Mindfulness or playfulness ?

Irony of ironies. The emerging Chassidic movement spearheaded by the baal Shem Tov, concentrates All of its energy on the tzaddik. The holy man. A bridge between man and g-d. The alter rebbe, the first rebbe of chabad comes along and refocuses the movement away from the tzaddik,back to man. Not even extraordinary men. Average people like you and I. People who struggle daily to feel connected to Hashem. He knows that each day brings turbulence in its wake and gently reassures us that this is ok. The Alter rebbe,a spiritual coach truly in touch with reality acknowledges that our go to setting is our human awareness. Nevertheless he assures us that our Neshama G-dly consciousness is our truest most authentic self. Behaving in tandem with that truer reality is easier said than done however. The alter rebbe teaches us about some powerful strategies, tools that prove invaluable in best managing this duality. One of the most important ones in one word. Daas. Not to be confused with Richard Alpert,a Jew who embraced Hinduism and renamed himself Ram Daas! The sadness/irony of that is that he based his best selling book "be here now" on Hindu teachings, when his new Hindu name means exactly that in Hebrew. Mindfulness! The alter rebbe teaches that us to think about our life choices and their consequences. Constantly. Mindfulness for the alter rebbe includes developing discipline. It means we don't simply obey our every desire. We train ourselves to analyze why we want this. We train ourselves to ask the desire for ID ! May I see your ID please ? Are you self hatred masquarading as self love? Are you a behavior that is a manifestion of my higher self or lower self? Are you about my ego and to be ignored or an action that is a necessary step in filling my Life's mission and purpose? Are you a behavior that ties me to a sadness in my past or are you an action that leads me to a joyous future? Are you an action that is narcissistic and selfish or are you a pleasure that is holy and pure? These are all Daas questions. Sometimes they can be exhausting! That's why we have Purim. It's a reminder that being Jewish must also be about striking the right balance between continued emotional growth and celebrating ourselves exactly as we are! We must be cautious not to sacrifice our playfulness on the altar of our mindfulness. So on Purim we say to ourselves " I love you just the way you are "! Purim is a time out from the critical but often grueling practice of daas - mindfulness On Purim we are told to get to a state of Ad Delo Yada . On one level that means we become tipsy enough to confuse Haman and Mordechai I think there might be a deeper suggestion here. Purim unlike Chanukah is not about the struggle for light and spirituality. . Yaddah is daas Yaddah is mindfulness . Purim we are all about vanahapochu, experiencing opposites. It's about putting the struggle on hold for just one day. On Purim we say LO YADA- no daas !!!!!!! A brief (responsible) harmless shift from the ongoing struggle of mindfulness to a letting go state of mindlessness. Happy Purim !!! Rabbi Yossi