Awakening Devarim: Torah Mussar Mindfulness, 45th Sitting

The Institute of Holiness: Kehilat Mussar's weekly free offering, learning from the Hebrew Bible/Torah portion. This week is Devarim, the first parasha in the Book of Devarim, the 5th Book of the Torah. We learn from the perspective of Mussar Mindfulness and apply what we learn from our ancestors to our own middot/soul-traits and daily practice. We end with a guided mindfulness meditation. Donations accepted and sponsorship encouraged. All are welcome.

Transcript

Wonderful.

Welcome.

You are here with us,

The Institute for Holiness,

And our weekly free offering called awakening.

We are letsprobably ask ourselves a number of questions,

What is Tore Musa mindfulness.

Looking at the weekly Torah portion from the lens of Musa mindfulness and seeing how we can apply the lessons learned from our ancestors in the Torah to our own lives and we engage in a guided meditation practice of mindfulness meditation in the Theravada Vipassana Insight Tradition.

I am Rabbi Hasia Oriel Steinbauer,

The founder and director of the Institute for Holiness and I'm delighted that you're here.

We normally meet on Sundays at 12 30 Eastern Standard Time,

9 30 Pacific Standard Time,

7 30 p.

M Israeli time.

We didn't meet last Sunday because it was Tisha B'Av.

I hope if you observe that your fast was easy and meaningful.

So I am making up for last Sunday this is going to be covering the Varem,

The first Torah portion in our new book,

The five books of Moshe.

We are in Deuteronomy,

The Varem and tonight we will meet to cover the next Torah portion which is Ve'et Hanan.

All right we always begin with our kavonot,

Our intention,

So let me just start with today's date of when this is supposed to have taken place.

We're supposed to be on the 9th of Av,

Right?

So Tet B'Av,

The year Tet Shin Pei Bet,

It was August 6,

2022.

Today's date is the 14th of August and I'm celebrating that this is our 45th sit and talk together which is amazing.

All right our kavonot,

Let's move into sharing screen for those of you with vision.

Without vision or if you're listening on audio I will go ahead and read this out loud.

We say our first kavonah,

Our first intention for today's practice is before doing acts of caring for the self because we see this as a radical act of self-care,

This practice together taking refuge and community.

This is something I'm doing to strengthen my own soul in order to be a benefit to others in the future.

Our second intention which is all this layer we start with ourself we move out to the other our relationship with the other.

Ben Adam or I should say Ben Isha,

The kavonah or lachavah.

All right,

Between a human being and the other human beings.

Before doing acts for others because we see this as we are practicing so that we can be on this path towards holiness,

Towards shleimut,

Towards wholeness and how we act in alignment with our values that the inside matches the outside that there's integrity and consistency in our practice and it'll benefit the other that's we're other oriented.

So this is something I'm doing to strengthen my relationship to others so I can be a better conduit of God's good to others when they need me.

However you define God,

How the divine,

The creator,

The universe for me I call God Hashem.

Very personal relationship to the God of Israel who took our people out of slavery from Egypt and has sustained us all these years.

The last kavonah before doing acts to strengthen your relationship with the divine we say this is something I'm doing to strengthen my relationship with the creator so I can be a better conduit of God's good to others when they need me.

So we're looking at three levels how we care for the self,

How we care for the other and how we care for the divine and the whole world.

We are one.

Those are our intentions,

Our kavonot for today.

Let's see here.

Okay so we're jumping into the devarim.

I have a lot I want to touch on.

Obviously we can't cover everything in the Torah portion.

We shouldn't even attempt but I want to just start with a little brief summary.

So we've entered now the 40th year of when our ancestors have been in the desert this whole time and as you know the previous generation have passed away based on decree by God in response in reaction to their behavior particularly when the scouts sometimes called spies Meir G'alim went to observe the land of Eretz Israel,

The land of Israel,

The land promised to our ancestors and how the people reacted in response to 10 of the spies reports.

