In my first article in this publication, “My Journey in Emuna,’ I wrote about how Rabbi Shalom Arush’s books “The Garden of Peace” and “The Garden of Emuna” have changed my life. Implementing all of Rabbi Arush’s ideas and guidelines for living my life with Emuna has helped me to achieve more spiritual happiness each day.
Since the beginning, for me, the toughest part of Rabbi Arush’s advice to fulfill has been the hour of personal prayer. Personal prayer is not part of our daily liturgy. Its just what it sounds like. Its speaking to Hashem in my own words from my heart. I remember first trying it, and when I finished praying and looked at my watch, it had only been seven minutes! It had felt like an eternity! But each day or week, I’d find something else to add, usually in thanking Hashem, and built it up until there were days in the week that I reached an hour! What a miracle! What a gift from Hashem!
In my buildup to an hour, I also noticed a correlation between my proportion of prayer time to the sweetness of my day. When I only did a half hour, only about half my day went smoothly until I lost it. The days I got in an hour went so smoothly. I don’t mean that life was perfect. I mean my ability to cope with what life threw at me held up. Personal prayer gave me the spiritual strength to handle the stresses of life, no matter the source.
One would think that with such experience, I would be consistently praying for an hour every day. Wrong. My problem was with my daily trials and tribulations. Even after reading “The Garden of Gratitude,” another book by Rabbi Arush, I couldn’t thank Hashem for my difficulties. Even though I intellectually understood that everything is for the best, my heart didn’t feel that way. So when I would start to thank Him, my Evil Inclination (E.I.) would say, “You’re not being honest! You’re not really thankful! You don’t really appreciate tribulation X, Y or Z! You want all your wishes fulfilled!” Eventually I would lose my desire to pray and stop early. On really bad days, my E.I. convinced me to not even start!
This finally started changing for the better when I read something from “The Garden of Purity” (for men only). Rav Arush writes, “Even if you feel that the gratitude you’re expressing is not 100% sincere, and you’d rather wail and scream about what’s hurting you, the gratitude you express will illuminate the truth and enable you to pray properly with the right perspective.” This was the answer I needed to finally shut up my E.I.! For me, what the Rav was saying is, it doesn’t matter if inside I feel sad, worried, angry, anxious etc. about X, Y or Z, I need to take the action of Emuna and thank Hashem for it. The main action for demonstrating my Emuna is prayer. By taking that action through thanking Hashem, Hashem will eventually enable me to feel thankful as well! It doesn’t matter that right now I’m not feeling thankful, I still need to thank. I need to take the action first.
At the giving of the Torah, Bnai Yisrael responded to Hashem, “We will do and we will listen!” I think it meant they will take action knowing it’s the right thing to do, and then their hearts will feel it’s the right thing as well. In Kabbalah, it’s taught that this world is known as “the world of action.” Hashem may know and credit us for our thoughts, but what brings about change in ourselves and this world are the actions we take. I can read the books, I can listen to the CDs, I can be inspired; but I won’t really start to grow in Emuna and change until I take action—the action of Emuna, the action of prayer. Prayers thanking Him for everything as if it’s good, even when I don’t see it and especially when I don’t feel it!
Indeed, this has been my latest experience. Every time I thank Hashem enough times for something I view as seemingly bad, something I feel terrible about, He throws at least one thought into my head showing me the good in that “bad thing”! Then I’m able to thank Him and really mean it! This has made it much easier to sit down and pray consistently each and every day. The only times I’ve missed my hour were because I forgot this principle of saying thanks even when I don’t want to or feel like it.
May Hashem help all of Am Yisrael to open up our mouths and thank Him, especially for those things we don’t feel thankful for. By taking the actions of Emuna, may this help us all to change and grow, and to merit us the full redemption of our people, speedily in our days, Amen!
By Pinney Wolman
When he’s not strengthening his own Emuna or helping spread Emuna to others, Pinney Wolman is a full-time personal trainer in NYC and the Bergen County area. He can be reached at [email protected].
