The secret to having ALL your needs met

Growing up in a traditional Jewish home myself one of the great challenges whether you are grow up observing Jewish traditional Jewish whatever all the different titles and labels whatever they mean you you all know my opinion on all these labels anyway so it's hard to quantify human beings as labels however whoever you are whatever background person is the key operative word that is so so lacking is relevance spiritual Relevance to find spiritual relevance in one's traditions in the Torah in Judaism and the truth is for that matter in any faith or religion is the key

challenge because very often religion has become rendered into a series of rituals ritual without thebi before it as in spiritual it ends up being it can be can end up being robotic mechanical cultural uh and all the other so-called um non stagnant elements in our lives because people do things because their Parents did it because the community does it the peer pressure education and so on which is why so many people rebelled so to speak in the time of the Enlightenment when they were able to find their so-called uh train out of here which freed

them from all the what some felt religious oppression and all the pressures many people claiming we I've never found my own voice who am I when I was told what to do and how to do it and when to do it by people who are Older than me with all kinds of uh um threats of Retribution and Punishment should one not comply and hence you have the whole stereotype of Conformity and especially religious Conformity so the fact is any society you grow up in whether one is an atheist an agnostic or a person of Faith

there's always an element of conformity because that's what human beings are it's a certain comfort zone we will be influenced by our early uh impressions as Impressionable children by our parents first and then by our families and our communities and our schools and all the influences that come our way so whoever you are no matter what nobody comes with a clean slate you grow into an adult based on influences that have shaped a very um tender innocent and vulnerable mind because children that's what they are they're very innocent very pure like freshly fallen snow and

analogy beautiful analogy that captures it like A warm bowl of wax so every impression that that happens that take that is impressed on that wax will become part of the personality of the wax as it hardens into an adult and then it's not that easy to just melt the wax and re program yourself why because if you melt the wax you melt all of it and that's not always Pleasant so you have a situation where uh children are actually defenseless and I say it actually both in a positive and a negative way because If they

are around good environments so that defenselessness and that that impressionability and vulnerability turns into a beautiful thing you can shape it any way you wish in good way beautiful way but unfortunately if it's if it's subject to forces that are hostile or oppressive or abusive or or suppressive and repressive and all the oppresses oppressive repressive suppressive okay I think oppressive is the worst suppressive is a little wor Little less and they're all no good let's put it this way they all oppress you uh no pun intended um so then of course the impressions are not

positive ones now in most cases I would say that most of us grow up with some positive Impressions some negative ones people growing up in very horrendous dysfunctional abusive homes obviously their wax has been quite wounded and scarred those that grow up in beautiful nurturing homes their wax is as it Hardens is is very different and frankly it's not something you can really hide because this isn't something you can keep secret immed the place you immediately see what the hardened wax looks like is in relationships you could fake it at work you could fake it

at parties you could fake it the what faces you put on your you know what masks you wear but when it comes to building a home your own home and having children there there are no lies because who you Are will be expressed there one way or the other if you have a lot of rage inside of you it's going to be expressed there if you have a lot of dysfunctionality and inability to know how to love to know how to trust how to be trusted it's all going to come out so those forces that

shape us as children the first place they will Express themselves the most obvious way is in in their family life and that's why you'll see people in therapy whether it's Marital therapy or family therapy or individual therapy um it's all it it usually begins with something in areas of relationships obviously there are people who get caught up in addictions or other individual situations that are not connected to other people and they too need and they need help but very often people make it through the teen years everything seems to be fine but as soon as

they fall in love for the first time Or as soon as there something serious their emotions are suddenly uh open to a serious relationship that's where all hell breaks loose so to speak because then are they equipped where how do we know what emotion how do we know how to use our emotions in a healthy way how to love how not to over love and not to under love how not how to have the right boundaries while also closeness and intimacy so as soon as you enter into that realm a person who whose wax and

When it was warm in their childhood was shaped the wrong way they just simply don't have the tools and the skills to deal with a mature relationship so people will do is they'll hide denial they'll fake it they'll uh put on a show but you know at some point there comes the Day of Reckoning because every relationship has a point where you committed you're not committed I know people who go for years and noncommitted you know there's serial Daters they're serial murderers and they're serial daters we know Murder is worse but serial datas for the

psyche could also be pretty bad because basically you're just going on and on with a fear of commitment the uncertainty whatever the reasons are I'm not really here to I'm not trying to depict or paint a a critical picture I'm just really painting a realistic picture that I know resonates for many people when they hear This because it's exactly what happened their childhood shaped their wax and I go back to the analogy of the warm wax as it's defined and shaped in our childhood has shaped them a certain way when and they hit their own

relationships they're they're they're ill equipped or underere equipped and not really out out of their natural Waters that's the bad news so to speak the good news is that even though you even even though it's true we can't Warm the whole wax again and we can't turn the clock back and re rebuild our childhoods however there many ways that we can react as we have souls being that we're not dead corpses thank God so we're not in we're not in a stationary inanimate State just as we were shaped away we can reshape things and you

see it first of all in the world of healing look at the Miracles of of healing like any good doctor will tell you there's no doctors are not healers they're facilit Ators to help generate the healing process that's natural to everybody to get rid of the impediments to speed up the process we have a doctor in the house actually am I correct he's not going to disagree with the rabbi but uh any there's no name no one knows who you are so you're not endorsing anything I'm saying don't worry about um I'm not going to

be dispensing medical advice Any I'm just discussing the process so healing look at healing just look you you finger Cuts gets a cut and what happens unless there's unusual circumstances the natural process will begin the blood will clot they'll be a scab it'll fall off and heal you know I mean just on a basic level that we all see there obviously there are wounds and scars that go deeper and that need more um more intervention and uh and sometimes even Worse than that surgery and so on but there is a healing process and it's and

it really amazes anyone that watches it in every part of the body in the most amazing fashion what do you see from that that if it was just like a stone let's say if we were like stones and someone broke a stone into half that's it I mean you could try to glue it back together what do they do with Humpty Dumpty the the metaphorical Humpty Dumpty uh or you can try to do other Things but something that's inanimate essentially even though the truth is let's be honest even a stone is not inanimate there are

