was already written down in the Book of Judgment last Rosh Hashanah,” the Rabbi declared. “Now is the time to wake up and return to our Father in Heaven, because, whether someone wants to believe it or not, there is judgment for all of our deeds," This is why we say in our Yom Kippur prayers, "Who will live and who will die; who is his time and who not in his time; who by water and who by fire; who by sword and who by beast....” Even the Apes Know the Secret
This week’s Torah portion of “Shoftim” begins with the command: “Judges and policemen you shall appoint for yourselves in all of your gates….” Rabbi Levy said that according to an inner meaning of the text, “gates” is referring to our openings to the world – our mouth, eyes, nose, and ears. These all have “policemen” that can guard over them and close them like gates. These “policemen” are our lips, eyelids, earlobes, and nostrils, which can serve as protective shields. But if a person allows forbidden things to enter or exit these “gates” without supervision, then they turn into his “judges,” condemning him for his evil doings when the Day of Judgment arrives. For instance, our eyes. Rabbi Leon used the cell phone as an example. He said that cell phones that were connected to the Internet, and its sea of forbidden images, were severing thousands of Jewish people from the G-d of Israel, especially young Jewish Torah students who were so polluting their souls with pornographic images that they could no longer focus on their learning. Rabbi Leon explained that according to the Kabbalah our eyes are connected to the highest spiritual worlds, and that by looking at forbidden images we bring a great impurity upon our souls, and bring a terrible pollution to all of the exalted spiritual channels that bring blessing to the nation, severing our connection to everything holy. “This is the most dangerous spiritual threat to the Jewish Nation since Amalek attacked us on the way out of Egypt,” he declared, explaining that Amalek’s strategy was to lure the Jewish People into sexual sin and thus weaken our protective connection to G-d. Regarding our mouths, Rabbi Levy said that to the same extent that we guard over the things that go into our mouths, making sure that foods have the finest certificates of kashrut, we have to guard over what comes out of our mouths as well. Speaking badly about other people (lashon hara) is like signing one’s own death warrant. “In our days, the punishment doesn’t come right away,” he said, “Because G-d, in his great mercy, gives us time to repent. But don’t think that everything is rosy and that there won’t come a day of judgment. The Day of Judgment is coming, and it is only a matter of time until the traffic accident, or devastating sickness, or tragedy to one of the children strikes, may G-d have mercy, he said. In the same way that speaking lashon hara can kill, hearing lashon hara can also have disastrous consequences. That is why we have earlobes, to close them over our ears if somebody we are talking to starts to speak badly about someone else. Spoken words may seem to only be made out of air, but the words of lashon hara are like invisible daggers. Beware! OK, OK. Everyone can understand that one’s eyes and mouth and ears can lead a person astray. But his nose? Why do I need a policeman to watch over my nose? Well, among other things, the Hebrew word for nose, “Aph,” also means “wrath.” Ever see a picture of a snorting bull with the anger steaming out of its nose? The supreme Kabbalist master, the Arizal, taught that anger is the most damaging character trait, causing the Divine soul to flee the body and an impure, bestial soul to takes its place. The Worst Character Trait
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Day of Judgment is coming. In the meantime, Shabbat Shalom.
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Hollywood to the Holy Land
by Tzvi Fishman
Tzvi Fishman was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Jewish Creativity and Culture
Before making Aliyah to Israel in 1984, Tzvi Fishman was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He has co-authored 4 books with Rabbi David Samson, based on the teachings of Rabbis A. Y. Kook and T. Y. Kook.
His other books include: The Kuzari For Young Readers and Tuvia in the Promised Land. His most recent book, Secret of the Brit, can be found at JewishSexuality.com, along with an abbreviated online version. |
