The lost art of conversation -power of the word

http://majorityoftwo.blogspot.com/2009/07/sounds-of-silence.html

The power and reality of speech as divine breath was evanescent n the ancient world and in the Edwardian Age was given a to and fro exchange quality where meaning transpired and conversation ensued. Truly in these barbarian time frames we are caught in, words are reduced to meaningless and shallow chatter like a barrage of bullets occasioning nausea and voids,words beating the vapid air. Blessed silence!!

Has anyone else noticed lately that people seem to be getting louder? No
one listens anymore, they talk more, but they say less. It's just babble to fill
the air. People seem to be losing the gift of making conversation. I think
conversation should be speaking with someone, rather than "talking at" them, but
I have noticed that conversation now seems to consist of someone jabbering away
at people, rather than engaging them in a to-and-fro exchange of thoughts and
ideas. We are held captive by the rapid-fire talker, who spews words at us like
bullets from a machine gun, and there's no escape. Any attempt to engage them in
conversation with us is futile, because -- they're not listening.The young lady
in the Japanese restaurant chattered away at her three companions, completely
unaware that they looked like deer caught in the headlights of a car. Do we owe
this lost art of conversation to the fact that we are living in a louder
society, and we have to talk louder in order to be heard? Or perhaps we are so
used to watching the "talking heads" on TV that we subconsciously emulate them
when we speak with people, and we think we're making conversation.

Ceaseless re-creation ex nihilo the miracle of all time

Ceaseless re-creation ex nihilo the miracle of all time

Reanimation ceaselessly in the creative act "from nothing" is the greatest miracle never mentioned of the creator. The force consists of the creative letters emanating from 5 supernal organs of verbal articulation as is stated .Every creature only appears to have an existence of its own but is absolute naught and of nothing in relation to this activating force animating it.This force is continuous and the true reality of existence.

The Alter Rebbe has explained that the activating force of the Creator must
constantly be vested within creation, ceaselessly recreating and reanimating
created beings ex nihilo. This force consists of the creative “letters” which
emanate from the five supernal organs of verbal articulation.
והנה אחרי
הדברים והאמת האלה
Now, following these words of truth concerning the nature
of creation, namely, that the activating force must continually be vested in
created beings and create them ex nihilo,
כל משכיל על דבר יבין לאשורו איך שכל
נברא ויש הוא באמת נחשב לאין ואפס ממש
every discerning person
will
understand clearly that every creature and being, even though it appears
to have an existence of its own, is in reality considered to be absolute naught
and nothingness
לגבי כח הפועל ורוח פיו שבנפעל המהוה אותו תמיד ומוציאו מאין
ממש ליש
in relation to the activating force which creates it and the “breath
of His mouth” which is within it, continuously calling it into existence and
bringing it from absolute non-being into being.
Since this function must be
continuous, it follows that the creature’s activating force is the true reality
of its existence; the being itself bears no comparison to the activating force
which is wholly responsible for its existence.

The meaning of the exodus /deliverance from Egypt

The love of G-d for Israel and their deliverance from Egypt and the reasons therefore.

The rescue from Egypt was for the purpose of showing his inestimable love to Jewry and bind Jewryto His name and to G-d himself. The Jews.children of Israel, were in a perilous condition of reaching the ultimate bottom level of spirituality, termed sitra achra, to elevate Israel "that is to say, He elevated us from the nadir of degradation and defilement to the acme of holiness and to His infinite and boundless greatness.25" Ch46 Pt I Tanya. Egypt is termed the "obscenity of the earth. ( 27. A reference to Tanya, Part I, chs. 46-49, where this manner of love (“face reflecting face”) is discussed at length.)