subatomic particles etc etc but I we'll talk on an ostensible level it's a pretty inanimate entity and they have not yet figured how to re re let's connect atoms to take a shattered Stone put turn it back into a complete Stone but my point was is is when it comes however to human being we're not just inanimate uh entities we Are um life forces you I'll call it a soul you can call it energy call it whatever you want and as such that Soul um that Spirit the life force within us has healing powers has

regener ative powers to correct things I mean the miracle for example even in on a neurological level where neurons will new new neurological paths can be formed after a stroke now yes it's true that there are certain organs God forbid of they're severed they're not going to Grow back but much in the body much much of it is capable of that and even now there's advances of medicine that that that predict that not in a long time from now you'll be able to even uh regenerate other parts of the body through the whatever stem cell

or DNA uh manipulation genetic uh engineering etc etc the point I'm making here is that we are not what it seems to be that you damaged goods it's not like something happened to you and you just that's it Too late it's true it's more difficult it's far far easier as Frederick Douglas said to uh bring up a healthy child than to fix a broken adult but it's not doesn't mean it's not fixable the most important reason it's not it's it's it's it's to remember is that we're not even dealing here necessar with physical physical you

can say okay you know something God forbid an organ a limb in some way was damaged maybe they'll remain a scar but here we're talking About the spirit or we call the psyche and the psyche is far more Dynamic and far more flexible and xterious and resilient than the body is because the soul and the spirit we don't really fully understand was there really Damage Done to a child's Soul let's say if it grew up an abusive home or was the Damage Done so to speak to the arteries that connect that soul to our conscious

selves so it's a good question you know was the unconscious really hurt or was The connection of the unconscious to your conscious experience hurt and if if the latter is true and the latter is true as I shall soon discuss um then it's a whole another story then it's a matter of reconnecting soal to the power station to the source and regenerating energy to compensate for that which may be la in for example if a person did not have love in their lives Ian I mean using extreme example no we deprived of a lot Of

love think of it like a flower that was deprived of being watered now and we know that a flower could die but let's talk about a flower that hasn't died there's still some life in it so we know that with the right care you can slowly re uh regenerate the energy in the flower and you can see sometimes even in even in a garden or in a field that seems parched and all that you with the right nurturing you can regenerate in the Human level that means if a person was deprived of love so it's

true that may have shaped them and they may have a very negative attitude about themselves because if you're not loved you start not loving yourself and you feel invalidated and insecure and all that but here's an example a person then finds someone that does love them and they find someone to love that can compensate and sometimes even replace more than that the nurturing that they Should have received now again it's harder but it's not impossible and that's why in the morning prayer one the most beautiful prayers we say every morning we say in the morning

we say I thank you for returning my soul to me and then we continue on and say this soul that you've given me is pure you've created it you've shaped it you've instilled it within me and you protect it within me and every one of those words are very precise I I'll I'll discuss them a little more later but the point I want to make is that it's a it's a declaration even every morning no matter what happened yesterday or the day before or 10 years before 30 years ago your soul was never damaged the

connection between the soul and your conscious mind and heart and your life experiences may have been obstructed may have been somewhat compromised but that means that think of it like this the reservoir remains Intact the pipes may have corroded they may be Rusty and so on what you want to do is open those pipes back so you should access that that the P the Purity and the Innocence that you have within your soul so think of the Soul like a pilot flame I'm using different analogies a pilot flame pilot flame never goes out King Solomon

writes in the song of songs it means I'm asleep but my heart is awake that means For him an expression of love that even when you're asleep your heart is awake cuz love is 24/7 even though you may not be consciously aware of it but if if you truly love someone you don't love them only when you're awake and when you're thinking about them you love them even when you're not thinking about them so the same is true the soul is always there even when we when the outer Dimensions may be asleep and it's a

matter of learning how to access it now I said all this as a long introduction going back to my class I always give this introduction relevance the relevance the relevance of Judaism and Tor Our Lives not just mechanical not just robotic not just conformist based on as I said our childhood experiences and parents but to learn how to find relevance and and of course I focus mostly on the Torah the Jewish holidays but always the universal dimension therefore what I share here is is for People of all backgrounds and all Fates and no Fates or

whatever it may be because these ideas are Universal in the human condition of our searching for um a certain element of Peace of Love Of Truth of of Soul of transcendence in our lives so those though this was an introduction to the general class it's also happens to be an introduction that's very fitting to the topic as I said two conflicting voices the the battle of the Twins and This is referring to an episode in this week's chapter one of the classic biblical stories you know there's the five six biblical stories everybody knows Garden of

Eden good and evil the flood Exodus from Egypt I mean most of them due to the popularity in cinema modern Cinema it was the Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt and so on but then there's also the classic story with Jacob and ASA the the wrestling the The battling Twins and of course later the story with the the Jacob wrestling with the angel may not be as popular as some of the other stories but it's still pretty well known and though it happened thousands of years ago yet in it lies tremendous lessons psychological profound

psychological emotional and spiritual lessons for us today and not forced when you read it properly and you hear the story in that context not just as an episode that Happened so long ago it really comes alive and you're like it could be I mean I could just I speak for myself it blows you away that such a story so many years ago has such relevance in our contemporary Society so exactly that these twins are com are a battle from the moment that they're conceived basically in their mother's womb they're already fighting that's where the the

chapter begins and Rebecca who's their mother has these twins struggling within And she has a terrible pregnancy terrible pain she turns to God why am I why am I in such pain why is this hard you know she recognized it was a difficult pregnancy she never had children before but she saw others she had a mother and she had I guess family and so on so God said to her because you have two Nations within you and they're struggling for for dominance for control when this one Rises this one will fall when this one R

