Rabbi Botton's Torah Journal

New Entries

Most of my entries over the last 2 years have been on http://www.growthvillage.com. I will start posting here again soon as well.

Choice

Atheist or Believer, we all know we have choice. That is God's gift to us, use it wisely.

Retribution

The means of retribution is only by that which you fear more than God. (Matok Lenefesh, Rav David Parchi)

Where are you

Where ever you are, that is exactly where God wants you. It's your choice to decide where to go next.

The Future

What will be will be, but where will you be?

The Universal One Liner

God created the world to bestow good, man's purpose is to be worthy to receive that good

Expectations

The most powerful force of improper desire (yetzer harah) is expectations

Ask Yourself

Elul is a good time to ask oneself, do I try in life to find out "how to do what I want" or "how to want what He wants".

Rebellion

The Yetzer (the evil inclination) is very good at letting you think you can actually do something against God, in reality anything one does against God is only against themselves.

Forgiveness

One of the most grievous sins is to not believe you are forgiven once you repent. For as long as you believe that you are still a sinner, you will fool yourself in to believing you have no hope and sin again.

Getting It Done

See the completed product in your mind before you even start and imagine yourself already enjoying the goal. As long as the imagine is still in your mind you will be able to reach your goal even with many years of work ahead.

The secret of Bitachon, Trust in God, is that the rewards of the world to come are already yours for the good deeds you have done and so also the coming punishments!. Living with the feeling of results now propel one to enjoy an aspect of the world to come even now, secure with out worry or concern and as such happy for it is "in the bank". So to also one will be inspired to repent and clean out the filth before one has to lie in it.

What is an Adult

You are an adult when you cry because what you have done, not because of the punishment you have received.

Is there a God?

If you ever ask yourself, is there a God? Don't forget to ask yourself, do I ask that question only when I want to go against what God wants from me?

Advice for the Traveler

Enjoy the road and envision how great the end is going to be at every moment, but never dwell on the length of the journey as that is the source of despair.

Caring

Love it or hate it, but be passionate about it! Nothing gets done when you just don't care.

Love

The path to loving every one is to work hard to understand every one.

Sight

The distance we can see is inverse to how much we look at ourselves and directly porpotionate to how much we take account of ourselves.

Successful Marriage

The key to success in marriage is for a women to respect her husband and a man to appreciate his wife.

Guilt

Guilt is an excuse for not changing and fixing your problems.

Peer Preasure

One of the most powerful of all Yetzer Harot, desires, is to lose ones mind, and so responsibility for self, to a group.

The commandment to "Love your Neighbor as yourself" is only possible when you have a "yourself", that is a "you" making decisions. To love your neighbor and to conform to the group is only a Mitzvah when "you" make the decisions with the group having asked a question of your Posek, the Rabbi you have chosen to lead you in matters of Jewish Law, if it is correct to do what the group is doing or not.

When the group is wrong, "Do not be drawn after him, do not listen to him, do not have compassion on him, do not take pity on him, and do not cover for him". (Devarim 13:9)

Learning Their Ways

One of the many first moves of the Yetzer Harah, man's inclination to wrong, is to convince them to "study" the workings of a desire in order to peak it. So it is that Hashem warns do not ask "How did these nations worship their gods" for then "I will do so too" (Devarim 12:30)

Ekev - Heal

In parshat Ekev the Torah tells us of such wonderful things that will happen if we keep the Torah, but doesn't it say that there are no rewards in this world for keeping the Torah?

The Rambam teaches these are not rewards, they are what assist us to serve Hashem. If we take advantage and are careful about trying to keep even the lightest of Mitzvot that we would be want to tread on with our heals (See Rashi - Ekev) than Hashem will insure every detail of assistance to serve him will be there for us.

Excuses

Don't ever lie to yourself or allow yourself to believe others that lie to you saying:

You are no good
You are good for nothing
You are a loser

These and other statements like this are just your evil inclination working to find ways to help you make excuses for not taking responsibility for what you have done wrong and what you should be doing!

In fact, you are good, you have a Godly soul, God created you and maintains you in this world, so you have a purpose, you came to this world with no good deeds and have accumulated many so you are already a winner and there is still much more you will achieve!

Stop making excuses, you were created able to succeed and will succeed. Repent for your sins and serve God with who you are and with the talents that you DO have.

