"Women Are Wells

[keita]

Peace and Blessings!

Here's an excerpt from an article that contains what I believe is both some excellent teaching and a scripturally sound prayer strategy:

"Some time ago, I was given a vivid dream in which I saw three ancient wells. A woman came and stood beside each well. I heard the words, "Women are Wells." As I was awakened, I realized that this dream was about the life of Abraham. So, I then searched the Scriptures and found that Abraham fathered children with three women: Hagar, Sarah, and Keturah..."

You can read it in its entirety HERE.

[J13578]

I want to go and dig some more in this one, pun intended
God is good, God is awesome, He only is worthy of our praise and worship, He is everything He says He is, I love Him with everything within me.
Thank you, my Lord, my Father, Almighty, and yet never forgetting any of your children.

[J13578]

I am posting this essay, as always, not in the spirit of offending any:

"This week we will read about how Amalek attacked the Jewish people shortly after they left Egypt.

Many hold that the hearing of this maftir is a Torah mitzvah that is incumbent on women too (Rav Noson Adler, zt"l, was very stringent in making sure that all the women in his house made it to shul to hear Parashas Zachor), which is why women make it a point to be in shul for this week's erev Purim special maftir.

The truth is, the remembering of what Amalek did to the Jewish people is not a once-in-a-year mitzvah; there is an obligation to remember every day what happened.

However, why is Amalek, for all the evil he did, singled out as we see in this verse:

Moshe built an altar, and he named it, God-is-My-Banner. He said, "The hand is on God's Throne. God will be at war with Amalek for all generations." (Shemos 17:15)

After all, the Jewish people have had, and still have, many enemies. However, none have earned the wrath of G-d like Amalek did when he attacked the Jewish people shortly after the munn miraculously fell from the sky. Even though the midrash states that it is "natural" for Eisav to hate Ya'akov, still, God is not at war with Eisav. Even though Yishmael has been a thorn in our side throughout history his entire history, still, God did not take any vow to annihilate his people.
Only Amalek is considered to be the complete antithesis of the Jewish nation, our spiritual nemesis.

Why?

The clue is right in Amalek's name. The word Amalek (ayin, mem, lamed, kuf) is also the word "sufek," which means "doubt" in Hebrew. This correlation exists to teach us that Amalek is anything that causes doubt in the mind of the Jew.

But doubt in what?

The answer to this question comes from pointing out that the name Amalek also equals the words, "el acher" (aleph, lamed, aleph, ches, raish), which means "other god."

In other words, Amalek creates doubt in God's oneness, which is the source of idol worship, that is, the belief in other powers (be they in the form of wood and stone, or gold and silver, that is, money).

This is why the Torah indicates and Rashi explains that Amalek even causes a "split," so-to-speak" in the Ineffable Name of God, which is another way of saying that nature gives the impression that it works independently of God.

How does Amalek do this?

He does this by getting away with murder, literally. For example, one of the biggest stumbling blocks in modern-day Jewry's belief in G-d is the Holocaust.
"Where was God in 1942?" is not an uncommon question. The underpinning of this question is, "
If God is here and runs the world, then how could the Holocaust have occurred?"

But it did occur, and therefore, tragically, many a Jewish mind concludes, G-d must not be there.

That has been called Hitler's greatest (or worse, depending upon who's talking) legacy. For, every Jew who died in the Holocaust (even those who had not been strong in their belief in G-d and Torah), are considered to have died as Jews, and had therefore sanctified the Name of God. Even those who "survived" the Holocaust and turned their backs on Judaism as a result have been called "Holy Disbelievers," because of what they went through.

However, millions of Jews since then who have grown up during peaceful times have simply turned their backs on Judaism, assimilating and even intermarrying, for no reason other than the fact that creation seems to be a "captain-less ship."
After all, are they not growing up in a society that believes (at least on some level) that "nice people finish last"?
How could nice people lose out if God, who, by definition must be just, is here and is involved in everyday life?
Or, more accurately (and this is the way the question has been posed to me many times): Why doesn't lightning come down from the sky every time there is a miscarriage of justice?

That's Amalek's favorite question. He uses it at every opportunity to sow seeds of doubt in the mind of the Jew. Any question about the way the world runs ends off with those words, or similar ones.

And when no answer comes to mind, he simply shrugs his shoulders and says, "You see! You don't have to be so committed to Torah and Judaism after all ... Just ease up a bit ... Don't take yourself so seriously ... Normalize ..."

What he really means to say is, "You don't have to try to be so close to God since you won't find Him anyway."

It's right about that point that the Hamans, the Hitlers, and the Husseins of society emerge. Like bacteria that infest an unsterile environment, Amalek grows within the spiritual void left by our own intellectual doubt.

When you're looking for "a way out," doubt can go a long way to clear one's conscience to "free" the personal from being morally responsible, as the Talmud reveals:

The Jewish nation only worshipped idols to permit forbidden relationships in public. (Sanhedrin 63b)

On the other hand, the self-honest and inquisitive mind uses doubt to energize, to create the need for research to clarify and dispel doubt, to turn "grays" back into clearly defined "blacks" and "whites" ... to return "good" and "evil" (which can often be subjective) back into "true" and "false" (which are absolute)

Instinctively we may be satisfied being spiritually ignorant. However, deep inside our "heart of hearts," we know that it is from darkness that light must emerge, that from chaos order must surface, otherwise ...