The other one Rises the other one will fall and yes exactly what happens they come when they're born they are very different the the Bible puts it very very suly it says and poignantly that asov e he was a warrior man of war he knew how to hunt he knew how to trap he was a a great War strategist and then there was Jacob his alter ego you know anti antithesis Jacob is man of you could say Tom mean wholesomeness innocence peace completness The Scholar so you have the warrior and the scholar and these are

twins and they look different they behave differently but they're twins they struggle first in pregnancy then in their life their early childhood and throughout their lives the story of their struggles I've discussed this chapter many times in different context I want to talk about the struggle itself and how it reflects in our lives and this doesn't even require a lot of thinking if you just ask yourself where are the struggles in your own life so we all have conflicts who doesn't have conflicts now sometimes we think we're like multi multiple personalities at least the Dual

personality we have struggles the different voices inside of us our heart tells us one thing our mind tells us Another you have the voice of survival the the egocentric voice the voice that is self-absorbed my needs my my my my gratification I need to take care of myself and then you have the other voice the voice says no help another the voice of transcendence the voice of uh higher purpose and everyone has these two voices how much time each voice has in your in your in your life only you know maybe it would be a

good exercise I know You need a little time and concentration to like in a day take like a type of uh survey maybe we should make an app like that that's a good idea where when you have this voice speaking to you and this voice speaking to you just to figure out like who's who's who's a louder voice and who dominates and how do you act when the two voices conflict you know obviously if we don't pay much attention we all know where the default is going to go the lower common denominator the Easier approach

which is always self it's like gravity you let something you don't pay any effort the inertia is just going to fall and just go downward however when you apply yourself and you think about it you reflect then usually the mind mind has more say than the heart you don't reflect the heart the impulsive heart is generally more powerful not because it's more powerful because you're not allowing yourself to fight it or to resist it but we all know Intelligent people when someone makes you an offer in business or in other ways if you're intelligent but

you don't just buy into it because emotionally the person manipulated you or was able to make a good sale your mind your reflective mind doesn't have to think about and if you if you're if you're try to retain some objectivity there's pros and there's cons and you come back and say you know what it may seem appealing it feels good and all that but it's not For me unfortunately most of us go the other way that's why we make mistakes how many times has someone let's say insulted you or said something to you that you

took as a negative you reacted immediately in a very angry way or a very retaliatory way a day or two past and you regret why you reacted that way because then you actually find out the person never meant it and so on and so forth there's a perfect example of an impulsive reaction Had you reflected another day you still could come back and say hey something you know something it's inappropriate what you did but we don't think like that the mind the heart doesn't think period it reacts it's an impulsive reaction knee-jerk the Mind should

be telling the heart you know something put the bre you know let's put the brakes on let's reflect let's think it over let's consult and then we could always go back and Determine maybe we should uh respond maybe best Overlook maybe move on I mean what I'm saying here is daily little conflicts we have sometimes they have not much significant they're just minor trivial things but sometimes they're very significant they can be even matters of life and death and major decisions that we make and uh and and now of course a lot of this is

much more complicated because it's not just okay if you're able to just Identify here's your impulsive heart there's your reflective mind great the problem is it get so convoluted your heart is convincing your mind that's subjective that part of the problem in Tanya is a brilliant chapter n where he describes this conflict and he says just like the blood of the heart rushes to the mind and brain because the brain needs blood so too the impulsive emotions of the heart rush to the mind and make the Mind think to justify your Subjective position how often

have we been guilty of that and most people don't like to admit that and they may not even know it that bias and prejudices have affected your mind and you really change your arguments du to subject the position this is why we have honesty Integrity recusing yourself in a position let's say a judge or another person who's in the power of make a decision if you have a interest you should recuse yourself Etc because the Fact of the matter is we bias blinds us and bias Prejudice blinds even the wise that's how it is and

and and that's nature of the Beast only the only thing is you're expected to acknowledge that and then you can get some control over it so gets very mixed up because we many decisions in our life we may think we made a rational objective decision when in when in fact it was based on an emotional uh an emotional impulse that dressed up and masqueraded like an Intellectual argument that's what we're very good at you know smart people are excellent at covering their tracks and finding ways to make sure everybody else is to blame etc etc

you know like the guy that goes to the psychiatrist and convinces him that he's the one that's a madman and he should be up and and the patient should be the psychiatrist there are smart people that can do that I'm not saying they're always wrong many psychiatrist maybe need their own up Some people who not who are in that field that's why they entered that field but I'm not here to pass judgment on that that's Case by case you know but going back to our theme here so two voices so the Battle of Jacob of

Jacob and ASA are actually a Jacob within you and within you the description of the Torah of these two personalities are two voices within us one is the warrior what a warrior Warriors is a conqueror is a dominator is Aggressive he taking care of its own needs it's a battler you know some people sharks they call them in business or in other settings they are out they're go-getters aggressive ready to step on anyone just to win and then there's another voice the other voice is is not a strategist not a manipulative not that shrewd the

person is innocent innocent voice that just wants to have some calm and peace is introspective studies prays Soulful basically you Could say one is body like and one is soul like and we have both of them within us and guaranteed without question each of you here everyone listening to this myself we can identify things in our day or our lives that are body-like which means more physical oriented basically is driven by our bodily and physical and material needs say materialism matter and spirit and then there are things that are more spiritually driven when I say

Spiritually I mean in more broader sense I don't mean to say religious Transcendent you know for example when you're busy with your needs which is to pay your bills to take care of your health or take care of your own eating sleeping and so on then there's other side of us transcended where we want something Beyond The Daily quotidian The Daily Grind and routine and some of us express it through ART music literature travel um yes religion Faith love Romance now of course these are not mutually exclusive there's a overlap there are things that are

transcended that obviously are body and physical related there things that are physical that have some type of ethereal and uh and Emeral Emeral nature but if you generally speaking there are two voices and these two voices were put in US sometimes sometimes they're called the animal soul and the Divine Soul sometimes they're called the The the good inclination that the the negative inclination and essentially there the distinction between what I said before one's own needs and the other is the Transcendent voice survival and Transcendence if you wish now frankly just left at that without any

excess both are necessary you need to have a warrior who's going to protect you in case there's danger you do need to be able to hunt and Hunt I mean this in the broader sense I don't mean Necessarily physically go out to hunt but I mean to go out and get what you need to survive to pay your bills to eat and so on the problem becomes when one dominates over the other and one enslaves actually it takes hostage the other in most cases and this is an expression from thought the soul is imprisoned in

the body what that means is that the body's needs Instagram gratification our our Temptations the Forces that seduce us our emotional impulses control the Soul's Behavior because a soul can't travel anywhere without the body so if the if if the material needs of a person become the dominant Force the soul becomes trapped and that's called basically the Gus the displacement of the Soul within the body so how the mystics explain it is that which means The Descent of the soul and the body upon conception when we are born I would say first conceived and Then