Destiny

You don't control your destiny, God does. When Adam and Chavah ate the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened to the constant worry of what could happen to them at any moment. (Perush HaGra)

When your serve God, you see his hand in everything and realize that everything follows his plan. No worries, just happiness and rewards to come even if you lack right now. When you don't, you get a lousy ride to a place you don't want to go.

On Writing

It is better to have written 10,000 pages and throw them away than to have never written them at all.

Write down every though of Torah that comes to your mind as there is no greater loss to the world than forgetting it, you can always judge it later.

Relax

A friend recently handed me a business card with the following text:

Good Morning!
THIS IS G-D
Today I will be handling all your problems. I will not need your help, so relax... and have a great day!

The Image of God

To truly live up to being in the image of God, we must work to lift every one else to be in the image of God.

Study

We don't know anything. When we realize this, we are ready to learn.

Free Choice

Free choice is not sin or good deed. Choosing to sin is a form of insanity as even an animal will not throw itself in to a burning flame.

Free choice is about choosing to serve God with love and awe or to just serve his wishes to avoid punishment and receive reward.

Today

It's always a good day to repent.

Success

Success is doing, but being a success only comes from committing.

The 50th Chamber

Even the most evil person in Israel does not reach the 50th level of defilement. In order to enter into the 50th chamber one must descend for 400 consecutive days.

Every year thirty days before Passover, God, in his abundant kindness, lifts the defilement from the Jewish people 1/30th each day and so each year on the night of Passover the Jewish people are once again given freedom from the bounds of defilement.

God in his wisdom slowly removes the defilement in order that the other side not be aroused and raise a complaint against the Jews.

It is on Passover night when we are free that we can seize the moment with nothing holding us back and change the world though the discussions of Torah and fulfillment of commandments at our tables.

May we all merit a kosher and happy Passover!

(Based on Chesed LeAvraham 2:57)

All for Good

We must use the experiences of the world to grow from while understanding that why what occurs in the world is God's will and not our knowledge but His.

Purim and Awe

The goal of Purim is to be drunk with the Awe of Heaven, overwhelmed realizing the incredible masterly woven tapestry of the universe is so finely and constantly controlled by the hand of the Almighty that in a single twist multiple acts occur as in the fall of Haman with the rise of Mordechai

Trust

Trust those that trust in Him for their fear of Him takes away their fear of any other.

Jewish Healing

Small changes in high places naturally create huge lasting changes in all places.

"Repent one day before you die" is the key to living forever.

Assume Nothing

Assumptions are made about others in order to lie to oneself and avoid coming to terms with the fact that the other may be right in some places where you are wrong.

Deed Saves

Belief in God goes to the grave with you unless you use it, and all that which you grasp of the heavens, to grant wings of love and awe to your service of Him.

Prayer for Afflictions

When God brings affliction upon us it is a cure for our soul. Just as a doctor will prescribe bitter medicines or even amputations and the patient will gladly accept the medicine to prevent the spread of disease and their ultimate destruction, so too our troubles are a prescriptions for our souls.

How then can a person pray for themselves?

There is no affliction with out sin.

When we sin we cause affliction to the upper worlds. God gives the Jew the special mission to represent his truth in the world and so his every act of falsehood distorts the divine revelation.

Just as a father feels the pain of the administering of painful cures to his child so too is their affliction above. For as a result of the falsehoods once perpetrated now the bearer of the mission is afflicted creating the illusion that perhaps the mission itself is tainted.

How can we not pray for the end of affliction on high!

May God grant a complete recovery to each and every one of us so that we should be strong to bear His mission in the world and fulfill his will.

Based on Nefesh HaChaim Gate 2 chapters 11-12

Repentance is the Fountain of Youth

As children we don't fear death and see it as a continuation of life, we want to live to discover and learn. As we age and become addicted to the momentary pleasures of the world we begin to fear being torn away from our fixes and stop trying to learn and grow. When we repent and walk in the path of God, we embrace and desire life and growth that provides us with the opportunity of the world to come.

Remove the fear of death by severing your ties to the physical pleasures of the world. Embrace life by embracing the opportunity it offers to server the creator and learn his ways, and you will be happy not having the stress of fear, but instead have the passions to learn and grow again.

Day Dreams

Always write down your day dreams! Day dreams tell you where you are in your personal development.

Welcome

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