Two Types of Light

Tonight instead of lighting Chanukah candles AND Shabbat candles,why couldnt we just combine them somehow ? The truth is that there is a unique dynamic at play tonight,there are two sets of lights being deployed into the world,each unique and neccesary. The Shabbat candles represent the light that G-d wired into the world for Shabbat from the very begining of creation.As with the electricity that gets pre wired into our homes,all we need to do to benefit is to flick the switch,so too the aura of Shabbat is steady,predicatable,and available to us weekly and the Shabbat candles act as the switch that releases the sacred Shabbat glow into our homes. The Chanukah candles are an entirely different story.They represent the way in which we discover and bring new and original lights into the world.True we are drawing from the same source,but the wiring is new.This represents the spiritual awareness that is borne from the unique sets of circumstances of each of our lives,and the way our personal experiences lead us to a higher consciousness. The Torah is set up this way as well. The written Torah-Scriptures is the light that Hashem wired into the world. Torah She baal Be-The oral Torah on the other hand represents the light that we are able to spinoff of that,and though divinely inspired, still borne entirely from our human endeavors and spiritual creativity,which is what we are reffering to when we say” Torah Lo bashamayim hee, Torah is not developed in heaven. Tonight as we light the Chanukah lights and the Shabbat lights we celebrate both the light that we have been given,and the light we needed to discover on our own. Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah Yo

The lights of our spirit

PLEASE TUNE IN TO THESE EIGHT “LI(GH)TE BYTES” FOR EVERY NIGHT OF CHANUKAH Candle number two THE CANDLE OF SPIRIT A story about creation and light. G-d Shares a deep infinite light with the world at the very beginning of creation.After the divine realization that this light was too“intense”,there is a massive energy”recalibration”and Hashem quickly withdraws most of the light and stores it in the celestial warehouse to be enjoyed exclusively in the upper realms by all the metaphysical residents of the heavenly community of angels,souls and the occasional seraph here and there. What of the rest of the light though ? According to our mystical tradition Hashem gathered the remainder of the light and buried it in the Hebrew letters and words of Torah! The war that the Greeks waged on the Jews was not on the culture of Judaism, they actually enjoyed that, but rather it was an assault on the spirit of Judaism,what we might call “YIDDISHKEIT.They said “keep your bagels and lox” and we’ll even incorporate “oy vey” and “kvetch”into our Greek language but forget about G-d and spiritual light” ! The miracle of Chanukah on the books is that we won the war and the oil lasted for eight days.The Kabbalah/inner miracle of Chanukah is much deeper though.The Jewish people proclaiming loud and clear their truth, “we are all about light and discovering the light that was implanted inside of Torah and our heritage,we are not interested in the hellenization of Torah that seeks to pretend that there is no light”, was equally miraculous and significant. When we light our menorahs tonight that is a reflection of OUR desire for a deeper awareness and a light/spirit oriented experience with Torah and Judaism,one that feels real and fosters a sense of true connectedness The renaissance of Jewish life and awareness that we see today,both here on the North Shore and throughout the Jewish world is our modern day Chanukah miracle. As we gather around the menorah tonight, surrounded by the people we love we realize that G-d had yet another hiding place for his light,right inside the upper realms of each and every one of us! Sending out much love and light Yossi

Eight LIght Bytes

PLEASE TUNE IN TO THESE EIGHT “LI(GH)TE BYTES” FOR EVERY NIGHT OF CHANUKAH Candle number one THE CANDLE OF HOPE Sometimes the complexity of our life experience has the effect of smothering the spirit,purity,and tranquility that we all yearn for.As we gather around the Menorah tonight we might ask ourselves the following question. Do I truly believe that my tired soul can still radiate a hopeful light”? Will the areas of my life where I am “stuck” become the place where my light gets buried,or the spot where I give birth to a new and stronger light? Try this tonight. This is a meditation based on a Chassidic teaching on the hebrew word NER,candle.The letter Nun stands for Nefesh the seperate self that is totally identified with the body.The letter Resh stands for RUACH, the level of self that is open to spirit. Before you light the candles close your eyes for a few moments.Try to visualise your soul as the one remaining container of oil left untouched lying submerged beneath the rubble of the greek destruction.Now fast forward to our own lives,to our bodies,our own personal temples,and our neshamas,our own personal pure container of olive oil,the untaintable core of our being.How might the circumstances of our life have led us to a state of seperateness,from being cut off from our own inner Neshama truths? Now try to focus on your breathing. When you breathe out,try to concentrate on releasing the built up toxicity that is strengthened by fear,and supported by the ego. When you breathe in think about reconnecting with and rediscovering your inner soul light,lying sweetly,innocently, buried beneath all the mental chaos,intact though,ready to be lit.Now imagine drawing your highest ruach self,your Shamash into your space of nefesh/awareness.Imagine the Ruach /Shamash/divine consciousness kindling the Nefesh/human consciousness first candle,allowing the oil of our souls to fuel a new light. Sit with that briefly and then open your eyes and recite the blessings,and transfer/beam that inner lighting to your loved ones as you physically light the first candle! The story of Chanukah is the story of our own souls.Please join me over Chanukah on a spiritual journey of rediscover,and celebration as we rekindle our soul lights. With much love Yossi