ואחר כך יתבונן באהבת ה׳ הגדולה ונפלאה אלינו
Then, following his
meditation “in a particular way,” he will contemplate G‑d’s great and wondrous
love to us, a love that led Him*—
לירד למצרים, ערות האר׳, להוציא נשמותינו
מכור הברזל, שהוא הסטרא אחרא, רחמנא לצלן
to descend even to Egypt, the23
“obscenity of the earth,” to bring our souls out of the24
“iron crucible” into which the Jewish people had then descended, which is the
sitra achra (may the All-Merciful spare us),
לקרבנו אליו ולדבקנו בשמו ממש,
והוא ושמו אחד
to bring us close to Him and to bind us to His very Name — and
He and His Name are One, so that by being bound to His Name we were bound to G‑d
Himself;
דהיינו: שרוממנו מתכלית השפלות והטומאה לתכלית הקדושה, וגדולתו יתברך
שאין לה ק׳ ותכלית
that is to say, He elevated us from the nadir of
degradation and defilement to the acme of holiness and to His infinite and
boundless greatness.25
When
one has meditated in detail upon G‑d’s greatness and His tremendous love for the
Jewish people:
אזי כמים הפנים לפנים
Then,26
“As in water, face reflects face, [so does the heart of man to man,]”
Just as
one person’s love for another awakens a loving response in the other’s heart,
so, too, our contemplation of the ways in which G‑d has manifested His love
towards us will inspire within us a love for Him,
תתעורר האהבה בלב כל משכיל
ומתבונן בענין זה בעומקא דלבא
and love will be aroused in the heart of
everyone who contemplates and meditates upon this matter in the depths of his
heart,
לאהוב את ה׳ אהבה עזה, ולדבקה בו בלב ונפש, כמו שיתבאר במקומה
באריכות
to love G‑d with an intense love and to cleave unto Him, heart and
soul, as will be explained at length in its place.27

23.
Bereishit 24:9; see Yalkut Shimoni, ad loc., and Kohelet Rabbah 1:4.
24.
Devarim 4:20.
25.
Note of the Rebbe: “And the more he knows in specific detail the infinite gap [between himself and G‑d] etc., the greater will be his love [for Him]. See ch. 46 [of Part I].”
26.
Mishlei 27:19.
27.
A reference to Tanya, Part I, chs. 46-49, where this manner of love (“face reflecting face”) is discussed at length.

LEVELS OF G-DLINESS

LEVELS OF G-DLINESS The Jewish soul has several levels whch are trelative to assimilating the love of G-d within that soul and its level of G-dliness.

Neshamah=soul level- this love cannot be created but man can only enable it to be revealed by refining himself to an extraordinary degree .This kind of love is not attainable by all.

The second soul level is through earnest meditation,the love of G-d in the heart of the Jew.This love on this level is contemplative (Zohar 19. Part III, 67a, 68a.) to the extent of his intellect and beyond >With the former, the level of contemplation is within positive knowledge.The negative knowledge "even beyond" is beyond the range of his intellect and not subject to limitations of emanated worlds and beings. It is a quasi state of comprehension.

which is superior to the level of Ruach (the soul-level at which one’s divine
service focusses on one’s emotional attributes) and Nefesh (the soul-level at
which one fulfills the mitzvot out of an acceptance of the Heavenly
Yoke),
כמו שכתוב בראשית חכמה, שער האהבה
as explained in Reishit Chochmah,
Shaar HaAhavah.
There the author explains how the above level of love is
specifically related to the soul-level of Neshamah.
In sum, it is clear that
this love cannot be “created” by man. He can only enable it to be revealed
within him by refining himself — but to such an extraordinary degree that it is
not attainable by all.
והשנית היא אהבה שכל אדם יוכל להגיע אליה, כשיתבונן היטב
בעומקא דלבא
The second [level] is a love which every man can attain when he
meditates earnestly, so that its echo resounds in the depths of his
heart,
בדברים המעוררים את האהבה לה׳ בלב כל ישראל
on matters that arouse
the love of G‑d in the heart of every Jew,
הן דרך כלל: כי הוא חיינו ממש,
וכאשר האדם אוהב את נפשו וחייו, כן יאהב את ה׳, כאשר יתבונן וישים אל לבו כי ה׳ הוא
נפשו האמיתית וחייו ממש
whether [he meditates] in a general way — how He is
our very life,18
and just as one loves his soul and his life, so will he love G‑d when he
meditates and reflects in his heart that G‑d is his true soul and actual
life,
כמו שכתוב בזהר על פסוק: נפשי אויתיך וגו׳
as the Zohar19
comments on the verse,20
“[You are] my soul: I desire you,”
The Zohar explains that since G‑d is the
Jew’s soul and thus his true life, the Jew loves and desires Him.21
והן
דרך פרט, כשיבין וישכיל בגדולתו של מלך מלכי המלכים, הקב״ה, דרך פרטית
or
whether [he meditates] in a particular way,22
when he will understand and comprehend in detail the greatness of the King of
kings, the Holy One, blessed be He,
For example, he may reflect on the manner
in which G‑d fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and on how all
creatures are as naught before Him.
כאשר יוכל שאת בשכלו, ומה שלמעלה
משכלו
to the extent that his intellect can grasp, and even beyond.
These
two phrases refer respectively to concepts that are within the reach of
“positive knowledge,” and to truths that lie beyond it and are perceptible only
through “negative knowledge”; i.e., though one may not understand such a thing
itself, he may understand how it is not subject to the restrictions of a lesser
order.
In terms of comprehending G‑dliness this means to say, that one will
at least understand that those levels of G‑dliness that are beyond the range of
his intellect are not subject to the limitations inherent within created and
emanated worlds and beings. This “negative knowledge” — in the Alter Rebbe’s
words, “even beyond” — is also considered to be a quasi state of comprehension.

