Mystic musings

Hashem is the Source of All Goodness. So, when on the switch choose good.

Notes on the World of Emulation. The world before emulation is first. Next is world of emulation - klepoit, light, connect is pure light, separation G-d forbid is mixed light or G-d forbid separation into the dark.

Be Within Stay Above

By Tzvi Freeman

Investment Stuff

Look at each living being and you will see that it believes itself to be the center of the universe. It is because the Creator has invested His very essence into each and every item of His creation. And He has decided to hide within those bounds until His creation discovers Him there.

When anything of this world is repaired and reconnected to its Source, its Creator in all His essence is redeemed. And if any one thing would be left behind, its Creator in all His essence would remain captive within it.

Each living being holds inside the center of creation.

By Tzvi Freeman More articles...
From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, of righteous memory; words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman. To order Tzvi's book, "Bringing Heaven Down to Earth, click here.

The content on this page is copyrighted by the author, publisher and/or Chabad.org, and is produced by Chabad.org. If you enjoyed this article, we encourage you to distribute it further, provided that you comply with the copyright policy.

Ten Absurdly Simple Ways to Live Higher - Ten Mitzvahs

1. The Aluminum Can

Go ahead...

...give away all your worldly possessions to charity and live in a monastery in the Himalayas--maybe you’ll achieve higher consciousness and eternal bliss.

But before you do that, consider the alternative: Keep your home, your marriage, your kids, your career--keep your life the way it is, but do it higher.

Ten “first step” mitzvahs suggested by the Rebbe
That’s the idea behind what we call mitzvahs. A mitzvah is a connection between your world and a Higher Force. Through a mitzvah, you take some part of your mundane little world and make it higher.

The goal? To get out of life everything that life was meant to give. And to make the world into everything the world was meant to be. Because life is meant to be beautiful and the world is meant to be divine.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, we’ve made it even simpler. We’ve taken ten “first step” mitzvahs suggested by a great luminary of our time, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, and we've wrapped them together in this section. All come with lifetime warranties from the Higher Force Himself. Browse through them. Pick up a mitzvah. Or two. Or three. Pick up your life. Together, we’ll pick up the whole big world.

Simplest thing you could imagine:

1. Get an aluminum can with a slit on top. Okay, a small cardboard box could also work.
   
2. Put it on your desk at work, where no one can ignore it.
   
3. Drop in a few coins.
   
4. Wait.
   
5. First subject enters, asks, “So what’s the deal with the tin can?”
   
6. You answer, “It’s called a pushka. Just drop in some loose change.”
   
7. Subject asks, “So where does the money go?”
   
8. You answer, “I dunno. Got any ideas?”
   
9. Collect the ideas.
   

When the can is full, send it off to the charity of your choice and replace immediately.

Congratulations, your place of work is now officially elevated into higher living status. Repeat with car, kitchen, bedroom, studio, production set, spaceship...wherever you hang out. Elevate them all.

"People see a business as a place where one guy rips off the other. My pushka has a message. It’s saying that life is not about what you get, it’s about what you give. The money that I make, it’s there so I can give. "

"Better to give one penny a day for a hundred days than to give a dollar once in a hundred days. Why? Because every time your hand does an action of giving, it becomes more and more a giving hand."

2. Higher Bookshelves

No, we don’t mean you’ll need a ladder. We mean spiritually higher. We mean, fill your home with books that lift you higher. That lift your whole home higher. Even if you never read them—they’re there and their presence has an effect on you and your home.

Of course, we won’t protest if you peek inside one now and again...

1. Get a bookshelf.
2. Visit your local Jewish bookstore. Or visit one of the online Jewish bookstores listed below.
3. Get the basic Jewish books: Five Books of Moses. Psalms. Book of Prayers. Get them with English and commentary.
4. Look for a few spiritually uplifting books that interest you, as well. Also, get some books for the kids.
5. Buy books. Put them on shelves. Put them on tables. Put them almost anywhere in the house.
6. Kids will ask, “Hey, Dad, Mom, what are those weird-looking new books on those shelves? Can you read me one?”
7. You answer, “Naa. Those are for adults only.” Support your statement by curling up on the couch and burying yourself in one of those books.
8. Kids now go obsessively nuts over books.
9. You surrender and read and explain stuff from these books.
10. Keep buying books. (You’ll need more bookshelves, too.)

Your house may look like it’s still on planet earth, but really it’s flying. Life is getting higher by the minute.