born basically a spiritual Divine Soul Jacob is entering into a into a body-like environment an as of environment so right from conception right in pregnancy right in the early stages is already a battle you know when you think of it it's it is part of the mysteries of existence but what some point happens is a an egg is fertilized by by the male seed right and it's one cell at that point it's barely inv visible that cell will begin to multiply The miracle of of creation literally a miracle and pop here we are sitting in

the room with all our neurosis and all our stuff you know it all began with one little cell that you could never imagine would turn into this complex individual that each of us is right okay so there's the physiological development which I'm I'm going to really address here not the stages the first uh semester first uh trimester second and so on but there's also more than that going on it's not Just a body developing we know there's a life taking place because at some point there will be a heart that will beat and a mind

that will work and at some point it will be us may be a newborn child so it's a child that's still not fully fully uh fully actualized but it all begins at the early stages so there's actually discussions in the T when does the life begin when can you call it a life the truth is it should be a life for a Second because if it's aive for a second second something made it Grow from one cell to to to multiply into two cells into four and so on and so forth so it's really growing

as a life force from the moments of conception that the question however is when we can call it a defined life force or the different stages again this is not a place to go into tor's fascinating stages of how it describes the development not just the medical terms but one thing is clear two forces Are meeting each other because we're going to have at the end is going to have a body I'm talking about the vessel the container which is our physical body and I'm talking now everything from head to toe skeleton the organs the

limbs and of course the internal organs and all the forces and all the cells and everything and then there's something which I I call Soul cuz I'm not the soul is not a stereotype for me some people don't like Soul they so use electricity If you like energy a Force whatever you want to call it as as we know these are semantics the point is it's not just a corpse you're not just having a body without a soul because if that would be the case God forbid that would be a death that would be a

miscarriage that would be a uh you know a a stillborn child God forbid so you have something two things working together but medicine and biology and science can really mostly talk about obviously the body Part because the body part is visible you can can observe it you can examine you can test and you can study it the soul part is a lot harder because there's no way no one's ever seen a soul you know how do you put it under a microscope and yet there is definitely a developing life force so we have a whole

body of Torah maybe I shouldn't call a body of Torah called the soul of Torah that actually talks about the the Dynamics of the Soul so just like There's a physical DNA and genome there's a spiritual DNA and genome and there're spiritual cells and their spiritual components and organs and Limbs and so on they're not obviously physical nature but there's the power of vision just like there's an eye is the power to see and we know an eye is not enough to see you need a power to see because you can have God forbids so

and dies at 120 years and their eyes are intact but they can't see any longer Because there's no power of vision there's only the physical container think of it like a light bulb without electricity the light bulb may be intact but there's no juice running into so the the the discussions especially in the mystical the cabalistic cabala and talk a lot about the Dynamics of the Soul which is really the basis of a lot of what I speak about in these classes most of my teachings is understanding that because by understanding like just like You

can't uh heal a body without understanding it like you have to know what is it made of what does it need what is it deficient in what vitamins minerals uh exercises it may need to stimulate and grow and expand Etc or heal same thing with the soul and the psyche if you don't understand it pieces it's not just say oh you know what okay here take this pill and make you feel good there's actually forces that that are that are ticking inside of us that Can be exercised and as a result heal from Psychic and

psychological and emotional challenges as well as issues like depression or issues like anxiety now I'm not rolling out to saying that sometimes you need a combination of both medicine and that type of so-called spiritual therapy but it's very clear that psychic psyche related things need understanding of the psyche not going to help understand the anatomy of a leg to to treat a human Psyche in that sense so the struggle between asov and Jacob which is really just names that personify two voices within us is the struggle between the matter and spirit of our beings and

that struggle begins very early in our lives as I said even before we're conscious of it as soon as body meets Soul as soon as the the physical meets the spirit the physical meets the spirit you know um in a way you can you could make some comparison if you think in physics Between matter and energy so we know Einstein um in his special theory of relativity E equals MC s proved and shown and to accepted fact that energy and matter are really two forms two sides of one coin and they're basically reversible the simple

example of it you take a piece of wood it seems to be a piece of matter you put it you you ignite it you put it into a fire it turns into fuel that gives off warmth and light another Example you have liquid water H2O you heat it it becomes a gas vapor you cool it you freeze it it becomes ice so you have a solid piece of ice if you had if you knew if you know if you knew if you're completely ignorant of what this ice is You' think that that's all it is

suddenly suddenly it melts turns into liquid liquid into gas and and this is a reversible again and again and again which is actually the whole process of evaporation and rain and the weather Systems are all based on this cycle my point that I'm saying is I'm using simple example obviously Einstein proved it a lot deeper than that because even on a very subatomic level on Atomic level matter and energy are reversible and frankly some physicists will actually say what you see when you look with your eyes your and your five senses your eyes ears taste

touch and smell you're not seeing reality you're seeing the outer surface of a projection of Subatomic particles interacting with each other so for example like let's let's take colors for example we all know today there's not just thing as an objective color really white is the natural color but the prism is which means for example something is green so it reflects in a way that affects the the the light wave so you see that that Spectrum on the light wave which is called Green so some people even argue that There's no such thing is really

a green object it's just a type of object that we call Green because it's uh it's particles or let's put it it's uh it's not the personality it's um its makeup is that that blocks certain light waves and therefore it reflects as green I don't want to go further into I'm just trying to point out is that what you see is not always what you get you know you see something you see the surface level and therefore you can really argue that All of existence is really energy just packaged in a package called matter which

is you can say that very well if someone asked you about yourself tell me who are you are you some of your body parts or are you a personality are you a person with a mind and a heart that thinks a certain way and feels a certain way we all know we'd rather see ourselves and we do see ourselves as personalities rather than just a lump of clay made up of certain physical Components with blue eyes blonde hair bald not bald whatever it may be that defines us 5et six feet those are those are measurements

those are proportions of our container but if someone to say who are you who do I love I don't love the container I love what's inside the container and I also love the container that it's inside of so when you think of it that way which is obviously we're not trained to think that way because we are linear Thinking people and we look at things on the surface but when you you give it a little thought you realize one second the surface is exactly that someone to ask you what is the sea the ocean let's