So they were decreed to die out in the desert and that their children those 20 years or younger maybe even 19 and younger would enter the land.

So Moshe now to give you the context it gives a long speech.

Basically Deuteronomy is kind of one long speech.

The devarim not just this Torah portion but the whole book and so he recalls first he recalls how he needed help in the desert in order to manage the people manage all the cases case law that was brought to him how they were supposed to behave and build community in the desert and onward and as you may recall his beloved father-in-law the father-in-law of his wife Sipura named Yitro gave him very sound wise speech wise advice with lots of wise discernment definitely practicing told him to appoint judges by the ten thousand thousands in thousands and the hundreds to handle the smaller cases and he makes no mention of Yitro here it's almost as if he's forgotten the source now we're going to keep that in mind because um Moshe our beloved ancestor who's been our leader and um just basically everything uh you know it's like the great Saba the great grandfather who's carried us all the way through from the institution of slavery in Egypt until they're about to enter the land um he is known as the the most humble man in the world okay so for humility in the practice of mussar mindfulness is that how much space you take up that is appropriate to you and and Moshe has done that that dance that whole time of figuring out how much space he's to take up um does so very well also in relationship to God um obviously the the times that he doesn't practice balance humility which is known as anava it is very obvious it's painfully obvious actually and it feels it can be feel painful to us as practitioners so the fact that he doesn't we always attribute our source who gives us an idea who gives us wise speech wise discernment he doesn't mention nitro he doesn't attribute that to him so this is one sign we're already seeing he's beginning his speech without attributing okay so he's already not balanced in humility we want to keep this in mind in the background then he decides to remind those israelites our ancestors standing in front of him of the whole incidence of the mega may ragline the spies or scouts into the land and you may recall that these people weren't actually the ones who went they're not the ones who were in the desert all 38 39 years these are young people ages one month two or one day to 19 years and 11 months or however long so they're there they weren't really there and they're not the ones responsible for um the whole thing so you're seeing a shift you're seeing a shift when our beloved saba moshay her grandfather is really um shifting responsibility from the spies uh the scouts the 10 who came with uh both a positive and a negative report and you have to have a balanced view here and he shifted to the people are responsible as if all i mean we could guess how many people were out there if you're going to follow rabbinic figures we're talking about three million people how could three million people be responsible for that incident so we need to keep in mind that someone is beginning to have judgment that's moshe and um blaming essentially right um but he all along he and god have seen the behavior of our ancestors those parents and grandparents of the children now standing at the cusp of entering the land of melch and honey promised to the ancestors they see that that the ancestors lost faith in god this real sense that if you have faith in god then you're going to believe that god will take care of you the whole time in the desert and you'll follow what god says and it will be reflected in you believing that god can take care of things and and to not allow fear a hindrance whether it be you know desire or a a version or any of the other three hindrances that any of those or greed hatred and delusion that they would you're not going to allow them to take over you as a reaction because you have faith in god you have faith that it will be taken care of so they they see the whole incident um as the the people and particularly also the spies with the people not having faith because they allowed the fear of the other people in the land of the other people in the land and from the the report of the 10 other scouts to kind of take over so let me share a little bit before i move on more and so here if you're following along we're in chapter one we're going to look at psuk 5 it says right here um let's see here the ever her yard and the arid moab who ill motion the air it's hot or a hazel anymore so on the other side of the jordan in the land of moab moshe undertook to expound this teaching okay we're getting very specific torah has zote now torah what does that mean this teaching so instruction is we're told would be better convey a wide range of meanings okay expressed by torah expresses both intellectual and legal connotations right and it's derived from hora right which means teach and instruct and it refers to civil and ritual procedure prophetic teachings reproof moral exhortation and didactic narrative this source is coming from the jewish publication society on their text on deuteronomy um published or printed actually the author the scholar is t guy or t gay not sure how to pronounce it and so moshe frequently refers to deuteronomy as this torah okay and um if all the terms of god instructions none better characterized the varying deuteronomy since it connotes both law and instruction that must be taught studied and pondered and it's expected to shape character attitudes and conducts for those who do so okay so there's a real strong interest interest in wisdom and