civ2
Emperor
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2004
- Messages
- 1,650
Maimonides
Hi.
1. I like smileys. So do many other users.
2. Chabad is good source for nice answers which also happens to be my major source of knowledge.
3. I haven't seen antisemitism here since I returned, that'd be for some week already.
4. I'm amused by you thinking that I leave in a secluded community.
(Implying I'm narrow-minded in a "shtetl" way - which is FAR from truth.)
I have a bachelor in Physics, though I highly hate the stuff (for being really hard, I'm way more into Maths).
5. About your answers to timtofly.
I wasn't joking about OBSOLETE.
When Moshiach comes, there won't be any NEED for other "religions" - since EVERYBODY will experience the truth.
(I'm NOT saying everybody will become Jewish, all I say that they'll see and recognize the truth of Torah.)
6. OY VEY!!!
And you call ME "bizarre", incompetent and "not giving right answers"???
As simple as is could ever be:
Mikveh.
Prayer.
Kaddish.
Blessings.
(While answering to timtofly, I came by THIS answer. I remeber someone asked me about USA dollars.)
timtofly
WOW!!!
Yeah, your idea is pretty sophisticated indeed.
I'd like to bring some interesting thoughts on this too.
All of which are from HERE.
Sorry for so many, but I think at least some of them would be interesting to you.
Hi.
1. I like smileys. So do many other users.
2. Chabad is good source for nice answers which also happens to be my major source of knowledge.
3. I haven't seen antisemitism here since I returned, that'd be for some week already.
4. I'm amused by you thinking that I leave in a secluded community.
(Implying I'm narrow-minded in a "shtetl" way - which is FAR from truth.)
I have a bachelor in Physics, though I highly hate the stuff (for being really hard, I'm way more into Maths).
5. About your answers to timtofly.
I wasn't joking about OBSOLETE.
When Moshiach comes, there won't be any NEED for other "religions" - since EVERYBODY will experience the truth.
(I'm NOT saying everybody will become Jewish, all I say that they'll see and recognize the truth of Torah.)
6. OY VEY!!!
And you call ME "bizarre", incompetent and "not giving right answers"???
As simple as is could ever be:
Mikveh.
Prayer.
Kaddish.
Blessings.
(While answering to timtofly, I came by THIS answer. I remeber someone asked me about USA dollars.)
Spoiler :
327. American Money
Do you know why American money is so successful?
Because it has written on it, In G‑d We Trust.
Not just Believe.
Trust.
Furthermore, the money even tells you its purpose:
Upon it is written, E Pluribus Unum.
The purpose of all your money dealings is to bring the plurality of this world to a Oneness.
And if that is truly your purpose, then you will rely on the One Creator to provide your needs.
timtofly
WOW!!!
Yeah, your idea is pretty sophisticated indeed.
I'd like to bring some interesting thoughts on this too.
All of which are from HERE.
Sorry for so many, but I think at least some of them would be interesting to you.
Spoiler :
1. Down to Earth
When it all began, Heaven was here on Earth.
The physical plane, more than any of the higher spiritual worlds, was the place where the Divine Presence yearned to be.
But Man, step by step, banished the Divine Presence from its home, with a tree of knowledge, with a man who murdered his brother, with all those things that human beings do...
Since Man chased it away, only Man can bring it back. And this began with Abraham, who proclaimed Oneness for all the world.
And it ends with us. Our generation will bring Heaven back down to Earth.
3. The Purpose
There are infinite worlds beyond ours and beyond the worlds of the angels, all full of divine light, beauty and oneness.
But know also that all this was brought into being with a single purpose: G-d desires to be at home within your mundane world.
6. G-d In Exile
They have banished G-d into exile.
They have decreed He is too holy, too transcendent to belong in our world.
They have determined He does not belong within the ordinary, in the daily run of things.
And so they have driven Him out of His garden, to the realm of prayer and meditation, to the sanctuaries and the secluded places of hermits. They have sentenced the Creator to exile and His creation they have locked in a dark, cold prison.
And He pleads, "Let me come back to my garden, to the place in which I found delight when it all began."
9. Infinity
G-d is not just big -- He is infinite. If He were only "big", then those things that are small would be further from Him and those things that are big would be closer. But to the Infinite, big and small are irrelevant terms. He is everywhere and He is found wherever He wishes to be found.