say you a child comes you first time you take the child to the ocean you show them big Ocean Pacific Ocean Atlantic Ocean Mediterranean whatever and the child say what is this thing okay so the the basic example would be basic the Scripture it's a body of water it covers two-thirds of the earth and uh is that it because that's all you see say no no um they fishing sides and their other species and not only that there's more than that now if we never went under sea we never took cameras down there and we

never scuba dived what would we know you see a few fish jumping out once in a while then you see a fin here and there so you realize there're sharks and They're whales and maybe if you observe long enough you'll come up there's hundreds of species fine but no would ever in their right mind ever predict that the world under the sea is more complicated than the world on land it has a Terrain that is more complicated mountains and valleys and earthquakes I believe I read every eight seconds there's an earthquake under the water somewhere

minor ones but the the life force is there as as matter of fact Talud says everything that exists on on land exists in the water doesn't say everything exists and water exists on land which means that the water is has everything on land plus more which today we know as a fact and there're still Mysteries There Are Places deep in the sea that they have never explored yet and we know there are species with all our technology my point that I'm making you look at the sea it seems like just an innocent sea cover With

you know here and there something's going on when in fact it's the whole thing is full brimming with life and in many ways even more complicated than life on land on dry land so when you look at things in that in in a deeper context you can see that there are two forces inside of us and the way they are two sides of one coin ASA and Jacob are twins they're not enemies really they're twins both necessary should everything work well The soul and the body would join okay and the Soul would be the captain

of the ship and the body would take the orders and follow where the soul wants to go unfortunately as I said the soul gets concealed like the water like the life under water in the body and it's usually the other way around the body's telling the soul where to go then the other way around and ask yourself who's who's in charge in your Life think of a hammer and your hand your hand should be taking your hammer and knocking Nails in where the hand tells the hammer what to do what would it be like if

the hammer starts telling the the hand what to do that wouldn't be very uh normal would it but that's exactly what happens what drives most of our lives and decisions our needs I'm hungry I'm thirsty y I see something I like I grab it you need to have discipline education training uh Maybe maybe deterrence that will tell you you know what you don't just grab everything you like but left to their own a person's own accord we could end up being extreme narcissists very selfish and everything me me me me me and nothing else and

there are actually people who argue that that that's really the human being I mean just read Richard Dawkins books the best of all that captures right in the title The Selfish Gene the gene not Just the selfish human being the gene itself is selfish because nature if you take the real radical darwinian uh definition nature is all about survival of the fittest you and I I will fight to survive and I will destroy you if I need to and grab the resources so you shouldn't get those resources that's the cardinal rule and you see human

beings unfortunately very often support that by simply by their behavior the Torah comes and says no That's not true that's un ensi that looks that way and people left on their own without training without education but if you really want to know the truth the truth is our souls are the real you not the body as I've often described with Freud it's not the ID that drives us it's the yid that drives us you know the spark of the yid the yud so we have a force inside of us yes that may be narcissistic and

very selfish but There's even a deeper Force called the soul and that's the Jacob within us and that is the noble side that does not see survival as the beginning and end of everything now if these two work at hand in hand you have a good situation the soul like the mind is the captain of the ship it tells the body here's what we need to do today but that's not what happens what happens is they get into mortal combat and they are struggle and they Fight and they and they do not see themselves as

compatible however the fight is not completely equal for one reason on one hand the body is more powerful as I just said because it's easier it's it's it's it's it's in control it's much easier to live a materialistic life than to live a spiritual life let's be honest it's much easier to live a selfish life than a uh than a giving life you know easier I mean simply in the less efforts you Don't have to do anything just just relying you know you know however what resonates more if you start when you push somebody you

start asking tell me what do you expect of yourself what would you expect of your children most people would like to say I may not live up to it but my my expectations my idealism is not the narcissistic life nobody actually says I'm proud to be a narcissist as a matter of fact narcissists generally don't acknowledge Their narcissists for many reasons but because it's not something that someone I'm a greedy selfish narcissist you know now there are some people in history who've been brutally honest and they just said it the way it is they said

I am that and everyone else is that I'm the only one that admits it fine but most people don't see it as something that's a virtue to look up to may we may fall there we may gravitate sometimes there and we may be blinded and there Are times we may be at our worst but you know there's an element of Pride human Pride human dignity majesty and at the end of the day who do we cry for and who do we cry for even for ourselves when you see that person who's given something a sacrifice

to help another person there's something about it that Rings true why is it ring true if we're just selfish genes because our souls don't forget where they come from they may be in prison and they may be held Hostage and they may be blinded by the material world but there's a part like I said a a spark that always remains alive pilot flame sometimes you don't see it but do but but there's always entry there there's no person beyond that hope there are people who've lived lives very indulgent and get so involved in their habits

and they're so comfortable that you may be never able to reach them based on present circumstances but everyone goes through ups and downs in Life people go through losses God forbid changes things are not life is not static and as a result there's always an opening I've been I can't say I'm the most experienced person on Earth but I've been around and I've seen it sometimes you see somebody a friend or a close one a relative and you really feel that they're just beyond reach you can't talk to them they just have their way of

thinking but it's destructive without and they're just never going to accept You never think there'll be an opening but there are openings because the soul always remains as I said I I may be asleep but my but my heart is awake and people who are really Soulful people know how to find the soul in others because it's a soul touches a soul like a heart touches a heart obviously one narcissist is not going to touch another narcissist but Hearts touch hearts and souls touch Souls so in effect the story of Jacob and ASV is not

just about the Conflict that's something you could all say hey you know what okay I know I have a conflict what now what so how do that help me what helps you to know is that the conflict can be one when you understand that these two forces were meant to come together the soul was meant to come into a body and they should and it's meant to have a challenge we're meant to have the battle between matter and spirit it's not an accident and it's not a um something That could have been avoided that's how

the world was created matter and spirit however there's a purpose because the battle itself brings the best out of you it brings the best out of the Soul because when you don't have resistance and you don't have any type of uh challenge then you remain complacent think in your own life when have you excelled most when there was a challenge all always when do you jump the highest when there's some impediment In the way when do you push more when there's competition when there's a deadline when you've been challenged an olive produces oil when it's