learning and wisdom learned from experience that these children standing at the edge now are supposed to learn from the experience of the ancestors what they either witnessed or heard passed down to them as if it was their experience now think of us even when we have our a pesach seder our torah our passover seder we are seeing ourselves as if we are have left egypt that god has taken us out of slavery and this is the same with these children standing about to enter the land just the previous generation they are to learn from their experiences and that experience with god and now they're their own experience is supposed to be the basis of their faith it's not faith alone as if a blind faith it's it's it's primarily a faith that's based on experience of witnessing the miracles how god sustained them and basically learning from the ancestors and the sense of sometimes we learn from our ancestors more how not to behave than to behave and i think the children here have witnessed to that so that's a short background of that that i wanted to share with you and basically here in our first parasha and deuteronomy we have two divisions we have the retrospective where moshe is going back and looking at what's going on or what has happened you know it's almost like ruminations yeah and then the next sortation based on this historical experience to obey god's laws okay there's a real emphasis on the importance of obedience to god and one of the key things is the message is mistrusting and disobeying god lead to disaster and that trusty and obey god leads to success and so it's a practice for us to for our ancestors and particularly the children standing at the edge of the are they going to allow fear to take over and not march on as their ancestors had done or are they going to trust in god and have faith in god that god will be the one who leads them and so um basically we're going to see a huge shift about how these children behave versus our ancestors so i'm going to go on to say that one of our central themes throughout these 45 sittings together if you've been following along from the beginning there is sheep in the beginning um is that we've always been noting wise speech and the lack of it witnessing it in our ancestors and particularly mochay um to learn from them and learn from him how we can practice in our own lives so um we will note when we're going through this parasha what is said in mochay speech like i've already pointed out that he didn't mention yitro is the one responsible and it will also note him that he doesn't especially in the next parasha coming later this evening and where we cover the edhanan um you will note that he doesn't take personal responsibility there is a lack of responsibility and the wise speech that of course reflects that the inner and the outer and so um we'll we'll touch on that a bit and then again i've already mentioned there's a shift from responsibility from just the spies and the scouts to all the people so um i want to also notice it's really key in our practice and most our mindfulness in this parasha so it's key in every partial but in particular here we want to notice um judgment and how it arises because we're going to learn from our ancestor that and god mosha and god are prone to having reactions of judgments right come up and we need to look at it in ourselves and learn from this practice what we what we call the shadow side right our we all of us have our shadow side even some say the shadow inside and so we when we often we when we often choose not to recognize and accept and practice around the shadow to attend and befriend it you often get people reacting um pushing it away as if it doesn't exist that's not me that's you or over identifying with it right i am the evil bad one versus it's just behavior so um we're going to want to keep this in mind because mosha here it does not take personal responsibility and has a hard time with that blames it on the other um he actually says at least one time if not more because of you i am not entering the land it reminds me of that song right because of you excuse me if i don't attribute the author the creator of that song i don't know who it is i'll look it up and post it on the website when we have a write-up but it reminds me of putting the blame on someone else because of you i'm not entering the land not because i mosha attributed the water coming out of the rock to aharon and myself right to his self excuse me for those of you don't know i just did the blessing um over water and other things fall under that same braha that same blessing blessed are you god king of the universe who um that all comes from his speech his words right so it's talking about speech here we go again so important so um we want to keep this in mind that when someone's not facing their shadow side they're they're having intense judgment they will project that onto others and uh i think that we witness this a lot all right we'll explore it more um we have to remember that mosha our greatest prophet our greatest leader that consider the most humble servant of hashem throughout the whole torah he first lacks trust right i mean there's this concept here let's get to it so i can show you where it is and we have so much we want to cover quickly there's this language used if i think it's like he'd career but it might be no okay it's in chapter one pasuke 22 then you all came to me right there's this concept and and this idea this um this drawing near that you you come near and this has really significant meaning in this parasha and all of them this uh this two-fold idea that when you draw near when you come near like that um that it carries two folds right it