Torah for Healing - May 2008 Torah for
healing brings you the current month's Torah portions with study
suggestions that encourages the healing process. Each month, the
current Torah portions will appear here. Be sure to come
back to us. Before clicking
on to any of the Parshiot, please read the following articles
below : The Mystery
of Torah Torah:
Jewish
Spiritual Therapy
A
Brief Introduction
to the Healing Value of Studying Torah Torah
consists of both story (aggadah) and law (halacha). Our particular
interest with regard to healing is story (aggadah). The
Torah is therapeutic in the sense that each of us finds our own
solutions, through contemplating what the story seems to imply about
our inner conflicts at any moment of our lives. The content of any
chosen story usually has nothing to do with out external lives, but a
lot to do with our inner problems, which seem unintelligible and
therefore unsolvable. The text does not refer to the outer world, all
though it may begin realistically enough to have everyday features
woven into it. The unrealistic nature of these stories is an
important device, making it obvious that the Torah's concern is not
useful information
about the external world, but the inner processes taking place in each
individual.
Imagery is the
language of the soul, and of the unconscious. The study of Torah brings
to you, through the faculty of our imagination, to the higher energies
that give rise to the healing power. It
makes little difference how much Torah you presently know. There's no
need to have a scholarly background; the important thing is to study,
but that doesn't necessarily mean to read. It implies that you apply
concerted effort in trying to understand the text. The study of Torah
is the Jewish means to connect us to the higher energies that induce
healing. The traditional
format for Torah study is known as Torah
Lishmah...study
for it's own sake. There are no tests, no money to be made, no special
distinction other than the spiritual benefits. Healing takes
place by itself, you don't have to do anything but to open yourself to
the healing energies of the Torah.
Try to read the
entire
text by yourself. Each Parashat (weekly portion) link below contains a
brief summary of
the
chapters for that week. The abridged story makes following the actual
text
easier. By making a practice of study in the fascinating world of Torah
we begin to absorb the higher energies, which bring about healing and
many other spiritual benefits. As one verse explains,
"Surely, this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too
baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach." (Deut. 30:11)
Recurrent themes run throughout the Torah. Each parashat contains "Spiritual
insights" that focus on one
important spiritual theme in the text. Their repetitive appearance
helps bring your
attention to the messages the Torah is trying to bring into
consciousness. The Torah imparts spiritual insights in each weekly
portion to help you contemplate issues that are meaningful to
your life.
The
questions posed in "Key Verses", also contained in each
parashat, are there to help you find meaning into your own life
story. The Rabbis of old have been questioning these verses for over
2500 years in an attempt to uncover the mysteries of the Torah. We have
purposely eliminated the views of the classic commentators to that you
can explore the mysteries of your own life as a means toward healing.
The Mystery
of Torah Driving home,
one clear but frosty January evening, from a Kabbalah class I attended
each week, I was mulling the very recent discussion around in my head,
with a sense of uneasiness. We were learning a segment of the Shaar
Ruach Hakodesh, Gates of the Holy Spirit, a 16th Century text by Rabbi
Chaim Vital, a disciple of Rabbi Issac Luria, the celebrated Kabbalist
of Safed. I read and reread the material several times both before and
after the class, and I kept running into a stone wall. The text implied
something more than just the words alone conveyed, but I couldn’t quite
grasp it; I could almost feel it. I realized there and then that words,
particularly those of holy text like Torah, were limited by the
boundaries of the human mind. I then set out on a path to uncover a way
in which we can indeed transcend the limits of the written word.
First I decided
to find out what the world of psychology had to offer on the subject.
The first bit of information I stumbled upon came from Awareness, a
book by John O. Stevens, a colleague of Fritz Perls the founder of
Gestalt therapy. Dr. Stevens writes, “Awareness is based on the
discovery that it is more useful to simply become deeply aware of
yourself as you are now. Rather than try to change, stop, or avoid
something that you don’t like in yourself, it is much more effective to
stay with it and become more deeply aware of it. You can’t improve on
your own functioning; you can only interfere with it, distort it and
disguise it. When you really get in touch with your own experiencing,
you will find that change takes place by itself, without your effort or
planning. With full awareness, you can let happen whatever wants to
happen with confidence that it will work out well.” In other words
awareness surpasses the spoken word, the pensive word and the written
word.
I looked up
“awareness” my dictionary: Conscious, cognizant, sensible, alive awake
alert, watchful, and vigilant. To be mindful or heedful of something.
Awareness implies knowing something either by perception (experience)
or information. “Conscious” emphasizes the recognition of something
sensed or felt. This definition, I realized, is almost identical with
the Hebrew word “kavannah” except it lacked the notion of intention, to
have a plan or to give something meaning.
With that in
mind, I explored a few Kabbalah texts a little closer to tie some of
these thoughts together. The Kabbalah teaches that, the fundamental
reality is not matter, but energy, a set of vibrations that pass
through the world, making it dynamic and alive like a person’s thoughts
or the human soul. Man can feel these energies and control them, change
them, and channel them in other directions. Thought is the tool for
mastering the energy; it can channel unconscious vibrations into
conscious meaning. Each person has the power to perceive his vibrations
and bring to light, that which was previously hidden. Thus, each person
is responsible for himself, his needs and his beliefs. According to
Kabbalah, we are capable of changing physical, psychological and
spiritual vibrations through thoughts.
Just as
awareness applies to life’s situations, it applies to Torah as well.
