Men Of Torah

After all the heavy classes with numbers and mystical teaching, we sit to simply review the offerings in Parasha Vayikra and discuss Pesach.

Gregory gives us the follow-up class to Bracha 101 with multiple blessings before meals and reviews very common foods in our lives.

Greg brought the class into the world of Gematria with some definitions and examples from Purim and Pesach. Fascinating!

Gregory teaches us what blessing to use, when to bless G-d and what the follow-up blessing is after eating. I learned a LOT! Nearly everything I thought I knew about the berachot turns out to be wrong.

Peter relates how finding the little bit of good within us builds song. Join us as we learn to build a mishkan into which we pray the Amidah. Wonderful class. Check the Men of Torah site for a link to his online presentation.

Johnnie reviews Rebbe Nachman's lesson to teach us how to perform the practice of mitzvot with greater joy.

Peter walks us through the nature of Chasidut and why it's so very important. He uses the Modeh Ani prayer as an example from Rebbe Nachman's lessons.

After a brief review of the previous trait, humility, we launched into the Fear of Sin. Good discussion as we closed out the book. It seemed to be a VERY profitable book for us to read, and everyone had positive feedback.

There were a LOT of questions about being a good employee, looking for advancement vs. remaining humble, shunning authority and practicing emunah. We will pick this topic up again next week to finish up. We opened with a question from Bill listening from Wisconsin about going to work and dealing with the "kingdom of this world." For the second week in a row, we had the privilege of praying Ma'ariv together as class ended.

This evening was a good look at the specifics of chassidut and the challenges that go along with it. Balance in our thoughts and actions is critical!

I really have enjoyed the last two classes as we have all come to a good place, recognizing our current state, our desires to please HaShem and to draw close. During this class we discussed why the negative commandments were dealt with early on and the positive commandments addressed later - and how much easier it is to embrace the positive commands. For many of us, we had the opportunity after class to pray the Rabbi's Kadish. Very cool!

We seem to have arrived at a point in the book where we all realize the need to draw closer to HaShem. The extraordinary care the Chassid takes with each mitzvah left us all with a sense of awe. We learned the necessity of contemplation, the lowly perspective of physical pleasures and the value of not performing a mitzvah suddenly.

The rubber met the road in this class as we moved from the first half of RAMCHAL's book, the Tzadik, to the opening of the second half - the Chasid. What is essential to life?

At my request, Greg re-taught this class regarding the Time of Messiah's Birth. He uses the Scripture to build the case for when Aviyah's priestly division served, when Zacharyah's vision was, Elisheva's conception, Miryam's vision, conception and ultimately, the birth of Yeshua.

This long and involved chapter came to a close in this class as we reviewed causing an uninformed (blind) person to stumble, desecrating the name of HaShem, stumbling in the dust of Lashon Hara, degrading one's fellow, parallels with Yeshua's discussion on oaths, haughtiness, refraining from occupying ourselves with business matters on Shabbat, and discerning the essence of a man. Great discussion

I think the awareness of our own lax view of HaShem's commands became apparent during class last night. As we discuss keeping kosher, it is apparent that obedience is simply not possible withouot severe limits on our activities, like eating in a non-kosher restaurant.

When we conclude that our customs or culture dictate certain responses, and excuse the obedient response to the Way of the Just, are we falling into the very trap RAMCHAL describes at the beginning of this long chapter? We moved through theft and illicit relations. Wow.

Now we focus more on the positive commands and moving quickly to perform a mitzvah. Combining these first two traits, we move closer to being a chassid. At the beginning of class we listened to Ben Shapiro on TruthRevolt.org do a reality check on the REAL number of radicalized muslims on the planet.

What IS Vigilance? How do we obtain it? What is the secret to the success of the wise?

What IS the way of the Upright? How do we follow this path? What is Mussar all about? How shall we proceed?