carries that you're going to um that you're going to um have faith and trust in god okay that's the first and the second is that um you're not going to have fear right you're going to that's part of the twofold so the first is mosha if you'll recall back a little while ago when the people were demanding meat which probably meant fish quail um god sends down masses amount of meat and at first mosha questions god's ability to do so he actually doesn't have faith that god has this ability to provide that much meat or fish to all perhaps three million however many people and so he even got it like questions back are you like questioning my ability to do this i god who took you out of the land of egypt you know out of the institution of slavery so moshe had his moment had his moment of questioning which we all i think that's pretty human and probably healthy right do we need god to be taking it so personally and reacting let's hold that okay so that's the first instance where he lacked trust the second instant that he lacked trust um is seen in the whole spy incident believe it or not i don't really hold him responsible for this but there are commentators who see this they try to find like because in this tour portion he attributes a god being angry with him and blaming him for the spy incident which we didn't have privy to back when the incident actually happened and so you're suddenly commentators then i have to look for what did moshe do wrong and so one they say well that the fact that he even sent them that he allowed for them to go it does say in the text that god commanded that they be sent it's only later now in deuteronomy here where moshe doesn't say god commanded he says that you the people wanted me to send you to do this so again we have to watch how language changes how people's ruminations how their their thoughts and emotions tied to it uh how they reinterpret history or what has happened and it's often through a very strong emotional lens when they're not mindful and this is what i think we're witnessing with moshe here so he he goes on to him oh they they so they think the fact that he even let them go but even more importantly apparently the people just requested to go and get basic information about the land not to kind of send a military exposition where you're going to scout out the land see who's there how fortified they are um and that sort of apparently that was a moshe's addition and it's that that he's being punished for that's another interpretation um you know and then you have some beloved ancestors i think it's rambam thank god who actually say this is completely healthy and normal for people before they're about to enter and conquer a land through military conquests to actually go and scout the land like he he chooses not to see a problem with it but they feel like that you know our ancestors need to find a reason why that moshe thinks that he's being punched in some way having held responsible for this incident by god and so the the final decision the final conclusion is oh he's just included in the whole consequence for that whole generation i think it's more and again it's because he's forgotten and not taken responsibility that he hit that rock and it's not even the hitting so much it's that he attributed the coming out of that water to himself that he was responsible for it without her own not god that is the ultimate act of arrogance in musar mindfulness that you attribute things to your power to your hand and not to god and he the most humble man in the world at that moment was not balanced in unavant humility he went completely to the other extreme because of his lack of anger management because of his lack of patience of savlanuts and that happens to all of us the best of us and if we could approach it with compassion if god could approached it with compassion then maybe when we wouldn't be having this discussion today discussion today okay i say that with pain okay it affects me as a practitioner in my practice i have to be mindful of it but these people are beloved to me they're our ancestors okay let's go on let's see what else we have to share together before we move into our city um okay so this idea that humility and all in the reality of the presence of divine revelation that that is the other key ingredient of the word tik revon eli kulakhem that you came you draw near you approached me the same when we approach god right that it be done with humility and all always with the reality of the presence of divine revelation moshe always had that i mean it was incredible like think about think about how hard it was that moshe came so close to god almost like a how they're a friend beloved that he started to take for granted that relationship that he in that moment forgot that he was in the presence of divine revelation and that he was in a sense the extension of it the model of it when he took responsibility for that water and now he's doing it again here recalling everything slowly what the ancestors have done wrong not taking personal responsibility okay he's in shifting the responsibility there's this sense that moshe our saba our tired grandfather has had enough his time is coming and um so something about it became too familiar for motion emotion perhaps a sense of taking for grantedness um okay um let's see here um what else do i want to say here with you okay the final things i want to share with you um yeah i want to share that last with you there's this beautiful sense but i don't want to move into it yet because i want to just finish our summary and we learned some really great things about how our practice here okay um let me just pull up the last bit i said page 16 17.

