The Day You Discover that Everything Is Love
Your Darkness Is Your Best Friend & the World Is Your Greatest Ally
Women's Class - Sefas Emes Vayigash
- December 22, 2020
- |
- 7 Tevet 5781
Rabbi YY Jacobson
1908 views- Comment Call-in
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Dedicated by Liz and Dr. Michael Muschel in loving memory of her father, Rav Yisroel Yitzchak haLevi ben HaRav Binyamin, who passed away 21 years ago on 11 Teves. Rabbi Irving Levy was a respected Talmid Chacham, legendary Baal Chesed, and one of the founders of the Monsey community.
Class Summary:
This weekly women's class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Vayigash, 7 Tevet, 5781, December 22, 2020, live from Rabbi Jacobson's home in Monsey, NY.
The text-based class on Midrash Rabah and Sefas Emes Parshas Vayigash explores two enigmatic Midrashim on the portion, about Yehudah surrendering to Yosef, and Yosef's "rebuking" his brothers. How do we deal with our wounds inside and our challenges outside? Does the world hate us or love us? Is G-d my best friend or just my heavenly boss? How my own mind and actions can cause what is really love to be seen as hate, what is really light to be seen as darkness. We are given a blueprint of how to face every trauma and challenge and see it as an opportunity for infinite love and growth.
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Women's Class - Sefas Emes Vayigash
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- December 22, 2020
- |
- 7 Tevet 5781
- |
- 1908 views
Dedicated by Liz and Dr. Michael Muschel in loving memory of her father, Rav Yisroel Yitzchak haLevi ben HaRav Binyamin, who passed away 21 years ago on 11 Teves. Rabbi Irving Levy was a respected Talmid Chacham, legendary Baal Chesed, and one of the founders of the Monsey community.
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esther -3 years ago
Such an emotional experience for me. I am grateful.
The story of Yehuda and Yosef is so profound -- the DNA running through our existence. the story of our lives to unveil in our own lives.
Today Hashem made you unveil something for me, from my youth. Something that was a great hardship for me, and what was revealed now was that the daily pain, the soul pain, so hard to get rid of it, I asked G-d many times to help me change the view, but after half a century at this class, something very beautiful was uncovered. It was an eye-opener.
Each time we must take the opportunity to listen with all our faculties, not only with our ears but with all our senses. And our visible body and spiritual body. And finally, someday we will experience the inner truth. At a split of the moment, it will open up. You must try and work and pray, and then suddenly we will experience the revelation.
Amazing. Thank you. Thank G-d. What you do does not seem like work, but it is so much work. It comes from your natural self, from the real you. It is not only your learning, it is your core. Thank you for all you share with us.
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Sara Metzger -3 years ago
Someone asked...
Can you explain this to me practically? I have challenges with my children, with my marriage, with so much. Can you explain this to me practically?
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Brenda Carroll -3 years ago
Thank you
Thank you Rabbi. Very much.
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Sara Metzger -3 years ago
Someone asked...
So you find G-dliness in tragedy by knowing that my perception that it is dark is also G-d? Both are true at the same time? The dark and the light that we can’t see?
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Sara Metzger -3 years ago
Someone asked...
Everything you shared really resonates. I’ve definitely experienced this to be true in my everyday life. But how to reconcile these ideas and avoid a negative narrative when faced with real pain you witness around you. Some things are beyond perception like a child in an oncology ward or you when you see the faithful suffer mind numbing tragedies. How to understand the ideas “mindset creates reality” in this context?
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Sara Metzger -3 years ago
Someone asked...
Ambassador for infinity... day to day life. I ask myself what can that look like?
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Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
The Sfas Emes reminds us to maintain alignment with our true purpose. Which also means to distance ourselves from misalignment.
All this based on the medresh about guarantors in general and Yehuda in particular.
But notice and recall some of the background before Yehuda gave himself as a guarantor to Yakov and then stepped up to fulfill that in Vayigash.
Was Yosef's immaturity, self beautification, tale bearing, haughtiness with disclosing his dreams "proper alignment"? Was Yakov's favoritism of Yosef "proper alignment". Were the brother's plot to kill, actual throwing him into the pit, deception of Yakov, etc., "proper alignment"?
At the time all these occurred no one would say that they were obvious "proper alignments".