"What kind of a house do you have? Whatever it’s full of, that’s what your house will be. Our house is full of Jewish books. Four thousand years worth of Jewish books. So it’s a 4,000 year old house. A house that’s built to last forever."

3. Strange-Looking Doorbells

Here’s the ultimate house-lifter:

1. Locate the door to your house. (We told you this stuff was simple, didn’t we?)
2. Check if it has a mezuzah.
3. If yes, proceed to step 7. If no, continue.
4. Get a mezuzah with a nice mezuzah case. Don’t accept fakes or empty cases. You can order one by clicking here.
5. Gather family at doorpost.
6. Affix the mezuzah to your doorpost. Follow the instructions given here.
7. Twice every seven years, take your mezuzah for a checkup. (Mezuzahs get ruined by weather conditions. Many were never kosher to begin with).
8. Find more doorways in your house.
9. Put up more mezuzahs.
10. When delivery boy complains that he was pressing the "doorbell" for five minutes and nobody answered, tell him that it’s an ancient Hebrew scroll inside a case.
    
    

"They say the soul of every person can be read in the mezuzahs on the doorways of his home. It makes sense. A doorway is a passage from one domain to another. The mezuzah is the script for that passage. As we enter this world, we also get a script. And there it is, somehow encrypted in the nuances and details of those mezuzahs in our home. "

"How does a mezuzah work? We roll up a little scroll that declares G-d’s oneness and fix it to our doorpost—and that oneness of G-d stays with us, providing a protective shield wherever we go... "

4. Lighting Up

The world is a maddening place. Your life is a ship at storm. Friday night is your escape hatch to crawl into another world, a place of serenity and calm. A calm we call Shabbat. And it all begins with the flicker of a small flame of light.

1. Count the number of females in your home. Include everyone that’s old enough to get a kick out of this (usually about three years old).
   
2. Get a minimum of one candle and one candleholder for each female. Married females will need two.
   
3. Set up candleholders on or near your dining room table.
   
4. Place candles in candleholders.
   
5. Wait for Friday.
   
6. Wait for the listed Shabbat candle-lighting time for that particular Friday.
   
7. Put a few coins in a pushka.
   
8. Light candle(s).
   
9. Wave hands over candles in a circular motion. Cover your eyes. Say blessings. Say a little prayer asking for those things closest to your heart.
   
10. Open your eyes and achieve spiritual serenity.

"When I light my Shabbat candles, I imagine the view from outer space. As darkness crawls over the face of the earth, I can see little flames flash upward to consume it. First in New Zealand, then Australia, India, Israel, Europe, America and finally Hawaii or Tahiti. Over a period of twenty four hours, every part of the world gets its infusion of Shabbat light."

"The world of the spirit resonates with the world of action, playing back the song we sing here below, but in a higher way, with awesome impact. One small candle in this world, lit at the right time with the right purpose, generates a spiritual light above so magnificent, so bright, it can illuminate an entire
world."

5. Soul Food

Back in the monastery in the Himalayas, they’re eating their daily bowl of rice. You get to eat three full meals of proteins, carbs and essential nutrients—plus snacks. But you’re going to eat it in a mindful, purposeful way. Not just because you’re hungry, but because you need energy to do good things. Like the things we talk about in this little presentation, and more.

When you eat that way, you elevate your food. After all, that cucumber would have never had a chance to put coins in a pushka. Now that you’ve eaten it, the cuke has a part in every mitzvah you do.

The catch is, not all food can be elevated. Some foods are just hopelessly bolted down. The foods that you can carry upward with you on your spiritual journey are called kosher foods. Here are some of the factors involved in kosher food:

1. Meat and milk cooked together or eaten in the same meal are not kosher.
   
2. Meat and chicken must be slaughtered, inspected and salted according to kosher rules.
   
3. Pork, shellfish and certain other critters can never be kosher. Cod, flounder, haddock, halibut, herring, mackerel, pickerel, pike, salmon, trout and whitefish are all kosher.
   
4. All processed foods need kosher supervision. Most brand-name products are certified kosher. At some point, ask a rabbi to help you make your kitchen kosher. He’ll fill you in on the advanced stuff.
   
5. More info and tips here.

Today…

• Over six million people are keeping kosher.
  
• 30% of the foods in your supermarket carry kosher certification.
  
• The amount of kosher foods available has increased by almost 2,000% in ten years.
  
• Kosher cuisine is the fastest growing sector of the food market today.
  