18.
Note of the Rebbe: “As explained above, ch. 44 [of Part I].”
19.
Part III, 67a, 68a.
20.
Yeshayahu 26:9.
21.
The Rebbe notes that the Alter Rebbe terms this a “general way” in meditation, because its subject — life and the love of life — is by nature universal, with no great differences in the degree of love or in the details of the meditation.
22.
Note of the Rebbe: “As explained above, ch. 46 [of Part I].”

Korczak International News: Commissioner Hammarberg pay tribute to Korczak in Warsaw

Korczak International News: Commissioner Hammarberg pay tribute to Korczak in Warsaw

http://www.korczak.org.uk/portfolio/select1.html
The best tribute to Janusz Kroczak are the articles he wrote and the sentiments he expressed
Note this post from his own words:

COMMENT

Dzieina Street was set up as a hospital for the sick and dying children in the Warsaw ghetto. "a mortuary where corpses crawl, run by bandits and thieves who robbed the children of any food or help." (Quote). The children were in their own excrement and died of typhus and dysentery.Korczak demanded to be in charge of this hospital and committed the insuperable task of caring for the orphanage. Within a few weeks with two colleagues, he restored some order and spent his spare time tending to the dying children. He converted the premises to a hospice with makeshift bunks and gave a measure of dignity to the dying children. He learned the essence of charity in a one month stay in London.

ApplicationHenryk Goldszmit Residence: I6 Sienna - 9 Sliska Street, February 9,
1942. Written in the Warsaw Ghetto 6 months before his
death.

C O M M E N T A R Y


Special Note: Dzieina Street
was set up as a hospital for the sick and dying children in the Warsaw ghetto.
Several thousand children were crammed into a space meant for just a few
hundred. Korczak described it as "a mortuary where corpses crawl, run by bandits
and thieves who robbed the children of any food or help." The children were left
lying on the floor like animals amidst their own excrement. Typhus and dysentery
took their toll. Korczak could not tolerate the suffering of these children and
demanded to be put in charge of the hospital, even though he was committed to
the impossible task of caring for the children at his orphanage. Together with
two of his colleagues he restored relative order within a few weeks and spent
all his spare time tending to the dying. He arranged for makeshift bunks to be
built, so that the children could die with care and dignity. This was perhaps
the first hospice of its kind. He makes some very telling admissions of his state of mind regarding children in this application including the following:

M Y O W N T E X T

• he states he is the master of the "economy of effort".






• I know not his allusion to Harpagon but will research this allusion.






• I consider myself an expert in medicine, education, eugenics, politics.(QUOTE) This quote can be taken at face value and the following is surely caustic and autobiographical in the same satiric breath : Experience has endowed me with an appreciable ability for co-existing and collaborating even with criminal characters and with born imbeciles. (QUOTE)



• Ambitious obstinate fools cut Korczak off but he does not return the favor. He tolerated an unsuitable manager in his orphanage over one year and yet he sought her to stay and she soon left of her own accord. The deficient present staff Korczak preferred to the uncertainty of a new staff. I anticipate that the criminal characters among the staff of the orphanage at Dzieina Street will voluntarily resign from the hated work to which they are tied by cowardice and inertia alone.(QUOTE)


