Aron’s posterous

Here is my response, garnered from this weeks Torah portion, of course. :-).

Are you a slave or are you a master? Do you exert control over your surroundings, possessions or do they exert their control over you?

Our daily tightrope.

    All worldly object are governed by two energies - positive and negative. Its negative energy allows it to be a catalyst for negativity.  Its positive energy allows it to be a catalyst for positivity.  The negative energy is tapped into when the user is a slave to the object.  The positive energy is tapped into the when the user is a master over the object.

    These dual energies create tension, a tension which demands us tightrope walking.  We must balance our distance with our involvement.  Our distance from the object is necessary in order not to be enslaved to the object thereby succumbing to its negative energy. However, our involvement is necessary in order to harness its positive energy, thereby making us the master over the object.

How do we do that?!

Yaakov gives Eisav a wordly lesson.

    Yaakov prepares to meet with his brother Eisav in this weeks Torah portion.  Prior to their meeting Yaakov sends a message to Eisav telling him, "עם לבן גרתי", that he has lived with Lavan.  Our sages learn that Yaakov was telling Eisav one of two things.

(1) גרתי coming from the root of גר, that although Yaakov spent 20 years in the house of Lavan he was still like a foreigner, an alien to the lifestyle of Lavan.

(2) גרתי, with the same letters as תרי"ג, representing the 613 מצוות which Yaakov fulfilled although he was in Lavans house.

    To positively affect Lavan demands being an alien in his world, being a גר. To positively affect physicality demands being an alien to it, to be unshackled.  Shackled to physicality disables you from positively affecting it.  Unshackled enables you.  When you are not a foreigner to physicality, but rather very much at home with it, you can not aspire to harness its potential positive energy.  If you are a slave you can't be a master.  First you must release the shackles which physicality has upon you and only than you can be its master.

Response to bloggers question.

There are Rabbis who are proponents of banning the internet.  They are afraid that people will be influenced by it negatively.  That shows a certain weakness.  It requires greater strength to be involved and yet be a master.

Be a master!

Good Shabbos,
Aron Grinshtein

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     The purpose of creation is to create harmony in the world. To create a world where each and every creation sings in tandem with the next. Where each creation realizes the purpose for which it was created and sees how the next creation adds that which it cant.  Where each instrument plays its own song whilst being respectful and cognizant of the instruments around it allowing them to play theirs.

    Harmony is able to occur when each person/thing is able to reach beyond themselves and peer into a larger vision, a global picture.  When we rise above the constraints of our own ego and tune into something greater than ourselves.  As long as we are engrossed in our own little world we are incapable of giving space for someone/thing else.  When we tap into G-ds vision than can we be at peace with ourselves and our surroundings.  When we tap into the CEO's vision we can understand our role and the roles of those arround us.

    Kabbalah explains that during the times of Moshiach we will all be in tune with our global mission. We wont see ourselves as isolated beings, but rather as one organism. All of creation working side by side, hand in hand, complementing each others vices and accentuating each others virtues.  It will be a time when each of us will be able to peer beyond our self absorbed egos.  We will be in sync, drumming to the same beat.

    Disclaimer: The following is my own opinion, feel free to disagree.

    I believe that as we are getting closer to the times of Moshiach, the technology developed is in sync with the very ideas which the era of Moshiach will usher in.  Technology enables us to bridge the barriers which naturally divide us.  Although technologies such as the radio, TV, airplanes shrunk the barriers which naturally divide us, they still were a buffer between what really occurs and those listening and watching events.  The people are still isolated from each other, in the dark as per what is really happening. (Thats why I get questions from people asking me how I could live in such a crime ridden place as South Africa.  They aren't really in sync with what is happening.  They only get the news broadcasts. The news broadcasts news that sells.)

    Twitter changes everything.  Twitter shatters all of the remaining barriers.  No longer is there a buffer, no longer is there a static signal which shades and 'pollutes' the news that gets transmitted.  Twitter brings people together, it unites people.  Whilst following the tragedy in Mumbai I wasnt in South Africa, I was in Mumbai.  I was connected to a place 4294 miles away from my own physical location.  I was connected, not isolated.  Twitter connects.  Twitter breaks down any possibility of isolation.  We are now connected.  Twitter is real time, real place, and real people.

    Twitter is here because Moshiach is near.

I thank you for reading this long piece.  I await and appreciate your thoughts and comments.  They mean a lot to me.