"If you want healthy, clean-tasting chicken, buy kosher. Kosher chickens are salted to remove blood and soaked in ice-cold water. Non-kosher chickens are soaked in warm water to help remove feathers—a great way to breed bacteria.--Dr. Myles Bader, gourmet maven."

6. Black Leather

There’s nothing more mysterious in all of Jewish practice than the mitzvah of tefillin. In it is contained the ultimate paradox, the tying of a finite being with an infinite G-d. Wrapped in tefillin, you enter a timeless space every morning. Tefillin are a pair of black leather boxes containing Hebrew parchment scrolls.

One is strapped on your head and the other onto your arm next to your heart. It’s done once a day—preferably during the morning prayers—while you say a passage called the Shma Yisrael. It’s done by Jewish males, age 13 and up, every day except Shabbat and Yom Tov.

1. If you don’t already have a pair, get tefillin and instructions by clicking here.
   
2. If you have a pair, be sure to have them checked. The scrolls inside could use an occasional checkup.
   
3. Wake up in the morning. Or whenever you wake up—as long as it’s still daytime.
   
4. Wash up and get dressed.
   
5. Take tefillin out of bag.
   
6. Put on tefillin, as per these instructions.
   
7. Say the Shma Yisrael as printed in the instructions.
   
8. Take off tefillin.
   
9. Wrap up tefillin.
   
10. Put tefillin back in bag.

Total estimated time (excluding waking, washing and getting dressed): 5 minutes.

"I get up in the morning and I do this tefillin thing. I feel connected. My day just can’t happen without plugging in like that before I start."

"Tefillin is to a person what the computer is to technology. Both connect and integrate very diverse functions. With the computer, you’re connecting hardware. With a person, you’re connecting a mind, a heart and a hand—faculties that are often very disparate. The idea of tefillin is to enter the world as a single person connected to a single G-d. "

7. The Dip

Back in that monastery, achieving higher consciousness, they’re pretty celibate. But we’re into discovering higher consciousness in everything--and there’s no place of greater spiritual energy and beauty than in the union of a man and a woman. After all, what could be more spiritually nurturing than the source of life? However, some conditions do apply. Here are the basic elements:

1. A marriage. Actually, the Hebrew word for this is kiddushin, which means sanctified. A Jewish marriage is a statement that this union is for a higher purpose.
   
2. A mikvah. That’s a pool designed around a natural flow of water, such as a spring or rain water. Today’s mikvahs are heated and outfitted with every convenience.
   
3. Separation. From the time of menstruation until immersion, marital relations are off-bounds. Certain other precautions are taken as well, to create a sort of “buffer zone.”
   
4. Seven days. That’s how long a woman counts after menstruation before immersing in a mikvah.
   
5. Preparations. Before immersing in the mikvah, a woman must wash thoroughly so that nothing separates between the woman’s body and the water.

"As we exist in G-d’s mind, male and female is a single whole. So none of us can achieve wholeness until we regain that original oneness in both body and soul. That is why the union of man and woman is so powerful. If treated callously and selfishly it becomes destructive and ugly. But within the right boundaries and conditions, there is nothing more beautiful and uplifting."--the Kabbalah

"The idea of the mikvah is so natural, so ingenious. Women—and men, too—need this cycle. What an amazing way to keep a marital union fresh and well-oiled!"--John Gray, author of Woman Are From Venus, Men Are From Mars

8. Boost Up the Kids

There’s no point in lifting something up if it’s going to plop back down later. If you want this to continue, you’re going to have to get your kids into it, too—as young as possible. Like in the crib. Hey, why wait until then? How about while still an embryo?

Here are some ways to get your child a first-class Jewish education:

1. Even before a child is born, start singing Torah songs and reading Torah books out loud to the fetus. There’s an old Jewish tradition that it helps.
   
2. Once a child is born, fill the cradle with Jewish images and playthings.
   
3. Find a Jewish day care or preschool where your child will hear all the Jewish stories and celebrate Jewish holidays.
   
4. Register your child in a Jewish day school. There are always scholarships available.
   
5. Get involved in your child’s education. Talk it over daily with your spouse.
   
6. Sign your kids up in Tzivos Hashem. It’s fun and there’s lots of prizes. Click here to do that.
   
7. Get into Jewish learning yourself. When the kids see your enthusiasm, it will rub off on them.
   
8. Talk about what you’re learning at the dinner table. Let the kids talk, too.

When both parents have 6+ years of Jewish education… …children are raised as Jews in 100% of cases.

