One of the problems of illusions that we fall to is we get so involved in what is happening to us, what other people are doing for us, what we have to do for other people. We forget the only reason anything happens to me, the only reason for my interactions with other people. At the end there is only one purpose: My change.
In the Introduction to Ten Luminous Emanations Rav Ashlag quotes a section from the Talmud. It says every person needs to say “the world was created for me.” What does that mean?
Everything here, every interaction today, every interaction in my life, is only for me. Not for the good or the help I will give to others. It’s only for me. All the people in the world and all the interactions that I have in my life are to help me change. The entire world, everything in my life, is for one purpose: To give me the opportunities I need.
These interactions, the other people in the world, help me perfect my qualities. The only reason I have interactions with other people is to perfect myself. Rav Ashlag says that we perfect our qualities until they become the way they are supposed to be for the Light of the Creator.
It’s so easy to start thinking about what I have to do for other people in the sense that creates either worry or all kinds of disconnect from the Light of the Creator.
Often, certainly those of us involved in the spiritual work, and all of us to one degree or another, are teachers of other people. We often get involved with the affects of that work. We forget the only reason for this interaction was for me to grow, for me to change, for me to become a better person.
The situation we are in is because the Creator knows we need to have this interaction to become what we need to be. Everything that is happening in my life is for only one purpose. It is for me to change, for me to grow. If I’m so involved in everybody else, and things that I have to do externally, that I forget that everything that happens is for me to change, for me to grow, I missed everything. No responsibility, no interaction, no work, is for any other purpose than for me to change.
We live in the world of illusion. We think we need to create an outcome. None of that. All these things are in my life because I have to change from them and through them. All the situations, good things and bad things, chaos and positivity, are not here for me to solve or take care of. They are here for me to grow from.
If we really understand it and live it, it can diminish so much worry, and our minds won’t be diminished by this worry.
Tonight is the death anniversary of Rabbi Elimelech of Lejensk. There is a lot that can and should be said about Rabbi Elimelech. One interesting thing that I was reading tonight.
We know that the Noam Elimelech, the book of teachings, does not have any Torah on Vayak’hel. It skips and goes straight to Pekudei. One of the students writes the reason is because Rabbi Elimelech passed away in Vayak’hel. The pieces of Vayak’hel were included in Pekudei. They felt the need to leave Vayak’hel empty to one degree to indicate the darkness or lack that was created.
This is true about all tzadikkim. Why do we come together on the death anniversary of a righteous person? The idea is when the souls leave our world they go to a different place. Certainly righteous souls. And we speak in the Endless World where everything is complete. There is no good or bad.
That means their connection to the pain is also diminished. We come together on the death anniversary to awaken them to our pain, to say don’t forget us and come back to help us. It’s easy for them to see the good, but we are still in pain. Please, don’t forget about us and help us.
I want to share something from this week’s Parashah from Noam Elimelech, two or three stories.
We know as we read the words of a righteous person we awaken their soul, we awaken their Light. We know Rabbi Elimelech did not write a will, teaching before he died. Most kabbalists do. They explain the book is his spiritual work. Depending on a person’s spiritual level, to that degree you can understand the book.
A righteous person, as we just said, the reality is he is in the Upper World. He doesn’t really deal in our world. But because they have a strong desire that the Creator should send down to us all kinds of blessings, therefore a righteous person has to detach themselves a little bit from the Upper World to come down into our world.
And this is something that Rabbi Elimelech of Lejensk speaks about a while. This is something if you are serious about your spiritual work you question yourself. There is always the desire to make yourself perfect, and to help others. The more time you spend with others the less focus on your own spiritual growth. There is always the balance that has to be kept to perfect ourselves and to assist others.
Rabbi Elimelech says how can we awaken people’s desire to connect to the Light of the Creator? We know Rabbi Elimelech of Lejensk, throughout his writing he talks about the righteous souls. All of us have that spark of righteousness within us, and he is talking to all of us.
This is a new teaching from Rabbi Elimelech of Lejensk. How can we awaken people? One way is to teach, to explain to people. But there’s another level. When people see your great desire to do good for them, that simply by people seeing your great desire to do good for them, that injects within them an awakening of a desire to connect to the Light of the Creator.
It’s an important understanding. Very often when you are teaching, trying to teach people, it’s important to focus on the teaching, to what you are trying to awaken in them. But there is this additional pathway into hearts and souls by showing how great your desire is for them to have happiness, fulfillment, blessings. That revelation of your desire for goodness to come to them can awaken their desire to connect to the Light without any understanding on their part. Simply by showing them your desire for goodness to come to them, it awakens their desire.
This is true with our students, our children, our family and friends. It’s important that we speak and reveal our desire for goodness to come to them. It’s not enough to teach, to explain. If it’s not there, we have to awaken it. If to one person I’m only teaching, not awakening within my heart a desire for them to have good, I’m not a complete teacher. There are different pathways we have to explore. One path is teaching. A second pathway is to show our desire for them to have goodness.
