The Yeshiva Of My Reverie
by Velvel "Wally" Spiegler

Some forty bearded young men, heads covered with yarmulkes, gathered around long wooden tables. The hum of chanting could be heard as pairs of learning partners sang their gemara text (a subset of the Talmud) to one another. It’s late afternoon and a hazy sun streaks through dusty windowpanes. A musty odor penetrated the homely, faded room. A desk can be seen at the far end of the room, an elderly figure with a long snowy-white beard sat hunched over a worn, yellowed volume of Berachot, the first tractate of the Talmud. I went to the yeshiva that day to have a talk with the Rebbe. I had a problem and I needed someone to help me sort out the details. It was about being torn apart between earning an impressive income or following my bliss, as Joseph Campbell would put it. It was painfully troubling. I go there any time I need an escape from worldly issues. You see, this yeshiva exists in my mind.

I found this yeshiva some years ago as I was struggling between my earthly pursuits and a spiritual connection. At that time I found myself hanging around too many intellectuals who believed that science would someday have everything figured out, like “Philadelphia lawyers” demanding everything be proven. But in time, I learned that some things will never be figured out because life arises from nothingness, from the mystery. Where does a thought, an inspiration, and dreams come from? It’s all life energy, but our only reality, nonetheless.

One day the problem seemed intolerable. The predicament escalated with emotional pain attached to it. “If I were to go into therapy”, I reasoned “it could take years to conquer the feelings”. That’s when I discovered the yeshiva. I was deliberating the problem and felt as if I wanted to be someplace else, where the problem wasn’t. But where could I go? That’s when the idea hit me. Why not go inside myself and it was then that I had the vision of the study hall, which seemed to me like the farthest reaches of the universe, at the time.

After repeated visits, the study hall no longer looked so shabby; the walls now took on a glow of white polished marble and the students began to look like Temple priests. It was a glorious sight to behold. I dared to approach the kindly Rebbe, to unload my burdens. After explaining my troubles, he gazed up from the opened text and said, “Velvel, my son, if you neglect your spiritual dimension, as many of us are prone to do, you will be tormented by all kinds of sensations that arise from the unconscious. Your deep thoughts, emotions and spiritual impulses strive to make themselves known. They take on the form such as fear, guilt, inadequacy, or poor self-esteem, and that effects the way we behave. This is the source of greed, of loneliness, of cheating, of self-absorption and a host of other inappropriate behaviors.  If you learn to pay attention—you learn what each impulse is about—you get used to them and they won’t be so bothersome any longer. You will get to know more of yourself. Here we study Torah all day from which we learn about ourselves.

Therapy seeks to adjust people, who can’t cope with the demands society places on us, in order to become more productive. Spirituality, on the other hand, assumes we are all perfected individuals and strives to remove the blocks from that realization”. The Rebbe went on to explain, “that we have two separate dimensions, the higher self, and the ego. The ego holds on to this reality. It needs proof to sustain its beliefs. It creates suffering and simultaneously needs to fix the misery. The higher self is completely free; it attaches itself to nothing and creates a healing environment. We connect to our higher selves through the study of Torah.”

With those words, I began to feel as if a weight had been lifted. His words made so much sense to me. I not only felt better, but I realized I was bubbling with joy. I thanked the Rebbe. As I took leave I asked if I might return to his presence, if I needed to seek his counsel again, and of course permission was granted.
Maybe there is a certain some place we all need to visit from time to time. Perhaps because our aspirations and dreams of yesterday didn’t quite pan out the way we hoped. Maybe that’s why we sometimes consider looking somewhere else. Everyone needs to find a quiet refuge, together with his own wise counselor. It’s not necessary to follow my reverie, but rather find one of your own. It’s more potent that way.  It will be a place to heal the pain of everyday existence.