Um the people we learn more about how the people reacted to the spy incident than we than that we had privy to back in bami bar in numbers so apparently when they were complaining and crying and whining outside their tents and in response to the spies or the scouts report apparently they actually had said the language and now i'm in chapter one i'm in pashuki 27 and it says here they tell ragnu the oholik them maybe about our whole lechem the domain rule the scene at adonai otano hotzi hotzi i know me eric meets rime latte oton of a yard paemo rime that hash me de no okay they they're soaking he said you sucked in your tents and it is big and you said it is because the lord hates us that he brought us out of the land of egypt to hand us over the maritz to wipe us out could you imagine the pain our ancestors must have been in to be so caught up in their reaction and to believe that hatred and delusion that they've internalized that they think god hates them and it's for the reason that god took them out of egypt is because because god hates them and sustained them for 40 years just to have them be murdered by the amorites we're going to practice compassion and meta loving kindness that's it around this because we didn't know that they actually had used this language until now and you know our ancestors our rabbinic ancestors take real strong with us right they they see this as a displaying of the people's perversity and ingratitude and i can understand that but if we're going to approach it with compassion we're going to instead say wow you're really in a lot of pain that you're using this language you're so caught up in your reaction that you think this is about hatred and so that's that's pretty painful right we're starting to witness hatred greed delusion in ill will however you want to word it okay the final thing i will share okay i want to say we i touched on this briefly before which is this idea that based on experience with god and being taken out of egypt taken out of the institution of slavery sustained sustained through the desert that one through that experiences was supposed to in theory have faith in god to believe that the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the to believe that god will protect them and sustain them through witnessing these miracles and i just want to stay from right off the bat notice judgment come up immediately both by our ancestors our rabbinic ancestors and even today with there's like judgment and anger towards our ancestors for not having that faith as if we would have it had we been there so i just want to briefly to say no one is sustained by miracles no one's faith it's just not i think we should have learned this by now over the last three four thousand years and it's clear by watching our ancestors here in the torah that it doesn't sustain it's the relationship it's the trust over time it's the building over time so one is just to honor right to honor the it was the people's task to practice during the time in the desert so that they wouldn't get caught up in the the greed hatred and delusion and they weren't doing enough of their own practice right so we see here in chapter one uh pasook 32 it says yet for all that you have no faith in the lord your god right for everything that god had done to you right oh the bar had say in ahem no excuse me ma'am so so despite all this powerful evidence right supposedly the experiences in the in the wilderness is real our ancestors dotted god's ability and this turn this faithfulness and then the concept of it is in countless experiences are demonstrated of god's ability to meet their needs and they fail to remember these lessons supposedly this is how it's interpreted and um and nothing motivates mochay more than the need to overcome the people's failure to recognize god's capacity to meet their needs i want you to think even in personal experience right how many people have been married 10 20 30 40 50 years and then divorce not remembering not recalling all that the spouse had done for them sustained their relationship in them and this happens all the time right where we just take things for granted and it aren't doing enough of our own practice to be awake to what is good in front of us right this is about haka recognizing the good in front of us a gratitude practice in my mussa mindfulness and so um i just want to honor that this is just not the case like why don't we just say it out loud it is not that that experience of miracles and being sustained was obviously not enough for the ancestors but it also was because they weren't doing their own practice around it so how do we we can honor this without denying it or trying to change it as if either the problem was with god and god needed to provide more miracles maybe it was more about relationship and more compassion and carrying the burden that way that savlanu maybe um or trying to change you know um our ancestors like as if it just i think this is part of our human nature but it's also part of our practice to realize that we can practice to not just fall to or accept that it's human nature that we can move beyond that and come to our higher selves our future selves um so i think this more reflects the people's lack of practice than it it does but i think it also reflects the difficult relationship the lack of relating in the way that was needed one with compassion and chesed