Blog Archives

It might not be for everyone, but....

10/30/2017

Mindful Mitzvahs is an initiative for an approach to doing mitzvahs that might not be for "everybody". It is for the person who wants spiritual "sparkle"--to vividly experience dveikus (connection to Hashem) in their daily life. Is that what you want?
Does feeling uplifted and excited about Yiddishkeit make you happy?
Do you want to experience Hashem lovingly, encouraging you on your path?
Then it's for you!
What's wonderful about Mindful Mitzvahs is that you don't have to "change your life", and still your life will change--and happily.
To do that, you don't have to plunge into the rapids of trying frantically to cram every minute with more and more mitzvahs so that you can't stop and "experience" them--all you have to do is to take the first step to upgrading all your mitzvahs and Hashem will lovingly hold your hand through growing until it is "who you are".
Want support, encouragement, caring?
Try Mindful Mitzvahs
Want spiritual satisfaction?
Try Mindful Mitzvahs
Want closeness with Hashem?
Try Mindful Mitzvahs
Convinced? Why wait?
Start RIGHT NOW with saying, "With Your help Hashem, I am fulfilling the mitzvah of closeness to You as You commanded. Please help me!"
Then spend 1, 5 or 10 minutes thanking Hashem for all of your problems.
Stuck? Say to Hashem, "I really want to do this, but I need Your help!" and "give" your stuckness to Hashem. Then try again.
After you can do that step, add another step from the Mindful Mitzvahs pamphlet, which you can download online and print or get from us.
Use the same approach as above.
For more hands-on help also try getting a "buddy" to do it with you, And, of course, contact me for any help I can give!
Keep doing it a little at a time, and watch your very own "miracles" happen!

1 Comment

In which direction is your nose pointed?

10/26/2017

0 Comments

BS"D

Below is a question and answer from a Thursday night lecture of Rabbi Avigdor Miller (zt"l) which I'm inviting you to consider.
If anyone you care about is not fully on "the way in" or is, HV"Shalom, on "the way out", please consider doing Mindful Mitzvahs and dedicating it to them--the only "cost" is your time.
And please share this with others, as you also will also receive great schar for the mitzvah of bringing others closer to Hashem for whatever they do!
The Mindful Mitzvahs and materials can be downloaded here. For more information and support, please contact me.
Rabbi Miller's question and answer:

QUESTION:

Was Lot a tzaddik? If he was, then wasn't he just as good when he left Avrohom?

ANSWER:

Lot was a great tzaddik even when he left of Avrohom, no question about it. You know that when Lot went to Sodom, and the malochim came to him and Lot welcomed them into his home, he was risking his life! He was a big tzaddik.Would you risk your life for hachnasas orchim? Lot did it! But you have to know even the greatest tzaddik, when he takes a step in the wrong direction, we don't care what he is, we look where he's headed too.

You know, there are a lot of people who are not frum, not religious, not observant, but they are on the way in. There are a lot of people that are observant but they are on the way out. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to judge a man for the direction where his nose is pointing. Here is an Orthodox man with two long payos, with a kapoto. He looks like a real, genuine chossid, but his wife tells me that he's on the way out. Here is a young boy, doesn't know anything yet, he just put on a yarmulke, he walked in from the street, but his heart is turning towards Hashem; he's on the way in. Now if they would be matched together, he's a nobody, he doesn't know a thing! This man is knowledgeable, this man practices everything, this boy comes from a home where nothing is practiced, he barely keeps kashrus.

No. It depends in which direction you're headed, the man who's headed toHakadosh Baruch Hu, that's the one who's going to be chosen. Everything depends on the direction where a man is headed..

Mindfully yours...

0 Comments

Who's holding the stick?