Our Shul is a Beit Knesset as well

Call me old fashioned but for me a synagogue will alway be called a “Shul” .If I had to go for my second option I would settle for the name" Beit haknesset",translated as house of gathering. The reason to call a synagogue a house of gathering is a reflection on the multi purpose nature of our spiritual homes, they are places where we can gather with our peers,family,and friends,and experience a sense of connectedness to a sacred community,or in Hebrew a Kehilla Kedosha.Part of the chemistry of a successful spiritual society stems from the awareness that our link to one another is not limited strictly to our davening/worshiping together,indeed that is only the beginning point in the building of sacred community.True worship takes us out of our head space and leads us to being in our heart space,lifting us out of narcissism and setting the stage for an empathetic and kind intertwining of other peoples lives into our own. That's why the gathering after davening is actually called a kiddush,it's the Jewish way of upgrading mere social interactions into an experience of holiness,a time where we connect with one another and share in one another's joy and sadnesses,and strengthen and uplift each other. This morning,reading a Torah commentary in the book “Pri Haaretz” from Reb Mendel Vitebsker who was a part of the inner circle of the Maggid of Mezritch,I learnt of a new reason for using the term “bait knesset”to describe a house of prayer. The word Knesset,meaning to gather,is talking about an inner process that transpires in moments of deep prayer. In those moments of spiritual enlightenment all of the different and sometimes competing aspects of our personalities are gathered together,united, coherent,a complete harmonious being stretching upwards toward the divine.Since this is the ultimate experience to look for in a "Shul"we name it as such, thereby creating more openness and readiness for that experience. This week we read about the Noah and the ark. The Kabbalah sees the ark as a metaphor for a safe haven for humanity,amidst the often turbulent waters of the cynicism,rampant materialism,and me first self aggrandizement that our society often finds itself drowning in. Wether you call it a Shul ,synagogue ,shtibel or temple ,it must always be a beit Knesset/ark as well.For both reasons.When we "Knesset" gather together as a unified people even just to be around one another,in simple basic communal graciousness, something surprising happens.The mere act of togetherness and the practicing of kindness suddenly unlocks the closed portals in our soul and facilitates the second more individual experiential "Knesseting of our Neshama/soul ,leading to a rich and deeply rewarding Davening experience.

Simcha soul Joy

This morning Uplifting Hoshana Rabah prayers at "The Chabad communityShul "!

Thanks  to all who came out at 630! You who intuitively know how critical it is to keep these beautiful customs alive and strong,and ensure our Jewish continuity.You are the real unsung heroes of the North Shore community,always leading the way by the example you set with your devotional lives.A morning prayer like this, situated post Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur soul searching, poised to celebrate Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah gives us a moment to reflect on the survival of the Jewish way of life.We must be cutting edge and visionary about our Jewish future,but it simply won't work if we think we can get there by turning our backs on the deep and nourishing wellsprings of the past.A tear slips out of the corner of our collective eyes as we part with our precious Lulav and Etrog,lasting but a brief moment,as we start to let go of the intensity of the past weeks and begin transitioning into intense Simcha mode and  deep soul joy as we dance with and celebrate the gift of Profound Torah  consciousness in our lives