and loving kindness rahamin and where there was less judgment and reactivity we're seeing that as um really damaging the relationships and not caring and sustaining the people uh during those those years okay so um and that's what i wanted to share with you on that so now i'm going to move into our clothing on the talk which is some really beautiful significant things we learned for our practice which is um when we get to a discussion two things in chapter one around pasuque it's supposed to be a very important thing it's supposed to the verse is six through we're at the beginning let's just say that um the people's fates our ancestors fate depends on their responses to god's commands and promises and is constantly emphasized in this Torah portion and in the whole book of Deuteronomy of the Varem so but there's these beautiful key phrases that i want us to keep in mind as we're entering the last half of the month of av the hebrew month of av before we enter elul which is the intensive month where we really practice to prepare ourselves for rosha shana the new year in the high holiday season to turn and return to god return to our higher selves to take responsibility so there's this key phrases that appear in god's commands and promises such as you have done such and such long enough so when when moshays were calling their travels and what they've done this is the language is used you have done such and such long enough now what have you personally done such and such long enough this past year what is it that you need to be smooth right to turn away from to change so god is saying you've done such and such long enough turn about and make your way go up and that's what we are going to take on our practice today and even entering towards elul towards rosha shana hearing that voice of god hearing it our internal wisdom inside our moral compass you have done such and such long enough what have you done such and such long enough have you been beating yourself up long enough have you not been you not been kind and compassionate towards yourself long enough perhaps those closest to you seek that out in your journal this week and your hashbon hanafah journal you're counting a soul journal looking at your words thoughts and deeds see what it is that you've done enough okay and then we are going to take what god says and turn about and make our way and go up all right it's beautiful beautiful wisdom to take from this torah the final thing i want to say is what we learn uh when moshe recalls that he couldn't handle all the cases brought before him and he took yitro's his father-in-law's really great advice and appointed judges and other people to help um he was told to take him as he recalls this this is in chapter one psukki verse 13 havulah shema hakhamim own voniim v do im the sheaf tekham okay pick for yourself from each of the tribes people men here who are wise discerning and experienced um so it's so beautiful is that um that coming from ramban one of our great rabbinic uh advisors ancestors also a great philosopher a doctor we learn much from him in his mishneh missiona torah and hill huts uh sanhedrin chapter 2 7 he learns out seven qualities is that yitro known as jethro in english english recommended in order for these people to be appointed okay well all we here here in exodus in shamot we are told that they must be capable men who fear god trustworthy men who spurn ill-gotten gain this is coming from exodus shamot chapter 1821 so this is what ramban learns out and this is we'll close with that we'll close excuse me those are let me should be finding my glasses and we're gonna practice this and realize this is part of our practice and most our mindfulness he learns that there must be wisdom which he gets here directly from the torah there must be humility on the va not taking up more space than you're supposed to fearing god which we know has been since the beginning when we started learning together in bereshit and all the way through shi shimote that to fear god meant you had a moral compass you knew right from wrong and you would do the right thing even in the face a potential death think back to our beloved um midwives in egypt who refused to murder the baby hebrew boys they had it was even stated they had a fear of god um it's this knowledge right that they know what's wrong and they're not going to do it all right so wisdom humility fear of god hatred of god hatred of unjust gain love of truth respected and of being of upstanding reputation so may we all practice as a lifelong journey together taking refuge and community that we build our wisdom we're gaining insight into who we are our behavior how to care for others we are doing so with proper humility balance and the va we are doing it with a fear of god and the sense of moral compass knowing what's right and wrong and living on that path and the eightfold noble path and the path towards holiness kadusha that of course we will turn away from unjust game behavior that we don't practice we will have a love of truth in our wise speech and that we will respect ourselves and that will gain the respect of others and of upstanding reputation we can only be through integrity and consistency of matching our inward with our outward behavior and our outward behavior with the n-word right and that is creates this kind of upstanding reputation we're worthy of being emulated so and we