The Talmud records a saying quoted by Rava: “There may be seven years of famine, but it does not enter the craftsman’s door.” The idea is simple. When you have a valuable craft, you have something you can use to create...
In Chassidus, the animal soul is rooted in selfish desire. It naturally asks: “What do I want?” “What feels good to me?” “What makes me feel safe, loved, respected, or connected?” That does not mean the animal soul is...
How do we know there is something in the Jewish personality that Chassidus [Jewish mysticism] describes as the G-dly soul [a very deep expression of the Creator's free choice and compassion]? One place to look is...
Anger by itself is not narcissism. A person can struggle to regulate anger because of stress, trauma, learned behavior, poor emotional skills, or a nervous system that goes into fight mode very quickly. This can show...
It can be transformed. Your past, your personality, your struggles, and even the darker parts of yourself can become part of how goodness is expressed. But transformation requires understanding.
If you choose something because it gives you more pleasure, makes more sense, or feels more meaningful, then something about that option is pulling you toward it. Chabad Chassidus describes a deeper kind of freedom...
The beliefs can be real. The deeper problem is the goal. Is the goal intimacy [a real relationship]?
Creation itself is an expression of His infinite love and kindness. He chose to give existence to a world that could know Him, trust Him, and freely enter into relationship with Him. The body comes from dust.
It means thinking about the fact that the Creator is not limited by any side. He is not limited by being infinite or finite, distant or close, hidden or revealed. On a lower level, the Alter Rebbe gives us a metaphor...
The first question is simply: Why does anything exist at all? Everything we see gets its existence from something else. 1.
You need a way of understanding reality that makes the relationship emotionally meaningful, so spirituality can be lived through awe, love, and joy, rather than being driven mainly by guilt, worry, and shame. This is...
He can give what He has. Our free choice is limited, but it can still be real. The Rebbe explains that we do not have free choice over every part of life, like the color of our clothing.
Based on earlier Chabad Chassidus, the Rebbe explains this through three levels of Divine light [the way the Creator is expressed and revealed]. Each level has a different consciousness [what the light is focused on]...
That is one reason belief in the Creator can remain an idea without becoming a relationship. Chassidus teaches that deeper connection develops by learning to recognize patterns of relationship and intimacy. You notice...
The relationship begins to be felt through awe. As trust in His goodness grows, awe can deepen into love, and expressing appreciation can deepen both awe and love. That belief can also change how your nervous system...
That idea helps explain one of the Rebbe’s most unusual missions: teaching people to demand the Messianic era with chutzpah. Without understanding Chassidus deeply, that can sound childish or entitled: “Creator, give...
Intimacy can feel meaningless or even uncomfortable when survival mode is out of control. When narcissism, people-pleasing, emotional numbness, or other survival patterns are guiding your relationships and the goals...
The Alter Rebbe describes Elul with a strange image: The king leaves the palace and enters the field. Why the field? Because that is where the people are, and the king comes to meet them in the place where ordinary...
Shame teaches the nervous system: “If people see the real me, they will reject me.” “If I make a mistake, I will lose love.” “If someone is disappointed in me, I must be bad.” Healing begins when the nervous system has...
At Mount Carmel, there was a dispute among Jews over truth and heresy. Eliyahu HaNavi [Elijah] challenged the prophets of Baal. Both sides brought an offering.
You may lose trust in yourself, develop unhealthy habits like people-pleasing, or become more numb, afraid, ashamed, or defensive. You may even start feeling like something about you is permanently damaged.
There is a lower teshuvah that repairs outer wrongs, and a higher teshuvah that returns your whole inner world to closeness with G-d.
Intimacy means there are two who are not the same, yet become deeply connected. So for intimacy to be real from our side, there has to be some experience of separation.
Maimonides [the Rambam] describes the World to Come as fully spiritual. In the world of souls, you remain the same personality, feeling emotions and relationship, but without physical pleasure or physical suffering...
