Elijah the Prophet

A little while back, Dr. Zev Ballen, a fellow-writer for Breslev Israel, posted something up here about a segula (spiritually-conducive ploy) for helping kids with autism.

The segula came with a pretty amazing story: Eliyahu HaNavi, the prophet Elijah, had appeared to one of the hidden 36 tzadikim (righteous individuals) in whose merit the whole world is sustained, and taught them a spiritual process for curing autism, amongst other things.

That hidden tzaddik had in turn told Rav Arush about the segula, and he had passed it on to his students, some of whom had already been doing it with amazing results by the time Zev wrote about it.

Dr. Ballen clarified that the segula was not just for people with autism – it was a general remedy that would help anyone who was struggling with the general concept of being a soul stuck in a body.

Once I read that, I called my husband at work and asked him if he’d do the segula for me. It’s pretty hard work – you have to not speak from sunset on; learn Torah all night; finish the whole book of Psalms; say a full confession; do an hour of personal prayer and then go and dunk in a mikva and pray with a netz, or sunrise minyan.

Mentsch that he is, he agreed to do it.

He did it this past Thursday night, and apart from one hour in the middle where he fell asleep, he pretty much managed to do what was required. I was so touched that he’d made the effort, because staying up all night is not so much fun, even if you are learning Torah and fixing your soul.

That was Thursday night. Friday night, one of my children, who has had bed-wetting issues for six years’ solid, had a dry night. Saturday night, they also had a dry night. I was pleased, but not so surprised. We’ll see what happens next, but even one dry night is a massive deal for that particular child.

Otherwise, there were no fireworks, bells, lottery wins – but what there was, was a pervasive feeling throughout the house that everything is OK. That life is good. That everything is great, and only going to get better, Bezrat Hashem.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had that particular vibe in my house for months and months. We all just felt ‘happy’ – there’s no other way to describe it.

So I started to tell other (religious) people about the segula, and the reactions have been interesting. Some people dismissed it as complete nonsense. You can understand why. I mean, Eliyahu Hanavi ‘died’ thousands of years’ ago, and to accept that he came back and actually had a conversation with someone today is ludicrous – if you don’t really believe our religious writings, the words of our rabbis, and the ability of G-d to do these things.

Other people believed it had happened (mostly…) but had a hard time accepting that the segula was meant for normal people like you and me (or my husband and yours). You had to be immensely ‘holy’ to make it work. You had to be immensely focused on your torah study and prayer. You had to be immensely, unnaturally ‘happy’ for it to really be effective. Who could meet all those criteria, and still live in our neighborhood?

We ignored them. If I’ve learnt one thing from the last few months, it’s that G-d values the effort, and the desire, above everything else. Even though my husband fell asleep for an hour in the middle, I know G-d was pleased as punch with his attempt to do the segula.

If he ever tries it again, G-d may even let him go all the way through and do it ‘properly’ – but if not, the point is the effort, the point is not the outcome.

We really wanted to do it. We really believed that Eliyahu HaNavi had taught it to a hidden tzaddik who had passed it on to Rav Arush to help us ‘fix’ a lot of things, including autism, including bed-wetting, including a sense of being ‘dislocated’ from the world.

How well we actually did it was a moot point. All we needed to do is try.

Sometimes, I get a bit frustrated with people – ‘frum’ people – who are looking for reasons ‘why not’ all the time.

Whenever I try to do what Rav Arush and what Rebbe Nachman teach, things always but always improve tremendously.

I usually try to wake up before the kids to do my hour of personal prayer. On the mornings I don’t manage it, it’s nearly always a ‘rough’ morning, and I marvel at how effortlessly and smoothly they get off to school most of the time.

I marvel at how my problems get solved with minimal effort from me; I marvel at how I come through even very tough circumstances with my mind, soul and marriage intact, and even stronger than when I started.

What is the secret to all these tremendous blessings?

I try to do what Rebbe Nachman teaches, to talk to G-d for an hour every single day. That’s it. There’s nothing else to it.

But when I tell others about the amazing miracles I see from doing my hitbodedut, I often just get a bunch of reasons ‘why not’. People are too busy. People don’t buy in to it. People aren’t Breslevers. People don’t need to do it (because they are already completely ‘fixed’…) The list goes on and on.

But it comes down to one thing, really. They don’t believe. They don’t want to believe, because if they did, that would change a whole bunch of fundamental assumptions, and force them to accept their own smallness in the world. And most people are simply too arrogant to accept that they aren’t in charge.

It’s a shame, because all of us in 2012 are in need of some massive miracles. Some people need a miracle to pay their bills and repay their debts; some need a miracle to glue their marriages back together, or rescue a kid that’s fallen into a very bad crowd; some need a miracle just to want to get out of bed in the mornings, or even to take their next breath.

We all need miracles. And G-d is sending us the means to acquire them, whether it’s talking to Him for an hour or day, or following the instructions of Eliyahu HaNavi. If we try, instead of making excuses and looking for reasons ‘why not’ – we’ll get them. But you can only get a miracle if you believe that they – and G-d, and Eliyahu HaNavi – actually exist in the first place.