turn to those that we want to emulate that's how we strengthen each other and our practice so we're going to move into our meditation practice now so for those of you who are new to this i'm going to do guide you with my voice with instruction um you're welcome to four different postures that are classic during mindfulness meditation uh the seated posture which can be on a chair or on a meditation cushion often known as a zafu if you're seated like me you'll want to be upright in a dignified position created in the image and likeness of hashem of god a with your feet grounded held by the earth so you feel that you're centered and you're here you can let your hands rest on your lap or holding your heart whatever works for you you're also welcome to lie down if you have vision i recommend keeping the eyes open so that you do not fall asleep during the meditation you can lower the gaze or you're welcome to close the eyes if you're seated uh you're also welcome to a standing position kind of the strong mountain pose or standing next to a chair so that you feel stable you're also welcome to do a walking meditation while i lead whatever works for you you have to decide and practice what you need in this moment so if you have any chronic pain or low back issues feel take ownership of your practice and find the posture that works for you today so we will begin with three long intentional inhalations and exhalations so in breath and ex breath letting it out the mouth in breath through the nostrils and in breath again letting your shoulders relax coming to some ease slowly arriving to stillness to a sense of quiet being here together with everyone who is practicing in this moment you can allow your breath to naturally fall now in its own natural rhythm no need to force it or control it and we will begin with the mindfulness practice of seeing what is here for us right here and right now so first we do a kind body scan with curiosity and then we do a kind body scan with curiosity seeing from our toes all the way up through our ankles and legs and knees seeing what's here for us any strong sensations in the body that are calling for your loving attention simply honor them no need to over identify or push them away moving into the hips and the low back into the stomach region into the chest and the upper back notice as you travel through your body and noticing the sensations that are here for you today if there are any strong emotions attached to them and if you could use your practice of the feelings tones saying this is pleasant or this is unpleasant or this is neutral it will help you remain in the present moment to my voice or your breath is your anchor the body as your anchor any strong emotions just allowing them to be here attending and befriending and finally we will look if there's any strong thoughts carrying our attention away are we ruminating about anything in the past planning for something in the future what thoughts are happening right here and right now any thoughts about what's happening in the past are we going to be able to do that in the future what are we going to do happening right here and right now any thoughts about the teaching any strong reactions to our ancestors or what i have to share noting what's here for you can you be with it ask yourself how can i be with myself how can i honor myself right now my practice with kindness we will move into a practice of mindfulness of mindfulness of thoughts letting them be letting them rise and fall like waves of the ocean around the breath sooner or later a strong thought will arise and carry away your attention whether it be three breaths six breaths or ten from time to time i will go silent for you to engage in your practice silently notice when a thought carries you away as you soon as you notice this thought name it gently according to its predominant quality you can use simple notes like planning remembering judging worry imagining fearful thoughts happy thoughts interesting thoughts creative thoughts painful thoughts with a hooli and so forth simply naming and acknowledging the thought is supportive of the witnessing quality of mindful loving awareness so once you have noted a thought gently for some time you will notice that it dissolves like a cloud under sunlight thoughts are ephemeral they are empty and have no substance except what we invest in them so if we think back to moshay and even god and our beloved torah for moshay his thoughts of judgments he allowed them to become strong he allowed them to identify with them and then he acted out on that judgment there was a lack of compassion towards our ancestors from time to time and there was a lack of responsibility towards himself and others when he couldn't recognize his own behavior of when it wasn't humble when it wasn't full of humility so we can get caught up in any of the classic five hindrances in our thoughts we can have identifying thoughts be carried away or a version trying to push away a thought that makes us uncomfortable you can even get sleepy because we don't want to face the thoughts or engage in the practice we can get really restless and want to move around not being present for what arises and the final one is that we can even doubt we can allow doubt to rise and identify or we even question our practice it's what happened to our ancestors in the desert when they're sitting at their tents they