Tag: Geulah

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Returning Home, Leaving Our Trauma Behind

Inside each Yid is unbounded consciousness.

This point of God awareness is wrapped up in the layers of our world. Outside the Land of Israel we had no yearning; either on an individual or a national level for uncovering our authentic identity. Only now, upon our return home has this need and desire become aroused.

This arousal from within flows from a point within our hearts where the altar of Godliness exists. This altar is the gateway to the universe within, the Gan Eden of our souls. The return to the Land unlocks this gateway, this cosmic altar where our da’as flows into this world. However, the transformation and trigger from galus to geulah comes with inner obstacles and false perceptions.

The return to the Land of Israel requires the Tzaddik to remove the storm raging within our minds, which are threatened by the chaos of leaving the galus behind. This chaos has the power to derail the geulah – to hide the princess from our grasp.

This is what the climb out of the gutters of galus is about. The constant rising and falling until we get it – until the concretization of a true malchus, kingdom, which can only happen in Israel – happens.

Yet, it cannot happen without realizing that each of us when it comes down to it is just a point of Godliness expressed in the physical realm. Each one of us is only a machzit hashekel, half shekel in need of another half shekel to be whole. We have returned home – to rescue the princess within, but we forgot that we are here to rescue her and instead are running after the false loves of our past arduous journey outside the Land of Israel.

The Tzaddik has blazed a path ahead, past the inner obstacles and confusions. He saw ahead and rode the stormy seas back home unlocking our yearnings and drives. Now we need to hold on and know the only thing holding back the full completion of our redemption is the letting go of our past trauma and focusing on the only thing that matters – the now. Only then we will see the princess and only then the Land’s full affect on our inner selves will be felt.

(Based on Likutey Moharan 25; Shivchey HaRan – Journey to Eretz Yisrael; Toldos Yaakov Yosef – Parsha Ki Tisa; Olat Reyiah Part 1 Page 40; Shemoneh Kevatzim Part 1 Paragraph 25)

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The Land and Nation Are One

Deep inside the Nation of Israel there is a yearning to be home. Home is not just a piece of real estate or a space for a national enterprise, but rather forms an intrinsic component of the Nation’s being. This profound realization that the Land of Israel is not only a place to live, but one which is interwoven within the Children of Israel’s psyche is foundational to who we are and why as a Nation we cannot simply let go of pieces of our homeland.

Each member of the Nation of Israel, each Yid, each Jew has the potential to find himself, his or her complete self only within the boundaries of the Land of Israel.

This unshakeable bond, this inner calling, and pull home are all really about being drawn in the most organic way back to a state of self authenticity. This state, this inner geulah, redemption was lost or hidden away during the exile and now in an evolution of national spiritual awareness is being uncovered in the Land of Israel.

But why is this process taking so long? After all the Yidden, the Jewish people have been returning back to the Land of Israel, their home at increasing numbers for over two centuries. If this process is taking this long then one may think that we are not natural here, but that is not the case.

The return of the Jewish people, the Nation of Israel, to their home unlocked an immediate burst of light, not felt since we held sovereignty here nearly two thousand years ago, yet this light had no kelim, no vessels able to hold it and so they shattered and broke.

Being unable to contain this light, the inspiration, the development of an integrated national consciousness has taken time only to be felt now.

Why now?

The national enterprise rushed home, drawn to fulfilling the yearning of their innermost desires to be once again one with themselves and their land. However, a process of such magnitude needed the direction of the Tzaddikim, the spiritual leaders of the Jewish people. This light, this direction carved out of the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and his followers was the missing link that could smooth the Yidden’s return.

So now that the thirst for an inner redemption which was activated by coming home is finally reaching its peak, the Baal Shem Tov’s light has become the central force behind the awakening and the completion of the inner return of the Nation of Israel to their Land and ultimately the realization that the Nation of Israel and the Land of Israel are one indivisible whole.

(Based on Orot Eretz Yisrael 1, Olat Rehiyah Part 1:203, Likutey Moharan, Keter Shem Tov)