It says Aaron raised his hands, and I think this is a cute teaching from Rabbi Elimelech. He says, sometimes when you are becoming awakened in your spiritual work, sometimes from the excitement, the joy of being awakened you start clapping your hands. Therefore the spiritual work can be called the work of the hands. But what type of work. The clapping that comes from your awakening to the Light of the Creator.
What Rabbi Elimelech is saying, when it says Aaron raised his hands to the people, on some level he was excited from the spiritual connection and he started clapping his hands. This is another interesting idea. If our spiritual work, at least at sometimes, does not fill us with such excitement and joy that we cannot help ourselves from clapping there is something missing.
Rabbi Elimelech says the spiritual work is called the work of the hands. Why? Is has to come to the point we are so excited and full of the Light that we start clapping. I like that story.
There are three stories that I’d like to share.
Rabbi Elimelech had many students. One of them wrote a book called….one of the close students. He quotes his teacher many times in the book. He tells this story. Towards the end of Rabbi Elimelech’s life, for a few days. He had four bothers at least. Rav Zusha was 15 years older than Rabbi Elimelech. He brought his brother to be a student in the path of the Bal Shem Tov, but he never met the Bal Shem Tov. Rav Zuash lived 15 years longer than Rabbi Elimelech, so he was 30 years older than Rabbi Elimelech when he passed away.
It is getting closer to the passing of Rabbi Elimelech, and he keeps telling his student day after day prepare yourself, prepare yourself, become stronger.
One night around midnight Rabbi Elimelech wakes the students up. Rabbi Elimelech takes his staff and he walks with his students to the cemetery. They came to a place in the cemetery where Rabbi Elimelech stopped. He said to his students, make sure you are strong.
At midnight, it was as if a window opened up in the heavens and a strong light, fire came out. They saw, they had this vision of this Light throwing sparks all over the world. The student, ….., couldn’t take this Light that shown through out the world. He had to cover his eyes not to see this tremendous Light.
After that window closed Rabbi Elimelech told his student, now you can understand who the Bal Shem Tov was. That was the Light of the Bal Shem Tov.
Rabbi Elimelech said he didn’t want to leave this world until he saw the Bal Shem Tov. Because of his work he merited to see the revelation of the soul of the Bal Shem Tov to him.
It says that before he passed away he told his students that he wanted to be buried on the spot where he was standing when the soul of the Bal Shem Tov was revealed to him. He is buried on that spot where the revelation of the soul of the Bal Shem Tov came to him.
A second story is about …Moshe. He was in the time of the Bal Shem Tov but never met the Bal Shem Tov. His son became very sick. He sent two students to go to the grave of Rabbi Elimelech of Lejensk. He told them when you come to the gate of the cemetery you should say, you should announce to all the graves that we are going to give money for the sake of any one of the souls that becomes awakened to tell Rabbi Elimelech that we are here to pray.
The Zohar speaks of the fact that sometimes you need a lower soul to awaken a higher soul.
He says to make a note of these messengers, of the moment when they came into the cemetery.
The son who had been in a coma for a long time he began to wake up. He tells his father I know I will be healed, I will be healthy. His father asks how do you know? The son says a vision came to me, an old man, Rabbi Elimelech of Lejensk, and he blessed me. I know I will be healed.
When the two messengers came back he asked them what time were you there. The exact time they got to the cemetery and made the announcements to the souls was the exact moment the son was awakened and began to be healed.
We know that as we tell these stories we are awaken this Light in our world. We are awakening the Light from Rabbi Elimelech to give all of us the ability to awaken these miracles for ourselves and for the world.
The second to last story. And this is a story told in many different places. During World War II, as the Nazis were going through Poland then came to Lejensk. They killed as many people as they could find. Many people went to hide by the grave of Rabbi Elimelech. The Nazis came and wanted to destroy the grave before they killed the people. As they dug in the ground they saw Rabbi Elimelech dressed in the clothes he was buried in and his face was shining. They covered the grave and left. And all the people there in the room were saved.
The last story is a story that many of us know. But it’s important that we remind ourselves. One of Rabbi Elimelech’s and Rav Zusha’s brothers was Rabbi Nachum. He became very sick with a disease. The doctors said nobody should be next to him, he was going to die, and it was contagious. One of the older people in the community said at my age it won’t make that big a difference and he took upon himself to take care of Rabbi Nachum in his last days.
The old man is in the room, helping Rabbi Nachum to eat, but he knows it’s clear that he only has a few days to live. The old man lit a candle and sat on the side of the room. Suddenly Rabbi Nachum becomes completely quiet and the old man is sure he has died.
We know that when a person leaves this world, as soon as possible the body is moved to the floor. The old man was getting ready to bring the body down.
Suddenly he sees as if a new soul comes into the body of Rabbi Nachum and he becomes awakened. That next morning Rabbi Nachum was like a healthy person. The old man says what happened? Obviously this is not a normal recovery.
