"This Isn't Jewish" "Um, Yes - it is."
"If you are in search of spirituality, you have it.
If you believe you already have it, you have lost it."
- Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D.
Do Unto Others, page 162
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 6:32 PM
5 Comments:
Very chassidish.
What if you are not in search of spirituality, but you observe all the mitzvos?
I'll take the fifth on that question and let other readers speak up if they'd like to.
I was once teaching ideas from this book and was observed during that lesson. The comment was that it was OK to do this kind of thing sometimes but not that often as my source was clearly a secular book. I said that it was a book by Rabbi Abraham Twerski and my supervisor stood corrected.
R' Chaim Volozhin wrote at length on my question. His main objective was to refute the idea that your kavanah is what's important. He brought numerous proofs that since matan Torah, what's essential is doing the mitzvos. Kavanah does add something, but it is not at all essential.
I can understand why someone would view the idea of a spirituality divorced from mitzvah observance as a secular idea (although I'm not saying that this is what R' Twerski is doing).
Torah lishma, as per Nefesh HaChayim.
The observation was not regarding this quote. The lesson was an outline of what Rabbi Twerski calls the eight tenets of the golden rule:
1. It is better to give than to receive.
2. Good deeds create connection.
3. Acts of kindness boost self esteem.
4. Good deeds create love.
5. Doing Good deeds for others creates happiness for the giver and for the receiver.
6. Kindness toward others is an important principle in life.
7. Doing for others frees us from destructive habits, from anger and fear.
8. Good deeds promote spirituality.
Not really Torah lishmah. His vort re. Torah lishmah is that it's l'shem haTorah, i.e. for the sake of getting pshat right.
The above was his battle against the chassidic tendency, or what he, based on the Gra, feared would become their tendency, of putting kavanah above dikduk b'mitzvos.
The list you give above has many Torah ideas, and others that are obvious derech eretz, of the variety that is "kodma l'Torah." I can't imagine what the objection might have been.
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