But....even those things that would have adjudged at the time to be "IMproper alignments" at the time later turned out to have hidden secret aligning and life purposes.
May we all have prospective glasses to see that present seemingly negative nonaligning events will later turn out to positive aligning matters.
It seems that there is not much merit to call obvious good, good. There is much more merit to see the hidden secret inner good that comes garbed as seemingly bad at the time and not just much later on when the hidden secret good becomes revealed.
The whole Yosef story was, perhaps, designed to save the fledgling jewish nation from starvation, and to later fulfill the promise Hashem made to Avraham that his descendents would eventually be slaves and then be redeemed together with the great wealth Yosef had gathered.
Iron that is hardened by alternating extreme cold and heat becomes "tempered steel" much stronger and rust resistant compared to untempered iron.
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Sara -3 years ago
The brothers transformed Yosef's light into darkness..
But wasn't that supposed to happen? Wasn't it part of GD's intervention in our lives? We had to go into exile? We had to go through all of this from what the brothers did to Yosef to the present day realities? Wasn't all of that part of the Plan?
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Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
Alignment and nonalignment
The Sfas Emes reminds us to maintain alignment with our true purpose. Which also means to distance ourselves from misalignment.
All this based on the medresh about guarantors in general and Yehuda in particular.
But notice and recall some of the background before Yehuda gave himself as a guarantor to Yakov and then stepped up to fulfill that in Vayigash.
Was Yosef's immaturity, self beautification, tale bearing, haughtiness with disclosing his dreams "proper alignment"? Was Yakov's favoritism of Yosef "proper alignment". Were the brother's plot to kill, actual throwing him into the pit, deception of Yakov, etc., "proper alignment"?
At the time all these occurred no one would say that they were obvious "proper alignments".
But....even those things that would have adjudged at the time to be "IMproper alignments" at the time later turned out to have hidden secret aligning and life purposes.
May we all have prospective glasses to see that present seemingly negative nonaligning events will later turn out to positive aligning matters.
It seems that there is not much merit to call obvious good, good. There is much more merit to see the hidden secret inner good that comes garbed as seemingly bad at the time and not just much later on when the hidden secret good becomes revealed.
The whole Yosef story was, perhaps, designed to save the fledgling jewish nation from starvation, and to later fulfill the promise Hashem made to Avraham that his descendents would eventually be slaves and then be redeemed together with the great wealth Yosef had gathered.
Iron that is hardened by alternating extreme cold and heat becomes "tempered steel" much stronger and rust resistant compared to untempered iron.
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Sara -3 years ago
What you're saying...
Is that EVERYTHING, everything, the good, the bad, the ugly, the seemingly negative and postiive things that happen to us is always, for our good, for our growth for our realizations, for our connection with each other and ofc with GD. To hold on to this idea, this truth I guess you can call it can transform all of us. How to make people realize this?
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Sara -3 years ago
GD is our best friend...
I believe that HE is. There are times that even though I knew and feel that HE is, HE's not always clear with me about the advice, the guidance. Hmmm... even though I'm writing this right now, I suddently realized, had a feeling just now, that I probably do know what HE is saying when and if I really think about it. HE does send messages. HE does!
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Sara -3 years ago
We are each other's sugar cube... I wish!!
I wish and pray that in fact you are right, that when one Jew meets another Jew, s/he thinks of the other as a sugar cube. :) When I see that it doesn't appear that way - reading comments Jews make about each other that are not so flattering - it makes me so sad. What can we do to change that? What can we as individuals do to show each other the incredible postive energy that would come from actually being that way? I have my ideas about it, and try to do my part, but so often I feel helpless and impotent when actually talking to those who have such incredibly negative attitudes about each other.
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Alizah Hochstead -3 years ago
Where are the source sheets
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Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
A procedural question
Of course us distant online participants appreciate the online content.
But.....
Rabbi YY has held large in person farbrengens (19 Kislev) and Shabbatons (Catskills) yet continues to hold chasidus classes, women's classes, etc only online without students present. We know that, like everyone, in person participation is desired.
Why the incongruity?
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A Student -3 years ago
Whilst I appreciate your frustration and I myself have been thinking the same, I wonder if this could not have been written with a bit more respect for our great Rabbi who invests so much in educating us FREE OF CHARGE...?
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