10/24/2017

0 Comments

RABBI ASHEAR TRANSCRIPT

One Boss
The Bet HaLevi wrote a pamphlet on the Mitzvah of Bitachon- a feeling in the heart of total reliance on Hashem. There he says that Bitachon could only come after a person has engrained in himself the Emunah that nobody in this world has any say over any matter other than Hashem. A person cannot give a benefit or take away something from another individual, if it wasn't decreed by Hashem first. When we sit down in a meeting to try to make a sale, we have to know, the buyer has absolutely no say on whether or not we are going to make money there. It is only up to Hashem. The buyer is just a puppet. If somebody made a decision that caused him a loss of money, that was also 'מאת ה-from Hashem.
Our financial position is in His hands. Our free will is limited to areas that have to do with Averot and Mitzvot. A person cannot receive something, even one moment before he is decreed to have it. And nobody could delay giving him something that he's decreed to have now. If someone is wondering why didn't he get a raise yet, and he's thinking, "Maybe the boss forgot or maybe he's not noticing me," that could be true, but it's only because the time for the raise did not yet arrive, so Hashem didn't bring it about. The moment the person is supposed to get a raise, the boss will remember, or the boss will take notice.
The same is true in every area. There is only one Boss in this world, and He has all the say. If a person is being harmed by another individual, and he's trying every which way to free himself from that harm, if he doesn't also ask Hashem to stop the harm from coming, says the Bet HaLevi, he's like an individual who is getting beaten with a rod, and he's pleading with the rod to stop hurting him, never once asking the one who's holding the rod to stop.
Everything that happens to us is a manifestation of Hashem's will. How fortunate are we that Hashem is always doing everything for the best. When a person knows this, he'll feel at ease wherever he is, because he knows he's in Hashem's hands.
At the same time, we're obligated to make our own efforts and do what is necessary in the normal way of the world to obtain our needs. Hashem controls everything, but he put the obligation of Hishtadlut upon us. As the Chovot HaLevavot writes in the Shaar HaBitachon (Ch. 4) man is obligated to take care of his food, drink, and clothing according to his needs; he shouldn't throw that on Hashem and say, "if it is decreed for me to have food then I'll have it."The reason is because Hashem told us that's our part-to live in this world in a natural way. It has to look like we're the ones making the money. But the entire time we have to believe that it has nothing to do with us.
There was a man who refused to take medicine for his weakened condition saying he's a Ba'al Bitachon and doesn't need medicine. The Chazon Ish told him, "You're obligated to take care of your health the same way you would do for your friend. Overcome your will now and listen to the doctors. That is your Mitzvah."
When a person knows that he is just going through the motions, and the results are out of his control, he'll be able to do everything with a sense of calm, knowing he's just making an effort because Hashem wants him to. He'll have less second guessing, less regret and less heartache when he doesn't see the results that he wanted. He'll say, "This is what Hashem wants, so I'm happy with it." Furthermore, when he knows Hashem is in full control, he won't fear people, he'll never do something wrong.
The Midrash says in Devarim Rabba (Ch. 4) that Hashem tells us, "Listen to Me, do My will; nobody ever listened to Me and lost as a result." When someone knows he only has one boss to please, he'll be a man of principle. And this knowledge, says the Bet HaLevi, is the stepping-stone for having true Bitachon in Hashem.

0 Comments

Say "thank-you" for what you don't want?

10/17/2017

0 Comments

We all know that hakores hatov is a good thing. When we get or have something good happen, gratitude shows good character, makes us feel we're good people and encourages more of the same for us. But the concept of having gratitude for what we DON"T want in our life? How does that make sense? Shouldn't we avoid the unpleasantness? Gratitude is almost like REWARDING it!
At least, that's what I thought until I heard about the concept and got a book containing 180 stories of "miracles" that came after people expressed gratitude for problems ranging from finances to infertility. The book, Say Thank-you and See Miracles, is written by Rabbi Shalom Arush of Yerushalayim. The stories in it range from impressive to unbelievable, but they are first-hand accounts of what people experienced when they said thank-you for their problems.
Rabbi Arush instructs people to say thank-you for half an hour a day, and for emergencies to do it for six hours! He says to really connect to the gratitude using prayer, singing and even dancing! What a concept!
Impressed by so many positive accounts, I decided to give it a try. The next day, during a 20 minute walk to a friend for Shabbos lunch, I expressed thanks for a list of issues that even included things from my childhood. I did it again the next day as "pauses" in my day allowed for it. And again. And again.
After a week, I realized the phone was ringing more with clients, including some who had no longer been coming and referrals from people I had worked with years before! One person got my name from a vitamin company whose products are among the few I deal with as the only location to get that product in my area. I didn't sell it to him because he didn't need it yet, but after talking with me, he became a client!
Hmm. This thanking has got something! Plus, it was a perfect addition to Mindful Mitzvahs.
Amazingly, as always, Hashem sent the refuah before the makah. For "some reason" I had been inspired to leave an extra place in the Mindful Mitzvahs pamphlet. Perfect! People could write it in as part of their Mindful Mitzvahs program.
I did sense that, since people would be doing it as part of a total Mindful Mitzvahs effort--combining it with doing the Kavanah of Mitzvahs and focus on Hashem's name during davening and brachos (kind of like a spiritual "chemical reaction) --it might be "enough" to do it for 10 minutes a day and increase the amount of time if necessary.
Always being one to incorporate anything that can improve client results, I also started recommending that my clients say thank-you at least ten minutes a day for their problems--even non-Jewish ones (what could it hurt to acknowledge that there is a Borei Olam who has a plan for every aspect of our lives?)
Interesting.
One frum man, who did the Mindful Mitzvahs program as his part in our work on his family's issues, told me that a co-worker was so amazed by HIS transition in just a few weeks, that she asked for my number! She said he stood up straighter, spoke more positively, and smiled for the first time in the more than seven years she had known him! He himself reported vast improvements in his family situation, in addition to the problem he initially sought my help for, B"H!.
So, dear reader, my advice to you is simple--start saying, and making every effort to feel gratitude for what you don't want in your life. It acknowledges that Hashem is perfect and does everything for our highest good out of His love for us, so there must be an important reason that we have it happening. Saying thank-you acknowledges that and helps strengthen our "emunah" muscle, if you will.
Combine that with Mindful Mitzahs (Kavana before doing mitzvahs & focus on the meanings of Hashem's names during brachas--materials on the Mindful Mitzvahs Campaign materials page). Stir in a generous portion of teshuvah for NOT doing all this before (even if you didn't know about it), and Abra cadabra, your spiritual "chemical reaction"!
What have you got to lose? Your problems!

0 Comments

It might not be for everyone, but....

In which direction is your nose pointed?

Who's holding the stick?

Say "thank-you" for what you don't want?

The pen in the "hand" of Hashem

Archives

Categories