Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad
Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuso Leolam Voed
The goal of nishmas am yisrael is to restore to the consciousness of mankind Gd-consciousness as it existed before ingesting from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, while we are in time and space, thereby reflecting Hashem’s 13 attributes of mercy into time and space. The Jewish people by living Torah can combine worlds, bringing something higher into this lowest of worlds where Hashem is hidden, uplifting the world to the level of the spiritual world of creation. We do this through free will and fervent prayer and speech. The way of the Ba'al Shem Tov and his disciples is that when a person feels pain or suffering, he/she should elevate it by identifying that the pain and suffering is in the Shechinah. If we work on rectification, survival is given. Hashem won’t save us just to live another day. He saves us because we are doing something that merits to live another day.
- When a person habituates himself to watchfulness to the point where he completely cleanses himself of the acknowledged sins, and accustoms himself to zealous divine service so that love and yearning for his Creator grow strong within him, then the force of this habituation will draw him farther from the realm of earthiness and direct his mind towards spiritual perfection. Eventually he will attain to perfect cleanliness a state in which physical desire is extinguished from his heart through the strengthening within him of the longing for Gd. His vision will then possess purity and clarity . He will not be deceived, he will not be reached by the darkness of earthiness and his deeds will be absolutely clean. Mesillas Yesharim Trait of Cleanliness p. 109
- Psalms (119:77): “If it were not for Your Torah being my delight (sha’ashuim), I would be lost in my affliction
Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuso Leolam Voed
- … Who is like unto Your people Israel, a unique nation on earth; this means that even in mundane matters they will not, Heaven forfend separate from the True One to bear false witness, Heaven forfend, by reciting the Shema every evening and morning with closed eyes, The Lord is One – in the four directions and in the Heavens above and on earth below, while as the eyes of the blind are opened “You cause your eyes to close upon Him, and He is no more, heaven forefend. Only that shall be befitting us when all our engagements with mundane affairs are not for their own sake but in order to vivify the souls, the portions of Gd and to supply what they lack out of gratuitous kindness. For thereby we give the form a semblance to its Former- the Lord is One; for the chesed of Gd endures at all time – a true chesed- to animate the universe and all that fills it every single moment… Igeret Hakodesh Nine p. 437
- Proverbs (8:30): “And I (the Torah speaking in the first person) was His delight (sha’ashuim) every day
The goal of nishmas am yisrael is to restore to the consciousness of mankind Gd-consciousness as it existed before ingesting from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, while we are in time and space, thereby reflecting Hashem’s 13 attributes of mercy into time and space. The Jewish people by living Torah can combine worlds, bringing something higher into this lowest of worlds where Hashem is hidden, uplifting the world to the level of the spiritual world of creation. We do this through free will and fervent prayer and speech. The way of the Ba'al Shem Tov and his disciples is that when a person feels pain or suffering, he/she should elevate it by identifying that the pain and suffering is in the Shechinah. If we work on rectification, survival is given. Hashem won’t save us just to live another day. He saves us because we are doing something that merits to live another day.