When both their parents have 1–5 years of Jewish education… …children are raised as Jews in 88% of cases.

When one of their parents have no Jewish education… …children are raised as Jews in 54% of cases.

When both parents have no Jewish education… …children are raised as Jews in 16% of cases.1

"Childhood is more than a stepping-stone to adulthood. The child is now. For just as the adult gives the child the knowledge and wisdom of life, so the child can give the adult the keys to living it. The enthusiasm and relentless curiosity; the conviction that knowledge must be real; the naivety to apply whatever is learned to the real world—all these and more, the adult learns from the child."

9. Mind Expansion

So far we’ve lifted up your money to a higher place with an aluminum can; your time with some candles; your house with a small Hebrew scroll; your food with a few new shopping habits; your head, heart and arm with some black leather straps; your family life with a monthly dip and your kids with some special education. One crucial element has been left out: Your brain.

Jews are known as bright people. In fact, we’ve been a people of books and wisdom for 4,000 years. Which makes for a lot of books and wisdom. What kind of wisdom? Well, there’s the basic what-to-do-and-what-not-to-do stuff. Then there’s the stories and legends. And there’s the real deep what-is-life-all-about wisdom, including the secrets of the Kabbalah and Chassidic masters. It’s all there waiting for you. In fact, it’s your personal heritage.

Here are a few ways to pick up that wisdom—and let it pick you up:

1. Get into some of those books you got in step 2.
   
2. Join a class with the Jewish Learning Institute or any of the other classes offered at your local Chabad House.
   
3. Get online to a Torah learning website, like http://www.chabad.org/.
   Click here to begin a dialogue with a scholar.
   
4. Study one-on-one with a scholar at JNet.
   
5. Walk into a local Chabad-Lubavitch learning place and grab someone to learn with.
   
6. Sign up for a retreat with Beit Chana or the National Jewish Retreat.

Torah can refer to just the Five Books of Moses, but the term is also used to refer to the entire body of Jewish wisdom. Torah literally means “instructions.” It also means “light.” Torah is meant to shine a light on life and show you which way to go. Whatever you learn, you can always find a practical application and make it happen.

"Learning Torah isn’t like any other study. Other studies are means to gain knowledge, while learning Torah is an end in itself. It’s the experience of asking questions, searching for answers, getting in synch with the minds of the sages—the experience of making contact with a Divine Intellect."

"Torah is the blueprint by which the world was designed. Everything that exists can be found in the Torah. Even more: In any one concept of Torah you can find the entire world."

10. Connectivity

Think you’re going this alone? No way. We’re all tied together. We’ve been traveling down this road arm-in-arm for almost 4,000 years.

All of humanity is tied together, branched out in families. If you’re Jewish, you’re part of an amazing family that shares a common heritage, history and distinct way of looking at the world.

Being connected lies at the heart of all this higher life strategy. It’s the turbine and the magnet. Call it bonding with your people. Or just community.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Drop in to some place where Jews hang out. Like a JCC. Or a Chabad-Lubavitch center. Or the local kosher bakery. Talk to your people. Bond with your people. Play squash with your people.
   
2. Volunteer. Every Jew’s got to be volunteered for something. Like making deliveries for the Kosher Food Bank. Or being a buddy for a special child through The Friendship Circle. Or being the official candyman in synagogue. Ask around--there’s sure to be some community role waiting for you.
   
3. Do Shabbat with people. Invite guests. Get invited as a guest. Eat together. Sing Jewish songs together. Tell stories together. Stay up late and fall asleep at the table together.
   
4. Talk good things about people--especially your fellow Jews. When you find something nice to say, you bring out all the goodness in those people and let it shine. All the negativity fades away.
   
5. Find out what other people need. Listen to them kvetch. Find jobs for them. Have them in mind in your prayers. Call them up if you don’t see them around for a while. Visit them when they’re hospitalized. Be concerned--and do something about it.
   
6. Smile. Say “Nice to see you today.” How about, “You’re looking great today!” Doesn’t cost much, but you could make someone’s day.
   
7. Call your mother. Your dad too. How much quality time have you spent with the kids lately? How about your spouse? Hey, they’re Jewish, too. Hold on—so are you! So be proud of it and bond with your Jewish soul. Look, you gotta start somewhere.

Jews - we're getting the Team back together!

Watch animal soul as She comes into Heaven.

(It's) All G-d.