pressed you know I think it was Elan Roosevelt I don't know who said it but she said about women women are like tea bags you don't know how strong they are until you put them into hot water now what about men I guess men just say it's hot but I guess we also Have that we can't say we're I mean we may be an inferior species but we're not that inferior um my point that I'm making here is challenges now when I say challenges God should bless us all our challenges should be minimal they shouldn't

be painful they shouldn't be traumatic but challenge can be a positive challenge positive challenge means you take on a resolution and you know you're going to write a book you're going to take on a project you're going To do this you're going to do that you know it's going to be difficult but you're now in it and you got to do it and then unfortunately there are times challenges are not that Pleasant whether it's a loss a death a being fired or some other unexpected twist and turn in life that we didn't want so there

again you can either succumb and just uh surrender or you you dig deeper and you find greater strength so the Yakov asov So-Cal battle you Could say battle between mind and heart the the mind and is the warrior the heart is a battle that's meant to bring out the best in the soul and also actually in as and it's meant that they ultimately do join the goal here is not annihilation of the body or a physical world Judaism does not preach asceticism it does not preach that the physical world is a bad place it says

the physical world divorced of its Soul can become a bad place and Potentially can lead you to the wrong places but per se the body and needs and so on are not bad things take sexuality from a Jewish point of view sexuality is not is not is not an evil thing there's no concept of original sin it's not a necessary evil sexuality is the power that God gave the human being to emulate the God to bring life into this world and that's why it's Associated and connected with some of the deepest powers in the soul

the deepest pleasures And the deepest forces that that can on one hand trap us in the worst possible ways As We Know but also they can lead us to Transcendence in the greatest possible ways it's all about harnessing and disciplining so there you go sexuality is it a body thing or is it a soul thing so today unfortunately many people have rendered it into a body thing it's about technique it's about immediate instant gratification it's about the you know the the moment in Truth sexuality we know what it's called in Torah Torah call sexuality D

knowledge to know Adam knew Eve means Adam had was intimate with theve interesting word for for sex for sexuality knowledge because intimacy and sexuality are not the same thing sexuality can be a complete hedonistic and body type thing when it's completely focused on Pleasure and immediate and instant gratification or it can be turned into intimacy intimacy knowledge Is a whole different thing it's two human beings Souls connecting the concept of the soulmate so then it's a Transcendent experience but like anything there's the Ace of side there's the Jacob side if we we we succumb to

our lowest common denominator it's about instag gratification it's about what do I get right now and that's that and here too you could see uh a practical difference like I said earlier just as you can see A dysfunctional God forbid child growing up in a dysfunctional home it'll be immediately expressed in their relationships as adults their love their sexuality and intimacy and children and so on the same thing is here healthy sexuality which is not divorced of its Soul which is intimacy you'll see is not instant gratification it may be very pleasurable but it will

spill over into your life it's unifying it will not create tension on the contrary it's not Even that moment because love is not just when you make love like they say for women love is a noun for men it's a verb it's not an action it's a state of being and that way it's a it's a fully unifying experience like knowledge it's not just what an act that you do and then you move on sexuality without commitment intimacy is a whole life experience you're intimate human being with another human being not just the moment that

you are in the bedroom Together but your whole life is United for a higher cause and vision and then the sexuality is lifted to a completely different dimension I'm just using that as an example because it's a very practical one that everyone can relate to because right there you can take sexuality it can go completely to the hedonistic hedonistic and very uh animal side to it or it can be something that's ethereal and it's still a it's still bodies we're Not talking about spiritual uh we're not talking about a plon a platonian a um platonic

relationship we're talking about a physical relationship but it's infused with the soul as opposed to a physical relationship that just infused with bodily pleasure so that's one example the same example can be applied to money to anything of matter money can be a very selfish greedy thing we know what money can do to people but money could also be as the as the Says your coin can become a fiery coin a spiritual coin when you use it to build something good to charity so then you suddenly take money which can be the symbol of of

complete self-absorption and greed and it becomes a uh transformed into a a body for a higher Soulful purpose and that choice we make every day every moment of the day you can actually see every interaction will it be an as of or a Jacob thing or will be joined together because as I said the Goal here is not just to escape into a Jacob spiritual reality the goal is to be hand inand with the twin the body and at the same time of course not a bodily thing without a soul and that's how Judaism sees

the material world it sees it as a platform a forum a uh a a channel for Spiritual expression so then think of it this way then your mind your heart all your faculties are using the body to express a higher Transcendent experience and then your be body becomes Very much part of that experience now I know what I'm saying could be very idealistic and and some people say I'm not there that's why the goal here is not to jump to extremes it's to slowly introduce this approach it's a slow simulating approach of Education where a

person begins to nurture um begins to become more aware of their soul and their soul slowly nurtures and educates the body this a slow process it begins in the best possible time in childhood We teach our children you know here's your body here are your arms your legs the rest of your body these are all tools given to you for you to learn how to express your soul through them and you do that through the kind words you share to others with others through your charity through your generosity through virtue through introspection through um being

a mench to being a f refined human being being that's a soul that's that that that is That is uh Illuminating and flowing through the body if on the other hand the person's soul get remains under cover and you just grow up and saying it's all about me me then you have a soul that's trapped in prison and there will be a conflict there will always be a conflict we have to look at the conflict and smile maybe because it was all predicted 3 and a half thousand years ago in the Bible so Next time

you have a conflict just open open up this week's CH par told us and say hey hey this conflict is going on already thousands of years I'm not saying that's going to make it easier but at least you can know you're not alone that's exactly the way it was meant to be two for two forces two Nations two Powers two forces two empires whatever and they're battling they're battling right inside of you right now and when you read Tanya He explains it it's not that we it makes the battle easier but it makes it um

it's not so overwhelming cuz you know that's why you were placed here there will be a struggle someone once came to theed the third and he was bem moing the fact he says re what should I do I don't have a desire to study Torah and looked at him he said what should I do I do have a desire to study Torah what was he what did he mean he said for me it's easy I have a desire to do it you are Blessed because you have a challenge and that's the purpose of life to

desire it is easier but it's not really the purpose the purpose is not that have a desire and to create one it's much more meaningful and much more significant inste exchange so he said what should I do I don't want to do it then the Reb says what should I do I do want to do it meaning the Reb had it easier but it's not it's not as purposeful I understand we' all love to Have it that way but doesn't always work that way so the point is that the goal is to know there is