• Korczak's education and job experience as explained in semi resume format are very revealing: He worked in the clinics of Berlin and Paris one year,6 months,and A month's excursion to London helped me to understand the quintessence of charity work (a rewarding experience). (QUOTE) His exposure to different personalities and a variety of medical fields had a broadening aspect ,I am certain, on his resultant insights in his work with children. My masters in medicine were: Professor Przewoski (anatomy and bacteriology), Nasonow (zoologist), Szczerbakow (psychiatry), and the pediatricians Rnkelsztein, Baginski, Marfan, Hutinel ( Berlin , Paris).(On a day off - visits to orphanages, reformatories, places of detention for so-called juvenile delinquents.) One month in a school for retarded children, one month in Ziehen's neurological clinic.My masters in the hospital at Sliska Street:Koral, the cynic and nihilist, the jovial Kramsztyk the serious Gantz, the fine diagnostician Eliasberg, and also the medical assistant Slizewski and a selfless nurse, Laja.I expect to meet a few of the kind of Laja in the children's slaughterhouse (and morgue) at 39 Dzieina Street. (Quote)Note his allusion to the children's slaughterhouse. CHILDREN ARE MATURE,DIGNIFIED AND SENSIBLE WHEN FACED WITH DEATH AND THIS TO ME IS A SURPRISING YET 'INTACT' COMMENT KORCZAK WOULD MAKE. Statistics taught him truth and objectivity and unbiased assessment of fact.He weighed and measured children for a quarter-century and kept the graphs (priceless). He at first contacted the Jewish at child Markiewicz summer vacation camp . In Michalowka, the free lending library,he worked several years and he observed richly.
  
  Kind
  friends urge me to write my last will. I am doing it now in my curriculum vitae,
  to go with the application for a job as a teacher in the orphanage at 39 Dzieina
  Street. I am sixty-four. As to health, I received my certificate in jail last
  year. In spite of the exacting conditions there, not once did I report sick, not
  once did I go to the doctor, not once did I absent myself from gymnastics,
  dreaded even by my younger colleagues. I eat like a horse; sleep soundly;
  recently, after drinking ten shots of strong vodka, I returned home at a brisk
  pace from Rymarska Street to Sienna Street - late at night. I get up twice
  during the night to empty ten large night-pails.I smoke, do not overindulge in
  liquor. mental faculties for everyday purposes - passable.I am a master in the
  economy of effort; like Harpagon, I measure out every unit of energy to be
  expended.I consider myself an expert in medicine, education, eugenics,
  politics.Experience has endowed me with an appreciable ability for co-existing
  and collaborating even with criminal characters and with born imbeciles.
  Ambitious, obstinate fools cut me off their visiting list - though I do not
  return the compliment.The last test I passed: tolerated a thoroughly unsuitable
  manager in my orphanage for well over a year;acting contrary to the interests of
  my own convenience and peace, I sought to persuade her to stay; she soon left of
  her own accord (a principle of mine: always prefer the deficiencies of the
  present staff to the advantages of the new one).I anticipate that the criminal
  characters among the staff of the orphanage at Dzieina Street will voluntarily
  resign from the hated work to which they are tied by cowardice and inertia
  alone.I graduated from secondary school and university in Warsaw. My education
  was complemented in the clinics of Berlin (one year) and Paris (six months). A
  month's excursion to London helped me to understand the quintessence of charity
  work (a rewarding experience).My masters in medicine were: Professor Przewoski
  (anatomy and bacteriology), Nasonow (zoologist), Szczerbakow (psychiatry), and
  the pediatricians Rnkelsztein, Baginski, Marfan, Hutinel ( Berlin , Paris).(On a
  day off - visits to orphanages, reformatories, places of detention for so-called
  juvenile delinquents.) One month in a school for retarded children, one month in
  Ziehen's neurological clinic.My masters in the hospital at Sliska Street:Koral,
  the cynic and nihilist, the jovial Kramsztyk the serious Gantz, the fine
  diagnostician Eliasberg, and also the medical assistant Slizewski and a selfless
  nurse, Laja.I expect to meet a few of the kind of Laja in the children's
  slaughterhouse (and morgue) at 39 Dzieina Street.Hospital revealed to me how
  dignified, mature and sensible children could be when face-to-face with
  death.Books on statistics deepened my understanding of the medical art
  (statistics taught me the inexorability of logical thinking and unbiased
  judgment of fact). Having weighed and measured children for a quarter of a
  century, I have become the owner of a priceless collection of graphs - growth
  profiles of children at school-age and puberty.With the Jewish child I came in
  touch for the first time as an overseer at the Markiewicz summer vacation camp
  in Michalowka. Several years of work in a free lending library afforded me rich
  observation material

.