16. Refilling the Void
It all began with an infinite light
that filled all and left no room for a world to be.
Then that light was withheld
so the world might be created in the resulting void.
Then the world was created,
with the purpose of returning to that original state of light
-- yet to remain a world.
19. Stay Put
When you come to a place that seems outside of G-d's realm, too coarse for light to enter, and you want to run away--
Know that there is no place outside of G-d, and rejoice in your task of uncovering Him there.
Nature and the Miraculous
There is a thread, a chain of souls with a common mission, each one completing what the other left undone.
Seven generations back, 200 years ago, lived the first Schneerson, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. Schneur Zalman was a great philosopher with the unique ability to draw into the words of intellect that which others could only feel deep in the soul. So he wrote a short book -a classic now known as The Tanya-in which he explained how there is nothing but G-d.
He explained that every detail of existence is constantly created at every moment, each detail by a particular force of G-d invested within it. He asserted that if the power of existence would be removed, that thing would cease to exist. In fact, it would never have existed -its past would also cease, since time, too, is a creation.
Which means that everything that happens comes from Above. Which means that G-d can be found anywhere, at any time, in any thing and by anybody. Which means that splitting the Red Sea or stopping the sun in its path are minor miracles when compared to the very fact that we all continue to exist. Because every moment we are all created anew, something from nothing.
Eventually, even the students of opposing teachings accepted his views, which swiftly became mainstream thought. The ideas found their way into secular thought as well. Today, few realize where the idea of constant creation came from.
So, when the Rebbe expressed these same thoughts, and applied them to modern life, he came by them honestly. They were in his blood.
31. World Defined
Where G-d is hidden
-there you see a world.
32. Higher Reality
We take the laws of nature too seriously. We think of the world as though it exists just as its Creator exists.
That is why we must have miracles. A miracle is a state of enlightenment that says, Our reality is nothing but a glimmer of a Higher Reality. In that Higher Truth, there is no world. There is nothing else but Him.
33. Imagining
Meditate upon the ray of light that pierces through a window on a sunny day-- and imagine how that ray exists engulfed within its source, the sun. So too, is the cosmos a nothingness absorbed within its Source, the Infinite Light.
Imagine the entire universe as a stream of conscious thought, and imagine how a single thought exists in its place of birth, a place before words, before things, where there is only One.
We created beings cannot perceive the Source with our flesh eyes, and so we see a world. But to the Source there is no being, no entity, only the Infinite Light.
34. G-d Involved
When a parent loves a child,
He stoops down to the child, with such love,
he leaves his language to speak the language of the child,
he leaves his place to play the games of the child,
he leaves his entire world and all the maturity he has gained in thirty, forty years or more to become excited, sincerely excited, by those things that excite the child, to react as the child reacts, to live with the child in the childs world with all his being
So too, G-d feels our pain and our joy. He lives intimately with us in our world. Yet He is infinite, beyond all things even as He is here with us.
35. Not and Is
G-d is not Nature.
But Nature is G-dly.
37. Peek-A-Boo
Everywhere in the world, parents play peek-a-boo with their children. It is a major discovery of life, a cornerstone in human development: To realize that something is there even when you cannot see it, that the world is not defined by your subjective perception, that there is something that absolutely is--whether you know of it or not.
All our life, all of the world, is G-d playing with us that same game. He peeks with a miracle and then hides behind nature. Eventually, we look behind nature to find Him there.
36. Recognition
When G-d makes a miracle, it is so that afterwards we may look at the natural order of things and say, "I recognize this. This is not what it appears to be. This, too, is a miracle."
38. The Creator of Logic
G-d can do anything. He could even, as the Talmud puts it, "fit an elephant through the eye of a needle."
So, how would He do it? Would He make the elephant smaller? Or would He expand the eye of the needle?
Neither. The elephant would remain big, the eye of the needle small. And He would fit the elephant through the eye of the needle.
Illogical? True. But logic is just another of His creations. He who created logic is permitted to disregard it.
39. Two Lights
When the world was made, G-d was left with two lights: A light of boundless energy that encompasses all things and gives them being, but transcends them, and a penetrating light that vitalizes all things but is limited and darkened by them.
