17 Nissan 5783 – 8 April 2023
Fallen asleep
There are those who have fallen into a deep sleep and experience nothing or hardly anything from Hashem. This can happen due to giving in to physical desires like food or drink and material desires or due to evil deeds.
People who have fallen asleep lose their wisdom and intellect to see Hashem in the world and certainly to recognise His works and gifts to the world.
But it is impossible for anyone to rouse him unless he first stirs on his own – since there must be some “arousel from below”.
This is an important lesson for us because, as Noahids, we often have so many people around us who are in deep sleep. Sometimes it seems as if we enter the dormitory of an orphanage in the night We can talk all we want, explain all we want, but there is no one listening.
Awakening
But as with ordinary sleeping people, there are times when a person may briefly wake up, have a glimmer of awareness of the world around them, a glimmer of Hashem or at least religiosity.
Those are the moments we need to pick up to keep someone awake, because of their own accord they would go back to sleep
Don’t overload such a person with the 7 Noahide Laws, or with pieces from the Torah, don’t try to prove to them religions are all idolatry Because when people just wake up their eyes are not yet used to daylight The light of the Torah would blind them.
In Kituzr Likutye Moharan, we learn that we should approach these people with stories. Stories linger longer in a person’s mind and thought and reflection keeps someone awake.
A story – The cured sick person
Rabbi Akiva learned than one of his student had fallen ill. He asked if any were looking for him. He was answered that he was a stranger in the city and had no friends and that his parents lived in Galilee. – Then, said Rabbi Akiva I will look for him. He swept the sick person’s room, cleaned it up, changed the sheets of the bed, gave the sick person the medicines he needed to take and said to his student: – Soon you will be better. – You have given me life back, the student told Rabbi Akiva. As he walked away from there, Rabbi Akiva commented to his students, “Whoever does not visit a sick person is as if he shed his blood.
Tiferet of Chesed
Tonight is the 3 count of the Omer of 5783. It is meditating on giving in love and expecting nothing in return. Rabbi Akiva expected nothing in return from his student. He acted because that was the right thing to do. The practice of Tiferet of Chesed is that we do this not only with people we love or people we respect, but also for people we do not know, or do not deserve our love, including those who have hurt us. If they need our help and there is no one else who can help them, let us at least consider possible ways we can help them. Because we are all children of Hashem.
By Angelique Sijbolts
Sources: MyOmer by theThe Meaningful Life Center, BreslovApp Kitzur Likutey Moharan Lesson #60 * 9, De mooiste Joodse verhalen by Victor Malka
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