Korczak International News: St-Petersburg Festival of Tolerance 2008

Korczak International News: St-Petersburg Festival of Tolerance 2008

The two kinds of the love of G-d and the child's first love of G-d RE:Tanya

The love of G-d which also characterize the Tzadikkim , a state of bliss on the soul level of Neshamah.

The child's love of G-d is at the root of obedience and observance of all the positive commands.This love must serve as a springboard for all positive commands performed through education.This love is described as inferior and transient as a foundation for observance of the mitzvahs performed as a result of education.This lower level of childlike love, if I may term it,possesses permanent qualities desirable and such that the adult should never depart from these qualities.To be commanded to love G-d is an expression of doing and how can emotion of the heart be so applied.?This is an anomaly resolved by the Alter Rebbe . He describes the superior degree of love that cannot be created. One can merely provide the conditions for its revelation. Meditation on the precepts arousing this love provides the "doing" factor of this love.There are two kinds of the love of G-d:

• One is the natural yearning of the soul, intrinsic to the soul, and part of G-d above.This love cannot be created.How can it be revealed in the corporeal heart?When the rational soul prevails over the gross body,subdues and subjugates the body, the divinely appointed task of the G-dly soul rectifying the animal soul is completed. (The rational soul's comprehension of G-dliness.)




• We are talking of the G-dly as contradistingfuished to the rational soul:The G-dly soul is too affect the body,that is, it's intellect and comprehension are too lofty. The rational soul embodies man's intellect and it is close to the physical body.The rational soul can comprehend G-dliness in such manner as to cause form to master matter (?) to overcome the body and its corporeality.The soul then blazes with a flame ascending of its own accord. This is not contemplative love but natural love barred initially by the corporeality of the body.The body must be mastered and refined ,a necessity for the soul's innate love of G-d to be revealed. The soul will consequently rejoice and exult in G-d its maker and will delight in Him with wondrous bliss. (QUOTE). This delight is part of the love of the divine service itself. It is itself a replacement for what might be termed the reward for divine service.



• Those meriting the state of this great love are called Tzaddikim.They alone experience this great love from the G-dly soul ,possessed by very single Jew,but not experienced by all.


• The reason for this — as the Alter Rebbe goes on to explain — is that one’s physical grossness impedes its revelation. And clearing this hurdle demands prodigious effort. (QUOTE)


• This state of love which characterizes the Tzadikkim alone requires intense refinement of physical grossness and intense Torah study and good deeds . They have a different soul level of neshamah and there or in that state divine service is intellective.