the challenge itself is the purpose so if you were to know for example next time a challenge comes up in your life a real challenge and God was able to whisper in your ear at that moment or send a messenger and told you you know something don't think this is a real challenge it's sent here to test you that's all it is to see whether you could overcome and whether You could Prevail your attitude would be very different you know because then it wouldn't be like oh no why is it why this come my way

you'd say you know something this was sent here to see what I'm capable of so I'm going to prove myself you know like a good competit competitor instead of looking at how do I destroy the competitor maybe the way is how do I ingeniously outmaneuver him and that's how we have to look at things in life you always know the Confidence inside of you that your soul is always intact the fact that sometimes it's not so easy that is exactly what was meant to be obstacle was placed in your path to figure out how to

get around it to jump over it develop a a greater strength and when you do nothing compares to that gratification we all know that when you build build an immunity you build a strength over something that yesterday or a year ago 5 years ago was a block it's unbelievable No one you can't describe the pleasure from them because it means you prevailed and then you think back and say I can't you know at that time I didn't think I would ever make it and you hear this many times and there are some people who just

Retreat or they give in or they get depressed etc etc so the whole story is really meant to tell you there will be impediments the RO will have impediments I mean you see these video games they have all these little you know like my Grandchildren play them like I don't even know how they move so quickly on these iPads it's like made for children they have like thetive you know you ever see how fast they do kids I don't know I can't do that but uh and they so I'm seeing my little grandson is playing

one of these games you know one of these things these little men that jump over in the gold coins and there's blocks and there's trains and this and this I mean he's mastered it to who knows what level But I was thinking about it cu the truth is it's really story of Life obviously this is a game but the story of life is impediments and can you jump over or not or can you find a way around it can you figure out the solution so it's a whole different type of take on things you know

I think one of the reasons people are attracted to sports especially in our day and age because you don't have to fight the battles others are doing it for you it's like living vicariously to Through your football team you know and all the Maneuvers they're making etc etc I don't think many of us would like to be on the field there especially when you're tackled but we like to watch it you know like they tell the story about this parachutist or this guy wanted to be a parachutist right so he um he he he uh

enlisted okay so there's this training period for a month you go up there on the parachute plane whatever it's called and you watch others you Know how you pack up technique method courage and you watch you help out and then comes your turn after the month you get online they pack you up time your time to jump and he's looking forward to the day fine he thinks he's all ready packs up he looks one gives one look down 30,000 ft he says I'm not jumping he has you know the fear of heights okay fine the

the sergeant says listen we have your type to another month some people need a little more time to build Up the the Courage the strength fine another month he's helping out long story short then month ends again he lines up he looks down not so okay at this point the sergeant says to them look not this is not made for everyone some people simply just uh not parachuters by by profession you should find another part of the the the military and enlist there you can work behind the desk you can work on the Infantry maybe

uh something else anyway this is not going to work out and the guy insists no I want to stay here I like being here I'll help out you know you need I see you need people to help up up here I'll restock up the plane I'll help pack up the the the parachutes on the backs of the parachutist whatever so the St says why are you insisting you're not going to jump why you why you what do you want to be here for he says I may never jump but I like to be around People

who jump you know it makes them feel good he sees other people jump and makes him feel like you know he has courage so some of us don't jump but we like to be around people who jump I mean actually I'm I'm I'm not saying this in a positive way I'm saying it it shouldn't be that way so the chapter at the end of the story tells us a few things conflict is inherent in life comes with a Turf just know that and and the faster you Embrace that life the Simpler life becomes because first

of all you don't fight then every conflict I'm not saying we have to get into conflict and we have to be confrontational obviously you can avoid a situation by all means but know that things will come your way that are going to be put in your place in your path that you will have two three choices you'll either freeze in your path and never move again you'll either Retreat and and become resigned and depressed or You'll find a way to get through it there's a fourth option that you can end up fighting all the time

that's not what I was suggested you find a way you use your genuity you're not lazy you dig deeper and say how do I what what what do I do with this and you maybe need advice you may need friends and so on that's number one number two to know that the soul is always intact it doesn't matter what you think about yourself never forget that the pilot Flame never goes out the Jacob you it's pure as I mentioned in the prayer and now just review briefly that those levels so it says first the soul

I thank you for returning my soul to me every morning this is actually a meditation you could do every morning guaranteed to help Empower you throughout the day so that's the first thing I acknowledge thank you for returning my soul to me for renewing my contract for giving me a Vote of confidence for another day of life you know that my soul is my primary force and everything I'll be doing today is all about actualizing my soul not just about my body and then it continues so the soul you've given me is pure you know

that it's absolutely pure intact not damaged nothing has wounded it the arteries or the pipes may be corroded there may be some blocks impediments but the soul itself is pure then comes stage Number two the soul that you have created that mean the soul manifests on a creation level that's actually part of the body now it's not just a pure Soul Somewhere in Heaven or somewhere in a deep unconscious the soul actually becomes part of the creation of your life and then the Soul that you have shaped so after you know creation can be like

a raw piece of matter shape is already shape and form so the soul is starting to take on shape and form in One's life which is the way we think our minds work personality now Bara the second is not just that it's a pure pure um pilot flame but also there's a the substance but the substance doesn't yet have shape and form and then comes the next step where he says you have um imbued with me in me is actually from the word where it says that God took a piece of of of of Earth

and blew breathed a soul of life into the human being that's why in Hebrew Nish and Nima soul and breath are the same letters just a different pronunciation and you'll see many you see many spiritual exercises always use breath as part of a part of the exercise because breath is the Breath of Life the breath of the Soul it's the Divine breath essentially so you not only did you create the soul not only is it pure like a pilot flame not only has it manifest in some substance and not only has it shape and form

but it's also now Like blown into me like a like the breath there's a breath inside of me and when we breathe it's a for expression bre breathing is the constant flow of Life exhale inhale connected with a heartbeat contraction expansion a constant movement and then finally it says you protect it within me because the soul needs protection as I said we live in a hostile World physical Temptations and forces are constantly inundating us and trying to distract us And uh p and and and draw us to whatever that distraction may be and we need