Lulav energy conductor

One of the best examples of practical Kabbalah is the already accepted widespread practice of starting to build a sukkah ,immediately after Yom Kippur post breaking the fast at night.
You would think that Hashem would have a little rachhmones on us (mercy) and give his exhausted spiritual warriors a little pass. After all we ve just fasted and prayed for 24 hours straight!
The Kabbalah perspective here is the antidote to what might best be described as post Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur fatigue syndrome,with a mystical twist.
Here is one way to describe what that might have looked like to the mystics.
According to Kabbalah we all receive a huge lump sum deposit of raw spiritual energy during Rosh Hashanah .That is the basis of all we will draw from ,the well we can drink from the entire upcoming year. The "downside" of that is that right at the beginning all that energy is too powerful. It can be compared to riding a powerful 1500 CC motorcycle minus the throttle and the gears that regulate the flow of horsepower.Those controls are vital to allow us the ability to downshift when we are going to fast around a curve,and vice versa. Or a better example might be trying to plug your cell phone directly in to the electrical generator in your town. Its not gonna go so well for you. The energy needs to be routed first through electrical wires and poles throughout the city ,that then leads into your home circuit box and finally to an outlet inside your room that will provide the right voltage for you to plug in and not get fried.So we have all this energy,and we don't know what do with it ,and slowly it slips away from our grasp.How can we prevent this ?
The Jewish way to process the soul energy we ve been given is through the OUTLETS we call mitzvot.
With this in mind the Kabbalists read the biblical passage in Leviticus about sukkot as a direct response to this highly ironic spiritual crisis,when though physically depleted,we should still at least be at the top of our spiritual game! The answer is, of course we are ,but we need to protect and process that energy. Here is what a mystical reading of this passage (Vayikra (Leviticus ) 23:40) might look like
" you shall TAKE to YOURSELVES the fruit of the haddar tree" ,this is the source for the mitzvah of the Lulav and Etrog.
The Kabbalists knowing that the Hebrew letters of the word Lulav are numerically equivalent to the hebrew letters of the word Chaim (life),see in this an opportunity for a deep emotional teaching/ learning.
TAKE that energy To YOURSELF as soon as Yom Kippur ends so that the soul energy that is swirling AROUND instead of floating away from us starts to flow THROUGH us.
Do this by jumping right into the first mitzvah available to us !SUKKAH BUILDING!

This is also the symbolism of the Jew pointing the Lulav upward toward G-d and pointing the Lulav in all directions,almost as if we are gathering, all the spiritual energy that's been dumped on the outskirts of our psyches,and then bringing the lulav,laden with our harvested new life force inward toward our hearts.
Chag sameach

Rabbi Yossi

Dancing on the Ruins !

Tonight is Tisha B bav, the ninth day of the month of Av, the saddest day of the year for the jewish people,recalling the destruction of our holy Temple,The Bait Hamikdash in the holy city of Jerusalem. An interesting episode in the Talmud. Rabbi Akivah and the sages are walking over the ruins of the temple, the scene of the foxes scurrying over the smoldering rubble overwhelms the sages with sadness and they tear their clothes in mourning, their luminescent faces awash with tears .Rabbi Akivah rends his garment,but then begins to laugh and dance among the destruction ! What a scene, the grieving sages,on one side and the jubilant ecstatic Rabbi Akivah,dancing atop the ruins on the other! Another surprising and delightful tradition,the Messiah is born on Tisha Bav ! How do we process these mixed messages ? The truth is that Tisha Bav encompasses both. This day, we must reflect on our communal history, bitter defeats ,and our frequent oppression, at the same time we must acknowledge our miraculous ability to rebuild, redeem,and rise again outwitting history(Thanks Aaron Lansky!)and standing poised to write the most glorious chapters of our beloved narrative. As modern devotees of Chassidus and practitioners of jewish mysticism,we must also turn inwards with that paradox, and see those same patterns as they play out in our personal lives. On this day,even as we are aware of being surrounded by love and goodness, we also acknowledge the holes in our lives,and we become aware of all the pain in the world. Those place s where we feel destruction in some way,wether its the loss of a loved one, conflict within families, lost opportunities, a sense of vertigo,lack of drive, loss of interest in life, living without passion or faith, struggling with addiction,living with anger and sadness, all potent and destructive in their own way, all blocking our awareness of the latent dormant divine dimension ,lying just beneath the sometimes scorched earth of our inner landscape. In This sense we cry with the sages.However ......in order to unlock the real mystery of this day WE MUST ALSO LAUGH with Rabbi Akivah! We do so in the knowledge that the messiah is born today as well, we must acknowledge the gaping holes,but we don't have to keep falling into them! On this day our inner messiah presides over the groundbreaking ceremony of a new soulfulness, as we remember the forgotten steps of the dances of our lives!!