BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I re-read Alice Miller's latest groundbreaking book THE BODY NEVER LIES . I have come to the conclusion that forgiveness without the abuser or person who's hurt you's full acceptance and owning  of what they did and making amends - isn't possible for me.  Doesn't mean I stay hurt and angry or have no peace of mind - I am simply not able to forgive. I have come to understand that some things simply are not forgiveable. And that forgiving certain things negates my dignity and right to my own feelings. As my friend, the late Kathy Krajco said " you can't forgive a crime in progress ." That is to say, if the abuser hasn't even tried to communicate with me and sincerely & fully apologized -- the crime is STILL in progress. ~~~~ I remember once seeing a cartoon that showed a father examining his young son's report card, which was filled with Ds and Fs. As the father scowled, the boy asked: "What do you think it is, Dad, here...

Any of my readers know I am against blanket forgiveness. Forgiveness without the repentance of the person who hurt you - or you repenting to those you've hurt - is nothing. It's a "get out of jail free" card that will do nothing to heal the emotional, spiritual and psychological rift. It's bullpocky that I reject completely. Though your anger at someone else - does start to eat at your very soul. When I am completely disgusted & disappointed in someone - eventually I feel nothing. They become dead to me. Or, like my ex, his abuse numbed me to the point of feeling nothing but cordiality towards him. And a desire to work with him as politely as I could for the welfare of our children. But nothing else. No desire for revenge. Not hate or anger... just indifference. I abhor any ahavah ha-t'luyah b'davar : "love that is conditional." This is love that treats the other person or you, as an object. True love is unconditional because the oth...

By Tzvi Freeman Answer: There isn't anything after life, because life never ends. It just goes higher and higher. The soul is liberated from the body and returns closer to her source than ever before. The Torah assumes this in its language many times -- describing Abraham's death, for example, as going to rest with his fathers and similar phrases. The Talmud discusses the experiences of several people who made the trip there and back. Classic Jewish works such as Maavor Yabok describe the process of entering the higher world of life as a reflection of the soul's experiences while within the body: If the soul has become entrenched in material pleasures, she experiences the pain of ripping herself away from them so that she can experience the infinitely higher pleasure of basking in G-dly light. If she is soiled and injured by acts that sundered her from her true self while below, then she must be cleansed and healed. On the other hand, the good deeds and wisdom she has gai...

Summer of 2003 saw myself and my children finally moving into a house and out of the personal and ultimately, spiritual entrapment I found us in. I moved away from a marriage that wasn't working and was, in fact, harming me no matter how hard I tried to repair it. I finally dealt with the facts that I had been working on the relationship alone far too long. I moved back towards a solitary sort of existence, with only my children to break my emotional numbness. I was half-alive and half-dead and making bad choices. Things were too broken. My ability to feel was cross-circuited, my trust was shattered, my peace of mind gone, my self-esteem had been shredded; all too far gone by the damage of a psychopath for me to simply repair. I couldn't start over but I had to salvage what I could and go forward. Not forgetting but rebuilding. The purchase was a brick row house built in 1933 that needed a lot of TLC. When the money allowed I embarked on making it over. And in the pro...

by Adele Ryan McDowell Do you know those moments when you are driving in the car and you find yourself knee-deep in reverie? These are moments when, out of nowhere, you find yourself long in thought; it's as if you have made a U-turn into the underground waters of your psyche. Maybe it's the constancy of the rhythmic motion that lulls you into a semi-trance state, or, perhaps, it's the sound of wheels in a circular song that rests your overactive mind. Or would you consider that it's the very act of traveling from one place to another, the movement of transition from Point A to Point B, these intersections of destination and duty, that often offers a window where pieces of the self can surface? This kind of reverie reminds me of being on the train that travels from London to Paris. You chug along taking in the jumble of the cityscape — buildings, signs and the chaotic colors of populated lives. The busy scenery morphs into the peacefulness of the passing gre...

Existing In Bodies The physical self can seem like an encumbrance at times. We have little control over its demands, we must monitor it consistently, and its relative fragility can be discomfiting. Many people, therefore, unconsciously long to escape the confinement of their bodies, and this longing can manifest itself as physical discomfort, difficulty adjusting to the rigors of day-to-day existence, or a tendency to shy away from all that is associated with the human earthly experience. Yet the lifetime of physical existence we each must endure represents a vital plateau in our progression as enlightened beings. We inhabit our bodies for a reason. There is much we can learn while coping with the challenges, sensations, and sensitivities of the human body that we could not have grasped had we remained in spirit form. When we leave our physical selves behind to return to our original state, we will enjoy a supreme sense of freedom-yet we will always value the time we spent on earth. Be...

Tales from the Tombs of Israel Judith Fein It certainly seemed odd. People who were otherwise sane, intelligent, and credible would travel to the part of northern Israel known as the Galilee to pray at the tomb of the first-century rabbi Jonathan ben Uziel. Afterward, they would rapturously report that they had met their soul mates and gotten married. Since I was in the vicinity of the tomb, I decided to check out the departed matchmaker. Fortified with a healthy dose of skepticism, I entered the tsyun, a low, whitewashed building made of local rocks, cement, earth, and stones. Inside, the sepulcher was draped in dark velvet. On the women’s side — men and women are separated in Orthodox Judaism — some prayed earnestly from Hebrew prayer books and several deposited coins and bills into charity tins. Some left offerings, including bright-colored cloth, silk and chiffon scarves, plastic hair ornaments, and underpants. Underpants? I walked back outside more amused than inspired. When my hu...

B"H Fragments --------- We are all fragments of greater souls, and those souls fragments of even more lofty ones, and so on with those--until we all link back to the one primordial soul: The soul of Adam. None of us is complete. No one can stand on his or her own. What one is lacking the other fulfills, where one excels, another is wanting. Only together can we find oneness in our own selves. Only together can we be a fit vessel for the One Above to be revealed. True Love --------- The souls are all one. Only the bodies divide us. Therefore , one who places the body before the spirit can never experience true love or friendship . PLEASE CLICK HERE TO JBLOG ME

LIFE IN THE HEREAFTER by Zalman M. Schachter Death did not frighten the pious Jew of old. He had faith in the talmudic contention that death is simply a transition from one life into another, likened to the ease of taking a hair out of milk. What the Jew wanted above all was to die fully conscious, to be in full possession of his mental faculties at the time that his soul left his body. For the hasid (righteous) it was a matter of absolute faith and conviction that the same One God who was worshipped in this world could be served in the worlds to come, as well. For the not-so-pure, however, the process of extricating from bodily life was a bit more problematic. The soul that had become too fully identified with the body through sensual indulgence would find it difficult to separate from it. To accompany the body to its final resting place and to behold the putrefaction and the decay was understandably painful for such souls. This state of being is known as hibbut ha-kever, the pain and...