A Fresh Start

I felt nothing. After going to the mikva, and getting on time for the sunrise prayer service, wasn’t this supposed to be the holy? I was bogged down with different personal issues I was going through. My mind couldn’t focus at all on the prayers.
 
You know how most prayer services go, it’s a run to the finish line. I found myself running through the prayers but when I was about to say the Shema I found myself stopping completely and asking myself, “what am I about to say?”  Everyone else continued, but I closed my eyes and just focused on what I was doing.
 
“Listen Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashem the One (and only).”  Suddenly the problems vanished. I realized that I was wearing Hashem’s garments. In the Talmud it explains that Hashem also wears Tefillin.  Meaning that according to the Maharsha, Hashem wears them to demonstrate his closeness and devotion to us. Just like we the Jewish people wear them as a symbol of our devotion to Him. This patterns the theme within Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) written by King Solomon regarding the verse “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine.”
 
My Emuna that I normally feel when I go to Rav Lazer Brody’s weekly emuna class came back. It was as if I was stepping into the world of Emuna. By wearing Tefillin we acknowledge that Hashem revealed himself to our nation on Mount Sinai after taking us out of Egypt. If we have the Emuna in this, and we know through Rav Arush’s teachings that everything is for the best, then these problems that we face, are also for our best, whether or not we can explain them or understand them. 
 
We keep hearing about the importance of starting anew from our beloved teachers Rabbi Shalom Arush and Rabbi Brody, but how do we do it? First we need to take a look at the book Garden of Wisdom.  Rabbi Arush brings an amazing insight into the importance of starting fresh.  Making a new start isn’t something that only righteous people do; rather it is the will of Hashem and for every one of us! Every one of us needs to believe that it is the will of Hashem to start anew and put any mistakes we made aside. Otherwise, it is as if we believe only in the Yetzer Hara and not Hashem!
 
The Evil Inclination wants us to be depressed all the time and regretful and self-doubting. Remember in the book Garden of Gratitude? This is like our enemy Amalek, whose numerical value – 240 – is the same as sofek, meaning doubt.  The Evil Inclination always wants you to doubt yourself and remember how bad you are.  But Rav Arush is teaching us the paramount importance to start again, fresh right now and that it is the will of Hashem for you to do so. So are we going to believe in Hashem, or our pitiness? Hashem is calling us to start again, now!
 
Each time I came to Hashem’s name I imagined myself starting from scratch remembering that we wear the Tefillin to remember our history, and the challenges we’ve all gone through both on a private and national level.  We just need to remember to pause when things get shaky for us and start again.
 
In an article written by Rav Arush, he explained how Rebbe Nachman attributed all of his success to his new beginnings no matter what the set back.  Since hearing this concept of starting over I found it really difficult to apply. Two things however can help us make this concept a part of our daily life. The first thing we need to do is to set aside personal time to pray in solitude in our own words. This gives us the time necessary to cope with the past, to ponder and reflect and make amends with our actions by asking Hashem for forgiveness and vowing to not repeat anything negative we have done.
 
The second method that we can use is to imagine throughout the day as if all of our actions are individual picture frames in a movie. By focusing mentally on each frame you can take yourself out of any immediate reactions that might take place in the day. For example sometimes we get very busy with errands and day to day activities which make us just go with the flow. In the meantime we speak evil speech or forget to guard our eyes, and before you know it we have sinned and forgotten to bring Hashem into our life. By taking a step back and stopping the hurricane of life we can refocus on the spot, on the present frame of life and make a present decision to start again fresh with Hashem, correcting our movie.