Many of us grapple with the text, leaving dissatisfied with the
meanings or answers that we are seeking. For over two and a half
centuries, sages and scholars have been offering commentaries on every
aspect of Tanach (the Jewish bible) to the extent that we now possess
such exhaustive collections that makes it impossible for anyone to
digest completely, let alone research. These varying and often opposing
interpretations encompass thoughts from the sages of antiquity, right
up to today. But all this material leaves us with nothing more
than intellectual satisfaction, while the spiritual benefit is
neglected. Somehow we believe that only trained rabbis are capable of
interpreting holy text, but in fact we’re all qualified to understand
from the narrative what we require to put our lives together. We don’t
have to know any answers; Torah study is not a test of your knowledge.
Each verse, each mitzvah is an opportunity to breakthrough old limits
(barriers) and venture into uncharted territory. Through the relentless
intent (Kavannah), we breakthrough the old barriers of knowledge and
see the light.
The Talmud
defines “Kavannah” as directing the heart. By heart, it seems to be
implying a kind of higher level thought, a contemplative thought. When
we study or observe with mochin gadlut, higher mind, we come to
understand, as Dr. Stevens points out “that change and understanding
takes place by
itself”
Everything we need for our development we already know; it’s just a
matter of bringing it into consciousness.
By studying
Torah with “kavannah”, and observing our lives with “kavannah”,
we become able to explore new possibilities of spiritual and emotional
breakthroughs. We can look at a piece of text or a shortcoming in our
lives, focus our awareness upon it and soon utter “aha”; that’s it.
It’s incredible how much you can realize about your existence by simply
paying close attention to it and becoming more deeply aware of your own
experiencing. What the sages have said for centuries is really
true: the world is right here—all we have to do is empty our “minds”
and open ourselves to receive it.
Torah: Jewish
Spiritual Therapy by
Velvel "Wally" Spiegler
The Torah lays out a
course
of mental and emotional healing that may not be obvious from the text
itself
but yet it served the Jewish people from before the pre-exilic period
until
the rise of modern psychotherapy. The Torah's call for loving your
neighbor
as you love yourself with the emphasis on 'yourself', which is the
foundation
of the Jewish spiritual therapy.
Love, whether for
yourself
or for another, is not a feeling or an emotion; it is a form of divine
energy. This energy which pervades throughout the universe and
manifests
in the form of caring, sharing, commitment, healing, and awareness,
generates
the special feeling we call love. This awareness, expressed
consciously,
is detached from judgment between good and evil, right or wrong, and is
the basis for unconditional love. Its quality is that of a witness, an
observer, a beholder of the events in our lives without the need of
clinging
to them. A hint of this self love comes to us from the scribal
lettering
of the Torah verse Sh'ma Yisroel Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad. The
Hebrew
letter ayin of Sh'ma and the dalet of Echad are written
considerably
larger than the rest of the verse; one of those prominent Torah markers
which signals something of importance. These two letters spell the word
"ad" meaning witness in Hebrew, the source for unconditional love.
Romantic
love, passionate love, and too often even marital or parental love is
conditional;
it depends upon the behavior of the other.
From Jewish mysticism
we
find further sources for emotional healing. The Kabbalah teaches the
concept
of arba olamot, the Four Worlds. In essence it states that everything
in
the universe was formed by or exists in four levels of energy which
would
include our emotional and mental life. Level one relates to survival
and
physical issues particularly those of money and health. Its symptom is
fear and its remedy is feeling unconditionally loved—knowing that a
loving,
Divine power cares for our every need as expressed in the Amidah (the
standing
prayer) of the daily prayer service.
Level two deals in
relationship
and sexuality issues, the fears and related pain of people not getting
along with each other. Again, unconditional love comes to the rescue.
Consider
for example why we suffer from stage fright each time we're called upon
to make a public presentation. Think of how relaxed and calm we would
feel
if we knew that everyone in the audience loved us regardless of any
blunders
or mistakes we might make.
Two other common problems
related to fear are worry and guilt. Worry is the inappropriate fear of
events, which may occur in the future, and guilt is the overwhelming
concern
over what happened in the past. Either symptom is alleviated by
adapting
the observer principle, which implies detaching from past or future,
both
illusions of time and living in the present where love prevails. From
the
over abundance of worry and guilt, we suffer from the problems, which
made
Prozac and Valium fashionable: depression, the total loss of energy and
anxiety, and vigorous symptoms of fear. All of this would be
unnecessary
with the proper dose of self-love, the basis of self-esteem.
The next of the four
worlds
includes feelings of anger, that powerful hot flood of emotion usually
generated by some kind of frustration. Its effects are devastating but
they can be alleviated by learning to take a few deep breaths just
before
the explosion and stepping back or away from the offending situation
just
long enough to become lovingly conscious of the event. Finally, we
sometimes
deal with sadness, the effect of loss. Sadness doesn't have to relate
only
to the loss of a loved one; it could be a simpler loss like that of
money,
friends, possessions or even youth. We need to love ourselves enough
for
permission to grieve; our self-love enables us to fully feel and
experience
the loss and its accompanying pain.
This is just a glimpse of
the many possibilities of how Torah provided us with a system, which
kept
our people emotionally well since time immemorial. Except for those few
cases, which may require psychiatric intervention, Jews could benefit
with
Torah as an approach towards mental health. Most of us could enrich
ourselves
by finding the right teacher to learn to love unconditionally while
receiving
a good dose of Torah.
Recurrent themes run throughout the Torah. Each parashat contains "Spiritual
insights" that focus on one
important spiritual theme in the text. Their repetitive appearance
helps bring your
attention to the messages the Torah is trying to bring into
consciousness. The Torah imparts spiritual insights in each weekly
portion to help you contemplate issues that are meaningful to
your life.
