Friday Iyar 16, 5703 31st day of the Omer **
Torah Lessons (5703)	Chumash: B'har, Shishi with Rashi. Tehillim: 79-82. Tanya: But His blessed (p. 255)..as is explained elsewhere. (p. 255).

After my father pared his nails, he would place a small piece of wood among them before burning them.

In terms of scholarship and aptitude the Chassid Reb Elyeh Abeler was a simple man.

Once, when he came into Yechidus, my grandfather said to him:

"Elyeh, I envy you. You travel to various fairs, you meet many people. Sometimes, in the middle of a business transaction, you get into a warm discussion about a Jewish saying, a saying from the Ein Yakov etc., and you arouse the other fellow's interest in studying Nigleh (Talmud, Halacha etc.) and Chassidus.

This causes joy On High, and the A-lmighty rewards such "trade" with the blessings of children, health and sustenance; the larger the fair the more work there is and the greater is the livelihood earned."

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Day three of week 5

Tiferet of hod

Examine if your humility is compassionate. Does my humility cause me to be self-contained and anti-social or does it express itself in empathy for others. Is my humility balanced and beautiful? Or is it awkward?

Just as humility brings compassion, compassion can lead one to humility. If you lack humility, try acting compassionately, which can help bring you humility.

Exercise for the day: Express a humble feeling in an act of compassion.

From:

A Spiritual Guide to the counting of the Omer

Forty-Nine Steps to Personal Refinement

The Forty-Nine Days of Sefirah

by Simon Jacobson

$7.95 Soft Cover

Copyright © 1996 by - Vaad Hanochos Hatmimim

788 Eastern Parkway - Brooklyn NY 11213

718-774-6448 - email: wisdomreb@aol.com

[By way of illustration, the Alter Rebbe will now draw an analogy from the physical earth which is composed of the inanimate and vegetable worlds.

These two categories are the least significant of the four categories - man, animal, the vegetative and the inanimate - and the divine life-force found within them is contracted to a greater degree than the life-force found within animal and man.

Nevertheless, Scripture attests that the whole world is full of G-d's glory - because it encompasses these two categories, and does not pervade them].

To illustrate this point, consider this material world.

Even though "The whole world is full of His glory," namely, [not only with a minute glimmer of G-dliness, but with] the [infinite] light of the blessed Ein Sof, as it is written: [3] "`Do I not fill heaven and earth?' says the L-rd," nevertheless only very limited vitality, of no more than the category of [what is revealed in] the inanimate and vegetable worlds, is clothed within [this world] in the form of "revealed" influence, while all the light of the blessed Ein Sof [which fills the world itself in a concealed manner] is described as "encompassing" it, even though it actually pervades it, since its influence is no more revealed in it than it is revealed within the inanimate and vegetable worlds, but affects it in a hidden and concealed manner and any influence of a concealed nature is referred to as "encircling from above," for alma d'itkasya, the "hidden world," is on a higher plane than alma d'itgalya, the "revealed world."

[G-dliness drawn down in a concealed manner ("from the hidden world") is on a higher plane than that which is drawn down in a revealed manner ("from the revealed world").

Emanating as it does from a higher level, this mode of divine influence is said to be "encircling from above]."

Let us make this more intelligible by means of an example.

[A further example is needed in order to clarify this paradox - how G-dliness simultaneously pervades the world and yet remains aloof from it, encircling and encompassing it (as it were) from above, and not being revealed within it].

When a person forms an image in his mind of something that he has seen or sees, even though the entire body and essence of that thing, both its exterior and interior and its very core, are completely mirrored in his mind and thought, for he has seen it or is seeing it in its entirety, this is expressed by saying that his mind encompasses that object completely, [and, just as in the mind's frame of reference, so, too, regarding the perspective of the visualized object] and that thing is enveloped by his mind and thought.

But it is not encompassed in actual fact, only in the imagination of the man's thought and mind.

[Since man's thought is limited, he cannot actually encompass the object itself; he only encompasses its image as it exists within his mind].

G-d, however, of Whom it is written: [4] "For My thoughts are not your thoughts,..." [so that it is utterly impossible for us to grasp His thought process], - His Thoughts and His Mind, which knows all created beings, encompasses each and every created thing, from its head [i.e., from its highest level] to its end [i.e., to its lowest level], and its inside and very core, all in actual reality, [and not as with the thought of mortal man.

The Alter Rebbe now gives an example of G-d's thought and knowledge encompassing a specific object.

   

Notes:

3. (Back to text) Yirmeyahu 23:24.

4. (Back to text) Yeshayahu 55:8.

Negative Mitzvah 348: A man may not act indecently with an animal
Leviticus 18:23 "Do not act indecently with an animal"

A man is forbidden to act in an indecent manner with an animal.

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Negative Mitzvah 349: A woman may not act indecently with an animal
Leviticus 18:23 "A woman may not act indecently with an animal"

A woman is forbidden to act in an indecent manner with an animal.

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Negative Mitzvah 350: Prohibition against male relationships
Leviticus 18:22 "Do not have a relationship with a male as you would with a woman"

Men are not allowed to have a relationship with each other as they would with women.

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Negative Mitzvah 351: Prohibition against a father-son relationship
Leviticus 18:7 "Do not act immodestly with your father"

It is forbidden to act immodestly with your father.

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There was a time when people did not have careers. People did not live to acquire material wealth. People worked to earn enough for their families to eat that day, with a little extra saved for the Sabbath. Today we are slaves of the houses, the cars and the gadgets we must acquire.

*

Rabbi Shalom Ber of Lubavitch had a chassid who owned a boot-making business. Seeing how this chassid had become obsessed with his business, he commented, "Feet in galoshes I've seen. A head in galoshes I've never seen before." When wall-to-wall carpeting came in vogue in the fifties and everyone had to take a bank loan to have them, the Rebbe retold this episode and concluded, "At least boots are higher than the ground. But heads into carpets...!"

From: Bringing Heaven Down to Earth by Tzvi Freeman - tzvif@aol.com