Yours truly,

R' Aron Grinshtein

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I've shared a document with you called ""From rags to riches", so...":
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dggwm9cz_28hdm49whn&invite=g5mz9nt

It's not an attachment -- it's stored online at Google Docs. To open this document, just click the link above.
---

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Kabbalah of Twitter outline:

• Isolation leads to ego.
• Connectedness leads to lack of ego.
• World is naturally disconnected, places are naturally is isolation from each other.
• This stems from the isolation between the physical and G-dly worlds.  We aren't cognizant of our G-dly source.   If we were we would not have our own ego.
  
• Purpose of creation to bridge G-dly and physical worlds, to connect them, to take them out of their isolation.  As that happens by extension the world also becomes more interconnected.
• Twitter brings the world together, real time, real place, real people.

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Purpose: To provoke you to rethink the way you go shopping.

I hate shopping.  I hate walking around from shop to shop looking for things I want or need.  After a mere couple of hours of shopping, I am drained of energy and feel like a deer in headlight.  Shopping is a severely disorientating event for me.

I ask myself, why? Why does shopping drain me? Why does it sap my energy?  Lastly, am I alone in this, or can you relate?

Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.  You may agree or disagree.  Either way, I hope for this to provoke thoughts into the way we shop.

Walk into two houses. 

Time to use your imagination

Imagine yourself walking into two houses. Both houses are the same, they differ only in their contents.

Both houses greet you with high ceilings, wooden floors, copious amounts of space, large windows creating space for sunlight to stream through.  They differ only in their contents.

You walk into the first house, immediately you notice how uncluttered it is, there are few objects.  Just like the other house, there is a high ceiling, wooden flooring, large windows with sunlight streaming forth.  Save from a couch set and a few simple pictures the room is bare.

Now you walk into the second house, here you can't miss the clutter.  Again there is the high ceiling, wooden flooring and large windows.  However this time there is more stuff.  Much more stuff.  There are shelves with all sorts of odds and ends, souvenirs from around the globe, books on every topic under the sun.  There is a fish tank sitting alongside a bird cage. There is a cupboard housing all of the food for these pets.  There is a slew of magazines on the coffee table.  The sun is doing its best to peep through the windows but all of the stuff is blocking it out.  

Can you feel the difference between the two houses? Same house, different contents.  Does one feel fresh and clean, inviting you in with its lack of stuff? Does the other repel you with its overabundance of stuff, cluttering all of the space?

Why are we, human beings, attracted to places that are clean and fresh, lacking copious amounts of 'stuff'?  Conversely, why are we repelled when we walk into places that have too much 'stuff'? Same place, different stuff.  Same space, different contents.  Could contents and items really make such a big difference?

I am not a scientist, nor a psychiatrist, but I would like to propose an idea which resonates with me.  It may also resonate with you.

'Stuff' nibbles away at your energy.

Everything around you gets noticed.  We, humans, constantly scan and process all the information around us.  We process the information to bring sense and order to our surroundings.  A picture of our surrounding is created by our brain constantly working in the background painting that picture.  Every object gets painted into the picture.

'Stuff' sucks your energy.  There is brain drain going on with every item that surrounds you.  Without you being consciously aware of it the more things there are in a room the more things your brain has to process.  The more things there are in a room the more exhausted you become.  A cluttered room is a recipe for sapped energy and exhaustion.  Each and every additional item literally sucks the life force out of you.

Applied to shopping.

When you walk into stores the same thing occurs.  You walk in with intention, intention to buy specific items.  You walk in with purpose, a goal.  What greets you is a slew of redundant items inviting you to play a game of visual and mental obstacle course.  All of those redundant items sap precious energy from you.

It is no surprise that I am exhausted after shopping.  Every extra item in my house drains my energy.  The store puts hundreds of extra items in front of me which drains my energy -- cubed.  Store shopping = energy sapping^3.

Wouldn't it be nice...

Wouldn't it be nice if I could walk into a store and they presented just the objects I wanted?

Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to walk aimlessly from aisle to aisle looking for what I really want? Or better yet, flit from store to store when one store doesn't have the item I wanted in stock? Or they don't stock it at all?

You may tell me, “Aron, it sounds like a great idea, but, it is not economical. It doesn’t have economies of scale and such a store would never be able to compete in price. Even if you could come up with a way for a store to stock just the things each consumer wanted – which is an impossibility on its own right – I would rather the energy sapping of all of the items as opposed to the hefty prices I would have to pay to shop at such a store!”

You are right. However my intent here is not to suggest making a store like that. Rather my intention here is to bring to your attention a problem that shopping brings. My intention here is to provoke and challenge your thoughts into the way we shop.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t have to go shopping for things, but things would go shopping for me?

Thanks for attention. If this article resonates within you and you are interested in testing out something that may solve this problem.  Please email me or call me at agrinshtein@gmail.com or 078 725 4358.

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