The first light is a pure expression of "there is none else but He", so from it extend miracles, acts that deny the world any significance.
The second light is an expression of His desire that there be a world, so from it extends the natural order of things, a world of elements behaving as though they are directed by their own properties.
But G-d did not want a world where there are two Powers That Be --one of Nature and one of Supernature. So He made the two lights to play in harmony, to reveal that they both shine from one Source.
How does He do it? Does He blunt the miracles so they could fit into the natural order? Or does He alter the properties of nature to compromise with the miracles?
Neither. Each element acts according to its natural properties, while miracles of the highest order occur.
Impossible? Plant a seed and watch it grow. Plant good deeds and watch with wonder the miracles that ensue.
40. Stereo Miracles
There are two types of miracles: Those beyond nature and those clothed within it. The water of the Nile turning into blood was beyond nature. The victory of the Maccabees over the Greek army came dressed as a natural occurence they had to fight to win.
Both types of miracles are necessary.
If we would only see miracles beyond nature, we would know that G-d can do whatever He likes --but we might think He must break the rules to do so. We would know a G-d who is beyond nature, but not within it.
If we would see only miracles that are clothed within nature, we would know a G-d that is Master of all that happens within nature.
But we might think He is limited within it.
Now we know a Gd that is at once both beyond all things and within them. In truth, there is nothing else but Him.
41. The Most Wondrous
There are open miracles that break the laws of nature as though they were meaningless --miracles any fool can perceive.
Then there are miracles that take some thought to realize, that, yes, something out of the ordinary occurred here.
And then there are miracles so great, so wondrous, that no one but G-d Himself is cognizant of them. They are the miracles that occur continuously, at every moment.
43. Miracles Today
From a talk in 1991:
The fall of the communist dictatorships of the Eastern Bloc was a kind of miracle that has no historical precedent. Never before were so many people affected by such radical change with so little violence.
The miracles of the Gulf War were open miracles. The same scud missiles that took countless lives in Iran were impotent when they struck their target in Israel. The soldiers and officers of the Allied Forces saw inexplicable miracles in their victory.
Other miracles took some thought to realize that they were miracles, that the laws of nature were not the only thing at play here. But anyone who saw what occurred in the Gulf War saw openly that this was miraculous.
And yet people ask, Where are the miracles today?
44. The Inexplicable
To a fool, that which cannot be explained cannot exist.
The wise man knows that existence itself cannot be explained.
188. Two Paths
The Baal Shem Tov taught there are two paths:
G‑dliness is everything.
Everything is G‑dliness.
Where the two paths converge, there is G‑d Himself.
189. Jacob's Path
"G‑dliness is everything" is the path of Abraham. Abraham understood that there is a Reality beyond all realities, before which no existence is true. Therefore, he smashed the idols and declared to all people and in all places that there is only One.
"Everything is G‑dliness" is the path of Isaac. Isaac saw that the world is in truth G‑dly. Therefore, Isaac dug wells, in the earth and in the people. He dug away the darkness and found the spark of G‑dliness within each thing.
Jacob struggled with the darkness.
190. The Third Path
Each path contains what the other is missing: When G‑dliness is everything, even the darkness is included. But the world is left unchanged, because there is no world --only G‑dliness.
When everything is G‑dliness, you transform the world by digging away the darkness to find the sparks of G‑dliness. But the darkness remains piled up outside.
The path of Jacob is to find That Which Is Everything within each thing, and to bring That Which Is Beyond All Things to dwell within each thing. Jacob knows a G‑d who is at once both beyond and within.
To Jacob, darkness is also light.
324. Two Are One
Many people, without realizing, end up with two gods:
One god is an impersonal one, an all-encompassing, transcendent force.
But then, at times of trouble, they cry out to another, personal god, with whom they have an intimate relationship.
Our faith is all about knowing that these two are one. The same G‑d who is beyond all things, He is the same one who hears your cries and counts your tears. The same G‑d who is the force behind all existence and transcends even that, He is the same G‑d who cares about what is cooking in your kitchen and how you treat your fellow human being.
G‑d cannot be defined, even as transcendent. He is beyond all things and within them at once.
My son has a Star Wars yarmulke.
