The Website of HaRav Ariel Bar Tzadok
The
Website of HaRav
Ariel Bar Tzadok
| About Us - Haskama / Hamlatza | ONLINE STORE | ONLINE LIBRARY | ONLINE AUDIO |
| Links | Join Our Email List | Contact us | Support KosherTorah |
Latest Offerings In Our Online Store
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
KosherTorah = Sane Religion
Sane Religion = Sane Living
Sane Living = A Better Life!
Kosher Torah is an online "boot camp tough" educational
resource, to make you the best you can be... and to live life
accordingly!
We emphasize the development of strong moral character as being the foundation,
purpose and meaning of every religious & mystical teaching.
Proper behavior defines a proper life... we do the right things... simply
because they are right!
No magic, no mumbo-jumbo, no myths or fairy tales... just good "old fashioned"
hard work...
In my opinion, this is what Torah and religion are really all about...
Interested? Then welcome to KosherTorah...
Now, let's get to work...
|
Most Recent
Posts & Essays
Most Popular
Studies in Health,
Studies in Authentic
Kabbalah, |
Kabbalah Today - Helpful or Harmful?
Our Latest Essay...
Join
Our Email List... click here Many ask the big questions; who or what is G-d and what does G-d want from us? In order to answer the second question, the first must also be answered. What G-d wants from us is integrally bound up with our awareness of who and what G-d is? One with a mistaken view of G-d will by definition only have a mistaken view of what G-d wants. So, before we ask what G-d wants let us seek to answer who is G-d in the first place. Asking about G-d is no small task. There are so many centuries of embellished myths and legends to overcome. Most people today, in one way or another, hold to the rather juvenile belief that G-d is some kind of super/greater human being; an old man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud or a throne with throngs of ministering angels, all with cute little wings, serving before Him. These novel portrayals can be found in the most ancient of literature. Yet, modern people fail to understand that the writers of these accounts were writing using poetic metaphors. They never intended their accounts to be understood literally. Ancient Semitic writers were by no means rationalists by modern standards. The rationalism of ancient Semitic writers was by our modern definition both poetic and mystical. To put it in terms familiar with Torah Judaism, their pshat is not our pshat. How the ancients thought and wrote and what they considered to be simple and straightforward are radically different from how we are today. Their spirituality was far from juvenile; but our understandings or better to say, misunderstandings of what they wrote is what is truly juvenile. When a modern rationalist comes to the metaphorical accounts recorded in Torah, written as it is from an ancient Semitic point of view, they often misinterpret the style of the writing and mistakenly interpret metaphors as literal. This misinterpretation is by no means rational. Therefore one making such a mistake cannot honesty be called a rationalist and certainly not a scholar. There is another term used to describe those who are unable to recognize the true rationale in ancient Semitic literature all the while claiming that theirs is the true understanding. Such individuals are called fundamentalists. There are all different types of fundamentalists. There are secular fundamentalists who look at the ancient Semitic metaphorical accounts recorded in Torah and dismiss them out of hand as outdated nonsense. Then there are the religious fundamentalists who embrace the ancient accounts as literal truths, seemingly oblivious to their original intent. One side rejects the literal account and the other side embraces it; both sides however are grievously in error in that they view the metaphorical as literal and respond to it according to their own individual agendas. I am sure if the original writers of Torah and later prophetic literature were alive today they would reject the fundamentalists of both sides and explain their Semitic poetic metaphorical writings in ways that the honestly rational of minds would today appreciate and embrace. In order to properly understand G-d and what G-d wants from us, we have to approach the original Torah and prophetic material from the point of view of those who wrote the literature and not from the point of view of modern day fundamentalists, who in very unscholarly ways, misinterpret it. Fundamentalists, both secular and religious, essentially perpetuate a serious crime against religion, spirituality and G-d Himself. By interpreting metaphor as literal and poetry as prose, they have totally confused the true identity and reality of G-d and have served to distance countless numbers from the truths of spiritual reality. |
Some Words Of Wisdom For All To Contemplate
DEFEND YOURSELVES !!
Guard your minds!
You have no idea of the level of assault you
face every day.
Bend like a reed in the wind, yet, stand strong as a wall of eternal stones
before the onslaught of fiery arrows.
Winds can crack even the mightiest of trees.
Fiery arrows cannot hurt walls of stone.
There is a time to be a tree and a time to be a wall.
DEFEND YOURSELVES !! Guard your minds!
Learn the times, learn how one must act for
the moment, for the place.
There is a time and a purpose for all things under Heaven.
We are in the middle of the change of times,
learn when to be a tree and when to be a wall,
for the fire will burn wood, and the wind will shatter the mightiest of walls.
Be the right thing in the right place at the right time.
DEFEND YOURSELVES !! Guard your minds!
And you just may will live to see the other
side of redemption.
-----------------------------------------------------
“And you will be swiftly removed from upon the good land that G-d gives you.” (Deut. 11:17)
The Ba’al Shem Tov has said, that an individual
must always have a calm mind and not act impetuously,
[for when one does act in
this way, then he] “will be swiftly removed from upon the good land.”
One [must
learn to] swiftly remove impetuousness [rather than be removed because of it.
(Ref. SBST, Ekev 62).
The first of all wise sayings attributed to our Sages in Pirkei Avot is
“be
deliberating in judgment.”
In other words, we should never be quick and impetuous to make decisions
that are not well thought out, rational and logical.
Every day we are faced with decisions and every day we often make the wrong decisions simply because we rush to decide.
Sometimes the best decision is no decision, at least for the moment.
The world
WILL NOT come to an end if we wait a while before responding to a matter that is
not an immanent crises.
This advice might not be for the battlefield… but we do not always live on the
battlefield.
Decisions about business, family, expenses and everyday living
have to be made based upon the greater and wiser good and not just upon how we
feel or how things look at the moment.
Times change and so do feelings. Never make a decision that will affect the future based only on the here and now.
Pause, take a moment, and look towards tomorrow, the next day, and the day after
that.
Takes these into consideration today before you make a decision that will
affect you negatively tomorrow.
-----------------------------------------------------
Everything that we hold dear is exactly what holds us back from experiencing and acquiring true wealth.
We have been falsely educated into attributing value to things that in essence are meaningless.
Everything in this life is transitory at best.
Physical items, emotional attachments, attitudes, beliefs, ideas and
philosophies, all of these come and go like a passing wind.
Our attachment to these things creates within us a false sense of security and
we seldom let go.
We build around ourselves mighty walls of brick, feelings and ideas, thinking
that these will keep us safe from assault.
How foolish and shortsighted we are.
For every new lock that we create, there comes an even better lock pick.
For every better mouse trap we develop there comes a bigger and stronger mouse.
This is the way of nature, it is unavoidable.
We
protect our homes with all types of security systems and still they are
burglarized.
We protect our feelings with all types of emotional walls and we still end up
getting hurt.
We protect our ideas and beliefs with all types of arguments and justifications
and we still face confusion and contradiction.
We
cannot block out, we cannot find security in the insecure, nor can we find
stability in the unstable.
It is inevitable and unavoidable.
Whatever goes up must come down and whatever goes down creates an equal and
opposite reaction causing it to rise.
In this is summed up all of life and its various movements.
Want More? Come On Inside And Explore The Rest of KosherTorah
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
KosherTorah
(Tel) 1-818-345-0888
(Email)
koshertorah1@yahoo.com
The
Written Works of Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok
Copyright © 1997 - 2008 by Ariel Bar Tzadok. All rights
reserved.