The old man says I saw you already dead, and I’m about to put your body on the ground and you become awakened. Rabbi Nachum says I can’t tell you. The old man says I risked my life to take care of you, I think you owe me to tell me. He becomes tough. He says I command you to tell me the truth.
Rabbi Nachum tells the old man he died. His soul left his body. There he met his brother Rabbi Elimelech. His brother asked what are you doing here? Rabbi Nachum said the decrees came that I am supposed to die so I’m here in heaven.
Rabbi Elimelech says how can you kill someone so young? He has children, a wife to take care of. He said I don’t agree with this decrees. I ask that the supernal court sit down again and come to another decision.
Suddenly Rav Zusha comes. Rabbi Elimelech was talking, trying to change things. But Rav Zusha doesn’t’ fool around. He says take his hand, let’s go. The supernal court says you can’t just grab the soul after it’s been decreed that they shall die. How dare you, Rabbi Elimelech and Rav Zusha, send his soul back down.
A voice came out and said the book that Zusha has under his arm is the holy Zohar. He studies the Zohar. Because he studies the Zohar, the voice said, he can do whatever he wants. Nothing can be held back from him. Therefore we have to listen and do everything he says.
Rabbi Nachum finished the story. My holy brothers, they woke me up. This all happened in a second. And that’s when my soul came back and when I began being healed.
There’s so much that can be learned. This idea, why Rav Zusha, and not Rabbi Elimelech. A lot of people study Zohar. Zusha has no doubt that because of his connection to the Zohar there was nothing he couldn’t do. Because he had no doubt, there was nothing he couldn’t do.
Certainly on this night, with the assistance of Rabbi Elimelech, to awaken within ourselves the spark of the tzadik that everyone has, and the power of the assistance.
During the blessing:
The reason we do mezonot and l’chaim, now there is a tremendous amount of Light of the revelation of the soul. How do we make sure we hold onto it? By ingesting the liquor and the cookies. We actually bring it into our world.
When we say l’chaim we should be thinking about the fact that it’s not only about the people here, but we want to draw the Light to the entire world. We draw the light of Rabbi Elimelech through saying l’chaim here into the whole world.
We’re here at Rav Ashlag’s, so it’s only fitting that our lesson this week has to do with Rav Ashlag.
We know that the appreciation is the vessel to draw the next Light. It’s important not only to have an appreciation for Rav Ashlag, but also to grow our appreciation for Rav Ashlag. The more we grow our appreciation for Rav Ashlag the more of a connection we have. We know of all the amazing things that Rav Ashlag did in his generation was because the generation was ready.
The Creator Reveals Our Filth for the Sake of Changing It
At a time when the Israelites were on a high spiritual level tsara’at, leprosy was a reality. It’s clear the Israelites only had the merit to have the whole framework of leprosy when they were on a high spiritual level. It’s an interesting paradox. On the one hand leprosy is not a positive thing. Who wants to have leprosy? On the other hand it is also viewed as a gift.
Rav Ashlag reveals that the Creator only shows us something that needs to be changed when we can do something about it. If we cannot correct it, if we don’t have the capacity, the desire, it won’t be shown to us. Because the Creator knows that we don’t have the capacity to change it.
Rav Ashlag asks why often when we look around ourselves, and certainly when we look out into the world, there are a lot of people that don’t have a desire to change. More than that, they don’t have an understanding of the need to change. Many people don’t see anything wrong with them.
The reason why so many people out there don’t see anything wrong is because the Creator knows they don’t have the capacity to change. The Creator will never show us something wrong about ourselves if we can’t change it.
Rav Ashlag uses the example of a person who has been working outside all day. When he goes to the mirror he sees a dirty person in the mirror. He spends 30 minutes cleaning the mirror. When he is finished he still sees a dirty person in the mirror. He takes a towel and soap and spends all day cleaning the mirror. At the end of the day he still sees a dirty person in the mirror. If he would take the time to clean his own face he would not see a dirty person in the mirror.
The lesson for us is we should be thankful when we see our negativity. What is tsara’at, leprosy? It is the coming out. When a person is pure inside, to whatever degree, then negativity has to be pushed out into the world.
If we are not constantly being shown what is wrong with us it is not a good sign. It is an unfortunate sign that the Creator is saying we can’t correct it, and therefore He cannot show it to us.
If the Creator is not revealing this tsara’at, leprosy to us it doesn’t mean we don’t have things to correct. It means there is so much darkness inside us that the new darkness can stay. It’s not a good thing to not see more filth.
When we see filth outside, it’s not because it is outside. As we see more filth we should be filled with joy and happiness because the Creator sees we are ready to correct. It’s a gift that the Creator gives us. This Shabbat we have to ask and beg that the Creator never gives up on us and that He keeps revealing this gift to us. We have to ask the Creator, beg for the gift to see the filth that is inside; beg the Creator to give us the ability to change ourself.
