14 Vaeira 5777 -Are You Ashamed Or Bashful -Understanding The Blessing From The Curse

There is a powerful truth about mankind, that at our very core we cannot withstand the glare of honesty. There is a sobering saying amongst our sages that says, “A man knows in his soul the bitterness of his heart,” which speaks of a man knowing the truth of who he is and where he spiritually and morally stands. In very large measure, our generation fails to live up to the generations of men who were willing to live up to their beliefs. I am not speaking of man of religiosity, but of man such as the founding fathers of America and its constitution, for example. Here were men who were true to their beliefs of inalienable rights for all mankind, and were willing to pay the price for what they believed in, whether it be when George Washington fought at war with the English, or when he stepped down after his terms of presidency. To quote Polonius, of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “This above all: to thine own self be true.” There are men to whom the rule of life is, “The ends justify the means,” and amongst them there are those of which the ends is no more just than the means. These are people who will continually pursue ways and means to intoxicate their conscious so as to not have to face the deterioration of their humanness, but ultimately to no avail, as dishonesty and the shame thereof shall extract its fee from their soul, casting them into fear, insecurity and paranoia. The kernel of revolt within man begins with shame. Steadily and surely the shame of dishonesty within one’s self builds into anxiety which ultimately evolves into a paralysis that denies the individual of pursuing happiness. In this lecture, the venomous shame of, “A man knows in his soul the bitterness of his heart,” is the issue of modernity that will meet with the healing powers of Judaism. What we are going to learn here is that being bashful is the cure for overcoming shame. ----------- Here is a link to the written notes of this lecture, which will be available until February 15, 2017, after which you can email [email protected] to request them: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4614078/14.%20Vaeira%205777%20-Are%20You%20Ashamed%20of%20Bashful%20-Understanding%20the%20blessing%20from%20the%20curse.pdf