the love of G‑d [is the root and fundament] of [what motivates one to]12
“do good,” and to observe all the positive commandments of the Torah and the
Sages,
כמו שיתבאר במקומן
as will be explained in their proper
place.
“As will be explained in their proper place” refers to chs. 4 and 41
in the first part of Tanya. This reference, as the Rebbe points out,
corroborates the tradition handed down by chassidim that the Alter Rebbe
originally intended to reverse the current order, with this second part of Tanya
appearing first, as Part I, and the fifty-three chapters of the first part
becoming Part II.
ומצות החינוך היא גם כן במצוות עשה, כמו שכתוב באורח חיים,
סימן שמ״ג
(13The
commandment of educating [a child] includes also [training in the performance
of] positive precepts, as is stated in Orach Chayim, Section 343.)
Since a
child is to be educated to observe both prohibitive and positive commandments,
it follows that his love of G‑d, as the root and fundament of all positive
commands,14
must be such that it serves as the springboard for all the positive commandments
that are performed as a result of education. We must therefore say that there
exists an inferior and transient degree of love that serves as the root and
foundation for those mitzvot that are performed as a result of education, a
degree of love distinct from the superior level that motivates an adult.
Nevertheless, as shall soon be explained, this lower level of love, too — a love
which is “according to the child’s way” — possesses certain permanent qualities
that make it desirable that “even as he grows old he will not (and indeed should
not) depart from it.”
והנה באהבה כתיב, בסוף פרשת עקב: אשר אנכי מצוה אתכם
לעשותה, לאהבה את ה׳ וגו׳
Concerning the love [of G‑d] it is written at the
end of the portion Eikev,15
“...which I command you to do — to love G‑d...”
וצריך להבין איך שייך לשון
עשיה גבי אהבה שבלב
It is necessary to understand how an expression of “doing”
can be applied to love, which is [an emotion] in the heart.
The Alter Rebbe
now proceeds to resolve this seeming anomaly. (First, however, he describes the
superior degree of love that cannot be created: one can merely provide the
conditions for its revelation.) As to the above anomaly, he now explains that
there exists a manner of love that is indeed created — by meditating upon those
concepts that arouse it. An active verb such as “doing” suits this manner of
love, since it is experienced as a result of one’s own doing.
אך הענין הוא,
דיש שני מיני אהבת ה׳
The explanation, however, is that there are two kinds of
love of G‑d:
האחת היא כלות הנפש בטבעה אל בוראה
One is the natural,
yearning love of the soul to its Creator.
Since this love is intrinsic to the
soul, which is “truly a part of G‑d above,” this love need not — and indeed
cannot — be created at all. It merely needs to be revealed. But how can such a
passionate yearning become revealed in one’s corporeal, fleshly heart?
כאשר
תתגבר נפש השכלית על החומר, ותשפילהו ותכניעהו תחתיה
When the rational soul
prevails over the grossness [of the body] and subdues and subjugates it,
Here
the Divinely-appointed task of the G‑dly soul comes to the fore: to rectify the
animal soul and refine the body by means of the rational soul’s comprehension of
G‑dliness. For the G‑dly soul’s own intellect and comprehension are too lofty to
affect the body. The rational soul, however, embodies man’s natural quality of
intellect and as such is close to the physical body. The rational soul
comprehends G‑dliness in such a manner that it is able to cause Form to master
Matter — to overmaster the body and harness its corporeality. When it actually
does so:
אזי תתלהב ותתלהט בשלהבת העולה מאליה
then [the soul] will flare
and blaze with a flame that ascends of its own accord,
It will be aflame not
with a love created through contemplation, but with a natural love whose
revelation was barred by the grossness of the body. Now, with the mastery and
refinement of the body, the soul’s innate love for G‑d can at last be
revealed.
ותגל ותשמח בה׳ עושה, ותתענג על ה׳ תענוג נפלא
and [the soul] will
rejoice and exult both inwardly and outwardly in G‑d its Maker, and will delight
in Him with wondrous bliss.
In this instance the delight is part of the love
and the divine service itself, rather than a reward for the divine service, as
is sometimes the case.
והזוכים למעלת אהבה רבה זו, הם הנקראים צדיקים
It is
those who merit the [joyous] state of this great love who are called
tzaddikim,
כדכתיב: שמחו צדיקים בה׳
as it is written,16
“Rejoice in G‑d, you tzaddikim.”
To serve G‑d with delight of this order is
the privilege of tzaddikim alone. For though the above-described love emanates
from the G‑dly soul which is possessed by every single Jew, for which reason one
would expect everyone to be able to feel it, it is nevertheless not experienced
by all. The reason for this — as the Alter Rebbe goes on to explain — is that
one’s physical grossness impedes its revelation. And clearing this hurdle
demands prodigious effort.
אך לא כל אדם זוכה לזה
Yet not everyone is
privileged to attain this state of love which characterizes tzaddikim,
כי לזה
צריך זיכוך החומר במאד מאד, וגם תורה ומעשים טובים הרבה
for it requires an
intense refinement of one’s physical grossness, and in addition a great deal of
Torah study and good deeds,
לזכות לנשמה עליונה
in order to merit a lofty
[soul-level of] Neshamah,
This is the soul-level whose divine service is
intellective; as the verse states,17
“The Divine Neshamah shall provide discernment.” Only this manner of divine
service can subjugate and refine man’s gross corporeality so that he is able to
delight in G‑d with wondrous bliss.

12.
Tehillim, loc. cit.
13.
Parentheses are in the original text.
14.
Note of the Rebbe: “In addition to the fact that love itself and
likewise awe are individual positive commandments [in and of themselves].”
15.
Devarim 11:22.
16.
Tehillim 97:12.
17.
Iyov 32:8.