Torah to Your Inner Self

A Person Following Torah becomes their real self. The Torah contains the guidelines to help a person reach their essence. A person’s essence is their soul. Think of it. A body is basically a sophisticated network of physical material. Normally a body should be inert. What gives it animation? A Soul. So really the soul is the essence of the person. The body is the “clothing” of the soul – so to speak.

Through following the Torah laws person sheds the secondary and focuses on the primary. One gets in touch with their soul, becomes closer to the Creator / Hash-m and thus becomes much more of an individual – as opposed to a follower of trends and fashions. I know. I used to be a trend setter and fashion follower.

Individualist Rabbis

Thus you find Orthodox Jews who are very different in terms of goals, aspirations and skills. This applies to Rabbis as well. You have Rabbis that do computer research on Torah – like Rabbi Matityahu Glazerson. You have outreach Rabbis – Like Rabbi Noach Weinberg, z”l – the Founder of Aish HaTorah. You have Great Rabbis in Jewish Law – Like Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Zt”l. You have Rabbis that are Kabbalists – Like Baba Sali, zt”l and Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri – involved in the Mystical secrets of Torah.

The Tale of Blocked Blessing

I think I heard this story from Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein. A business man – involved in various lucrative business ventures – noticed that many of his deals went bad just when he was ready to close. He went to a kabbalist Rabbi – who knew the spiritual nature of the world. The businessman explained his problem. The Rabbi responded “Your children are stealing from you!” The man was very surprised. “How is that possible? My children are 3 years old and 8. They can’t steal?”

The Kabbalist asked “Do you ever spill your seed?” The man responded affirmative – he explained hesitantly that he goes on many business trips without his wife and thus he falls to the temptation of spilling the seed in vain – which is forbidden in Torah. The Kabbalist explained – that when he did this it created defective spiritual children in the other worlds. When pipes of blessing for this man started flowing – these children would complain to G-d and say look what their father did to them and thus the flow of blessing stopped. Thus he kept losing his business deals.

No Person that Never Sins

There is not a person in the world that only does good and never sins – according to the laws of the Torah. Some accept this as their nature and have no remorse for the bad they have done or don’t even recognize it as bad – either because of ignorance or because they say “everyone else is doing it.”

From the Story we see how blessing is blocked. Sins block blessing. Lack of merit also may block blessing.

Things that Block Blessing

In Torah – there is a physical nature in the world and a spiritual nature of the world. Gravity causes things to fall to the ground in the physical world. Sins block blessing in the spiritual world.

Quarrels also block blessing. Once a married couple was childless for many years . They were in a quarrel with another family. Finally after many years – one decided to get up and ask for forgiveness. When they made peace – the couple had a child.

I heard a story of another childless couple. All the time they were living in a house – they weren’t able to have children. Once in cleaning the house they found inappropriate magazines in the attic above their bedroom. They threw them in the garbage and shortly after they had children.

It’s possible that a person promiscuous when single – might have sins come to block their blessing them when married. Although a newly married couple is forgiven of their sins – the repercussions might still come to block them.

The Evil Eye

Blocked blessing may be caused by the Evil Eye / Ayin HaRa’. Keeping things simple might be a way to avoid blocked blessing. What is the Evil Eye? When a person feels slighted because of someone else’s blessing – G-d takes out the books of both and sees if the person really deserves his blessing. Someone shows off their new Land Rover in front of a person – whose car was just repossessed. G-d then sees if he really deserves that car.

A Rabbi, in charge of an organization – Bonei Olam – that helps childless couples to bear children – asked Rav Steinman, zt”l – why are their so many childless couples. He answered – because of Ayin HaRa’ / The Evil Eye. He Said that Either they had a lavish wedding, or moved into a lavish home after their wedding. (Story from Torah-box.com)

The Rabbi tried to confirm this by asking some of the people who he was dealing with if they had a large wedding or got a large apartment after getting married. Many of the couples answered affirmatively.

Unblocking Blessing

 To unblock blessing – it might be as simple as doing Teshuva (repentance). Teshuva in Torah starts by recognizing ones faults. One then regrets those faults or failings. One makes an effort to correct them. And One commits to not doing them again.

If someone wronged someone else – they can go and apologize. Or if you see your friend – who may have slighted you in the past is suffering – forgive them with all your heart. Remove yourself from all quarrels.

To Remove the Evil Eye from oneself – there are many remedies or segulas. A Sefer called  רפואה וחיים can be found on a site called hebrewbooks.org (search refuah) – that contains remedies / segulot against it. The Moroccan Jews know of certain spices to make incense to rid oneself of it.

Prayer & prayer with tears always are a way to break down the barriers of blessing.

Being thankful for what G-d gave you also opens doors. A special prayer of thanks to Hash-m – can be said.

Tikun haklali can correct & infuse the 10 powers of the soul with spirituality & joy. It corresponds to “Ten Kinds of Music” · frequencies of holiness · corresponding to ten Sefirot (Spiritual Emanations of G·d). It undoes 10 forces of impurity & opacity, blocking soul & preventing passage of Divine abundance, understanding & clarity. It opens doors to blessing & unblocks blessing withheld due to sin. The 10 Psalms / Tehillim are 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137 & 150.