doubted their relationship with god they doubted god's love god sustaining them god's power god's faithfulness doubt took over they allowed doubt to take over they were caught up and identifying with the doubt and suddenly god turns into hatred so watch what happens to you in this practice simply return again to mindfulness of breath and body for a time until another strong experience whether a thought emotion pulls your attention from the breath stepping out of the stories of thought that our storytelling happens we like to tell stories in our head we can begin to see common patterns of thought without being so caught in them so for moshay over these 40 years we can see a pattern for him you know he he sustains he's present he tries to engage he's there and then he allows his bucket to get full he doesn't know how to ask for proper help he has to be guided from the outside he doesn't know how to lay proper boundaries i've had enough and how to ask for the proper help and even when he asks for help he's not necessarily understood completely by god and so his bucket gets full and he reacts he has judgment and it's strong sometimes so strong he engages in commanding murder of our ancestors after the golden calf and then he the amazing thing about him is that he never leaves the relationship he even threatens it at some point more so less with not with the people not with our ancestors but more towards god he will he even says you know i will stop doing this i will let me die now i will not be in relationship with you anymore if you wipe out all these people if you hurt them all of them in this case but so he's able to come out of his reaction of the bucket eventually the bucket being full and he comes back to really trying to practice savlanu to carrying the burden of these people realizing that he is tied to them but he is one with them he loves them it is an act of love to remain in relationship and bear the burden so we see this common pattern of thought and he's gets caught up in that cycle if he can just move him out of that cycle but unfortunately he will he will die by the end of the the vareem and deuteronomy without taking responsibility without recognizing when where he did fail where he had room for teshuva returning of taking responsibility so we want to on our own practice see if we have common patterns of thought that we get caught up in them we can do this practice of mindfulness of thoughts daily and begin to journal afterwards to see where are there any common patterns of thoughts now you can alternate between mindfulness of breathing and mindfulness of other strong experiences when they arise becoming steady a loving witness of all that arises and passes you become balance and equanimity peaceful ones sitting in the midst of the rising and falling of waves of experience there's such a lack of mino kata nefesh of equanimity and our beloved torah in the desert experience of our ancestors of god of moshe we all do well to practice this always attempting to keep a space between the match and the fuse in that space as dr frankl taught us is our liberations our freedom our ability to choose our response the very moment that you shift from being absorbed or lost in thought to simply naming it without being swept into it i want you to notice how it feels in the body where do you feel it what does it feel like also begin to notice what type of thoughts have an effect on your body also begin to notice what type of thoughts have an effect on your body which thoughts trigger you most in their bodily effect so when we have judgments that so easily goes towards anger and arrogance we feel it in the belly and the chest simultaneously constriction as we take up more space with our arrogance and judgment it's amazing how both can happen at the same time some thoughts automatically bring strong emotions and some emotions automatically bring up certain thoughts in your practice now in this week witness the interplay between thoughts and emotion so as we close in the next minutes of silence where i will tell you it's time to come out of the meditation imagine that you are the open sky and the thoughts that you're having float through like clouds sense what it's like to shift from thinking to lovingly noticing the clouds we enter silence right now you so you gently and slowly open your eyes if they've been closed this whole time meet us back in this shared space either on zoom or live streaming on our youtube channel or on facebook found on twitter and linkedin thank you for your practice and thank you for joining us today in this 45th sitting parashat of arim and our practice of awakening torah moose our mindfulness i am rabbi hasseu eil steinbauer founder and director of the institute for holiness kehilat mussar we accept your donations for this sitting and to support the institute you may find all information that you need at our website at kehilat mussar.

Com we also accept sponsorships for this weekly sitting in honor of somebody or in memory of someone may their memory be for a blessing reach out to me at rabbi hassea at kehilat mussar.

Com to arrange for a sponsorship and with that may you be strong this week may you be mindful may you be healthy you'll be at ease may we all cause less suffering may we merit more honor and shared in our wholeness and holiness together i look forward to practicing with you later today take care