protection we need a protector we need some Force so God is saying not only is it pure not only do I create it and shape it and imbu it inside of you but I also protect it so you're not going alone now we may not feel it immediately but when we say this every morning and we keep focused on that when challenge comes our way we say remind ourselves That we have all these one 2 3 4 five expressions and uh and it's protected when we access that awareness that alone accesses the energy that gives

a person strength try it out but remember a big part of strength in a person's life is not something that you could see it's attitude if you believe in yourself it's probably your greatest weapon if you don't believe in yourself even if you have all the tools in the world you're not going to access it you see this all The time psychological warfare is all based on manipulating that you don't can't do it even though you can how often do people realize at some point good negotiation for that matter you think you have a strong

hand the other person convinces you have a weak hand and suddenly you lose confidence you see it in sports athletes brilliant athletes the best in the world get into a funk they certainly lose confidence so here you have you can have one person has Less tools but more confidence another person has more tools but less confidence most likely the one with confidence is going to Prevail now I'm not suggesting only confidence obviously we're talking about confidence confidence and resources but without confidence resources are most meaningless because you don't have the strength and the and the

courage and the and the drive and the ambition to do something with those tools and you may Even minimize what you think you have because you don't think you can you can get it done so when you're aware of the soul and its powers and you're aware that there was that the conflict was meant to be and that there's a Jacob in you and the asov is meant to come and confront you that alone is a very big advantage in achieving something because instead of you just being like you know completely blindsided and I suddenly

something smacks you and you have no Clue where is it coming from and why do I need this most people spend thousands of hours why did this happen to me they don't realize that question alone is so disempowering instead of figuring out that if it happened to me maybe I have strengths to overcome it they're busy why did it happen to me why didn't it happen to someone else it's not fair they may be even right it makes no difference but it doesn't help you because it doesn't get Doesn't solve your problem all you're doing

is agonizing why whereas if you look dig deeper and you realize one second I have strengths and the and challenges are meant to be it's a different attitude again I'm not suggesting it's easy because once a person is in the throws of a challenge it's not not so simple just step back and say hey but but if you think about it beforehand it helps tremendously when you get into that type of situation and You'll see the people have overcome the greatest challenges in life had that attitude you read the stories of Helen Keller and others

who are really in capacitated in so many levels didn't have faculties at work but they had a certain strength of spirit and dignity and they had people around them that that that encouraged it so no one should ever have such challenges God forbid but you see the power of spirit and situations no one would ever imagine That's possible so imagine you're blessed with health and you don't ACC as that Spirit that's equally tragic so that's what we're told that's why the story is such a vital one to read the details and the conflict not always

Pleasant to read but it's real life is real the Torah I remember years ago doing this class so person when I met him he was far from Judaism in practice he was a Jew but he was completely alienated and then the first time he Read the Torah he said to me you know something the Torah doesn't have Happy Endings everything is a conflict there's no family that's intact you know Adam and Eve they eat the tree uh Kan and Abel Cain kills Abel and then children are killing fathers and fathers are killing children and brothers

and sister nobody gets along the tribes they sell Joseph they almost kill him it's like one big soap oper that's the way he put it everyone's Dysfunctional you know and then you think that you're finally going to finish the ends of the story usually ends of books are happy endings like movies they have Happy Endings no Nobody ends up going into Israel you read the whole Torah he was expecting can't wait to read the end of finally getting into the Promised Land plan it was all worth it and everybody dies even Moses so then I

so he's asking me what is this what kind of book is this it's not very like Encouraging everything is conflicts the I remember the way he put it also he said to me the Jews you give them meat no we don't want meat you give them bread they don't want bread what about the water they don't want the water constantly everything you give them is no good right something like that constant complains and I remember smiling as he's telling it to me and I said to him well you know Torah is The story of life

that's what life is like and without that he says absolutely that's what my life looks like so the Torah is not here to make us feel good it's not here to have a happy ending that's very nice the Torah is about real life this is real life God forbid it doesn't mean that things are bad it means that this is real life and we still will make it and we still make it to the promised land and we're still in the journey so the Jews did not end up Becoming extinct we're here reading the Torah

all these years because we learn to adjust to the E and flow of Life yes life is complicated and that's the bottom line so you're either going to fight it or you're going to ride the waves and that's a very big difference good swimmers ride waves they know how to navigate there's a challenge you figure out what to do instead of resisting it or just fighting it period you figure Out a way around like a good swimmer when the storm strikes you think a good swimmer starts swimming no they relax then gather your strength let

the waves carry you and then when it's calm that that's when you go forward you're going you have to choose your battles anyway much more to elaborate on all this I think you read the chapter apply to your personal life I think you find beyond what I've said tremendous lessons I've given the basic ones and the end of the Story which concludes two chapters from now is actually that there is a Reconciliation Jacob and ASA with all their battles they end up embracing and then the Torah says that maybe today they're still not complete Unity

but in the end of time they will ultimately join together full Embrace full Fusion complete fusion and full integration of body and soul matter and spirit where our bodies will actually be true Seamless channels for the Soul's expression in this world and the physical world will be a true seamless vehicle for divine expression and that's what we dream for and what we work for but it begins how we live our lives right now and we have as I said these choices every moment so try it out tomorrow morning we maybe get us prayer book just

read these prayers even if you read them think about the intention and see if you can carry the that feeling And thought through the day especially when a challenge comes up remember soul is pure soul is created the soul is shaped imbued inside of us and protected and I I no doubt in my mind that type of awareness has to help can't say it's going to solve everything overnight but it's all about conditioning you condition yourself you train yourself you think you think healthy you speak healthy and you act healthy that's the bottom line Learning

how to condition our our our thoughts speech and action uh and and learning how to think positively and learning how to uh take seize the day carped so this has been uh Wednesday Night Live Simmon Jacobson it's always a pleasure to sit here with you um next Wednesday will not be a class because I'm going to Manchester England yes for a few days I have speak engagement I will record a class so it won't be on location I we'll send out an Email telling everyone but I'm just mentioning it to you just when you got

just when you got back so but the following week is is will be will resume live I mean on location but I will record a class next week meaning it will be only online and if you have not left if I don't have your email address please send that to us and um as I've said a number of times look forward to some great new developments coming the next month or two and it's been a Pleasure and honor and again I dedicate the class to Nate and uh Joanne right okay thank you very much