To win the battle against Amalek and avoid the spiritual and physical destruction that follows in his wake, we have to re-commit ourselves to intellectual-honesty, to examine and re-examine what we believe in and why we do, and what we doubt, and where the doubt stems from.

Such people are the true heroes of society, for it is their questions that lead to the true answers, and which pull back the spiritual mask from over the hidden hand of God.

That is something worth remembering.

May we enjoy the sublime pleasure that comes from living doubt-free.

Shabbat Shalom"

Abraham dug the wells and gave each of them a name... Years later, Jacob came back and re-dug the wells of his father, gave each of them the same name his father gave them, and the water flowed in the land. And he dug three more...

Women, keep holding the still, deep, mother waters and release them in God's time. It may look like the enemy succeeded at stopping them, for a season. But they are kept for such a time as this.

[keita]

lilah said:

...Instinctively we may be satisfied being spiritually ignorant. However, deep inside our "heart of hearts," we know that it is from darkness that light must emerge, that from chaos order must surface, otherwise ...

To win the battle against Amalek and avoid the spiritual and physical destruction that follows in his wake, we have to re-commit ourselves to intellectual-honesty, to examine and re-examine what we believe in and why we do, and what we doubt, and where the doubt stems from.

Such people are the true heroes of society, for it is their questions that lead to the true answers, and which pull back the spiritual mask from over the hidden hand of God.

That is something worth remembering.

May we enjoy the sublime pleasure that comes from living doubt-free.

Shabbat Shalom"

Abraham dug the wells and gave each of them a name... Years later, Jacob came back and re-dug the wells of his father, gave each of them the same name his father gave them, and the water flowed in the land. And he dug three more...

Women, keep holding the still, deep, mother waters and release them in God's time. It may look like the enemy succeeded at stopping them, for a season. But they are kept for such a time as this.

[/size]

Wise... and timely words!

[nina]

"To achieve wonders takes a fearless heart and a humble mind.

True, courage and humility are two opposite directions for the soul to travel at once. But they take place in two distinct chambers: The mind awakens to its nothingness and the heart God gave you is bared in all its brazen power."

[keita]

Shabbat Shalom, my sister!

You are in my prayers this evening.

'Bout to light my candles and go sit down somewhere...

It's a beautiful thing, y'all! ;D

[nina]

When God Blinks
Reflections on Shabbat

By Jay Litvin

"Shabbat requires bravery and daring.

It challenges the very notion of consistency, of constancy. It is an affront to normalcy. It threatens reality, sanity, of waking in the morning to see the sun arise each day.

It flouts planning. Steps. Control of the world, ourselves. Of believing there is a self that is ours.

Shabbat is unknown. A turning left. The untrod path. The creative life in-utero

It precludes tomorrow's monotony. Questions our next breath.
Shabbat reveals a world beyond. Of dreams. Where other forces rule. Where elephants climb through needles' eyes.

It is the pause between, the no-man's land, the dark of light, the in of out, the light of dark, the in-between.

Shabbat is vibration. The proof in rest of endless movement; the comma in perpetual
motion,
motion,
motion.

Shabbat takes planning, preparation for submission, a yielding to the unknown, the irrepressible. A readiness, as best we can, for that which is beyond, wild, in the hands of the Other.

It is an expedition, with tools of civilization discarded, of gadgets and comfort left behind. It leads, with faith, forward, leaving behind reality's rhythm, groping without light in a world not of our making, illusion laid bare for a day, as we journey into nothingness, the world left on its own to breathe, to rest, to linger in the void.

What will be? What will be?

God's hidden habit revealed of recreating every moment the world anew. The affirmation of nothingness and some other force behind.

The place where artists live. From where inspiration sprouts. To where dreams head.

From this void all things emerge. The blind fare best. And those who love to leap fly with closed eyes and held breath, anticipating their destination with uncertainty and thrill.

What will be?
Who will I be?
Will there be me?

This pulse is always there, everywhere. But on Shabbat it is ours. We enter cautiously its space, its time -- welcoming the Other in our lives. Affirming what we know deep in ourselves but lack the courage to replace with it the normality of our lives, the illusion of our continuity.

And at its end, we emerge, blinking, startled, curious, bewildered by the world anew. What's happened while we stayed away?

Strayed away?
Did something die?
Is there still me?
Without us, did it all go on?
Who mastered the world while we dreamt?
Or are we dreaming now?
Who mastered the world?

God.

With miracles, and masters still.

Just for a moment, for these few hours in eternity, He lets us in. We entered His reality. He allowed us to glimpse existence as it is when He blinks. He lets us touch the place from which we too are born anew each moment, with infinite opportunity to become, to transform, to discover...

...with courage and daring.

The bravery of Shabbat.

The creative life sprung forth.

From nothing."

Shalom, indeed, have a good Shabbos!