February 6, 2013

  • The Essential Rebbe Nachman in 2nd Life

    Hi friends,

    This morning's session in Second Life went great! For the foreseeable future our Wednesday gatherings will be focusing on the Essential Rebbe Nachman pieces. We take turns reading a section and then discuss it. When we are ready we move on. These pieces contain great wisdom and offers us wonderful opportunities. We cover the same material in the morning and evening sessions. This way those who can only attend one of them will get all the printed material and those who can attend both will receive the benefits of repetition as well as the insights offered by the participants. I hope YOU will join us.

    If you already have a Second Life persona you can come to our Shalom Center using this link: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Summer%20Paradise/209/77/21

    If you are new to Second Life I encourage you to read over our introductory material here: http://yeshivabethhashem.org/SecondLife and follow the instruction for creating your free account. You can create an account and just log in for our meetings or you can explore this awesome virtual world. Contact me if you have questions or concerns.

    Today's Topic for both the 10 AM AND 5 PM sessions:     

     

    THE ESSENTIAL RABBI NACHMAN

    Translated by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum

    FAITH

    The world regards faith as something minor, but I consider faith as being of the greatest importance.

    The way to faith is through simplicity, without sophistry or philosophy.

    Sichot Haran #33

    * * *

    Believe in something

    It is better to be a fool who believes in everything than to be so clever that you do not believe in anything.

    If you believe in everything, some of your beliefs may be foolish but you will also believe in the truth. However, when a person is too clever and does not want to believe in anything, he may begin by ridiculing falsehood and folly but can easily end up so skeptical of everything that he even denies the truth.

    Sichot Haran #103

    * * *

    There must be questions

    There are many searching questions about God. But it is only fitting and proper that this should be so. Indeed, such questions enhance the greatness of God and show His exaltedness. God is so great and exalted that He is beyond our ability to understand Him. It is obvious ly impossible for us , with our limited human intelligence, to understand His ways . Inevitably there are things that baffle us, and this is only fitting. If God's ways were in accordance with the limits of our meager understanding, there would be no difference between His understanding and ours, and this is inconceivable.

    Likutey Moharan II, 52

    * * *

    Believing is seeing

    If you ask a believer to explain why he has faith, he will certainly not be able to give you a reason, because faith is applicable only where one does not understand the reason. Yet , because of his complete faith, whatever the believer himself believes in is perfectly clear and self-evident as if he sees it with his own eyes .

    Likutey Moharan, I, 62

    * * *

    Rely on God

    It is very good to rely on God completely. As each day begins, entrust your every movement and those of all who depend on you into God's hands, asking that everything should go according to His will.

    You will then not need to worry about whether or not things are going as they should, because you are relying on God. If He wants things to go differently from the way you may wish, you will be willing to accept everything the way He wants it.

     

    We hope to see you in Second Life!

    Shalom