THE PRODUCT LIST
PART 1
RUCHNIUS IDEAS
· The Sefiras HaOmer Chart
· The Chag Log -- Your Spiritual Diary
· Life-At-A-Glance - The 25 Year Diary
· Talking Numerically-Significant-Minute Clock
· Gashmius Reports Magazine
· The Don't Wants Club
· The Conduit
DAVENING IDEAS
· The Geulah Siddur
· Removable Sticky Arrows
· The Prayer Pacer
· The Talking Brachos-For-Kavannah Machine
· The Birchas HaMazon Booklets
· The Krias Sh'mah al HaMitah Booklet
DIVEIKUS IDEAS
· The Ribone Phone
· The Shechinah Phone
· My Partnership Agreement With Hashem
· The Talking Diveikus Machine
· Diveikus Cards
· Letter From G-d
· Inspiring Quote From The Baal Shem Tov
· The "What A Wonderful World" Video with Louis Armstrong
· The To-You Turner
· The Yichudim Simulator
· Shabbos Meal Prayer
· The Geulah Club
· The Geulah Bracelets
· The Connector
· The Director
· Free Help on How to Get Closer to Hashem
· The Simulator
· Yeshivah Gedolahs Sing
· The Sleep Log
EMUNAH IDEAS
· The Prognosticator
· The Hashem's Protection System and Hashgachah System Integrity Alerting Machine
· The Heavenly Wake Up Service
· The Heavenly Fall Asleep Service
· The Heavenly Insect-Prevention Service
· The 40-Day Yisurim Log
· Free Help for Trouble With Emunah
· The Gratitude Book
SELF-HELP IDEAS
· The Ablator
· The Liberator
· The Excitement!!! Popper
· Mussar Songs
· The Identity Finder
· Your Personal-Weather Report
· The Frustration Tolerator
· How To Stop Feeling Sad
· The "It's Okay To Be Insignificant" Plaque.
· The Work-On-Feeling-Okay Plaque
· The “Liberate Yourself By Saying No” Sign
· The Happy "No" Picture
LEARNING IDEAS
· The “Learning Torah Is The Best Thing You Can Do With Your Time” Sign
· Gemora Messages
· Video Shiurim From Our Gedolim
· Watch and Learn
· Eat-and-Learn Restaurants
· Read and Learn
· Call and Learn
· Fly and Learn
· Ride and Learn
· Portable Torah Facts
· The Talking Brachos-In-Learning Machine
· Wait-and-Learn
· Applause While Learning
· The Torah Pocket-Library
· The Thinking-In-Learning-Room Picture
· The Punishments Book
· The Kavanah Headband
· The Portable Arba Minim Buyer's Guide
· Free Help for Problems with Learning
· Complete Eyen Mishpat, Plus
· Succah-Builder's Guide, Concise
· Difference Between Inside and Outside Sixth
· The Handy Havdalah Chart
· The Parshios Chart
TZADDIKIM IDEAS
· The Arba Ammos Trainer
· The Reconfirmation-Of-The-Oath Plaque
· The Zap Images Bookmarklet
ANTI-yetzer hora IDEAS
· The Mental Anti-yetzer hora Light Saber
· The Mental Anti-yetzer hora Flamethrower
· The Mental Anti-yetzer hora Machete Knife
· The Slicer
· The Scalpel
· The Face Smasher
· The Anti-Smoking Campaign
· The Anti-Overeating Campaign
· The Talking Silver Cigarette Case
· The Torah Diet
· The Maoz Tzur (Rock Of Ages) Battle Song
· The “You have to get more organized and take better care of yourself” Plaque
· Portable Torah Facts
· The Amalek Revealer
· The Disconnector
MISCELLANEOUS IDEAS
· The Megillas Esther Holder
· The Soap-Remnant Remaker
· Free Help with Hiccups
(Donations collected through my friend, Burt West's PayPal account.)
(Donations collected through my friend, Burt West's PayPal account.)
THE PRODUCT LIST
PART 2
IMAGINARY BRAIN
IMPLANTS (IBI's)
· Learning Torah Is The Best Thing You Can Do With Your Time IBI
· Good/Bad, Bad/Good Invertor IBI
· Diveikus IBI
· Bitachon IBI
· Emunah IBI
· Impulse Blocker/Evoker IBI
· Feeling Blocker/Evoker IBI
· Thought Blocker/Evoker IBI
· Kavannah In Davening IBI
· Clarity In Learning IBI
ARMAMENTARIUM FOR THE FAINT HEARTED
· The Ablator
· The Unwanted-Thoughts Scatterer
· The Mental Anti-yetzer hora Light Saber
· The Mental Anti-yetzer hora Flamethrower
· The Mental Anti-yetzer hora Machete Knife
· The Slicer
· The Scalpel
· The Face Smasher
· The Maoz Tzur (Rock Of Ages) Battle Song
TORAH TOYS IDEAS
· Toy Yeshivah
· Play Chasunah
· Toy Beis HaKinesses
· Play Shabbos Table
· Play Lail Pesach
· Play Simchas Torah
· Play Hakafos
· Toy Eged Bus, #1 or #2
· Toy Succah
· Play Hachnosas Sefer Torah
· Toy Western Wall
· Toy Noach's Ark
· Toy Eshel Avraham
TALMUD TOYS IDEAS
· Avodas Beis HaMikdash
· Mishkan and Shevotim in Midbar
· The Mishkan and 39 Melachos
· Avodas Parah Adumah
· Bikkurim
· Succahs, Kosher and Posul
· Toy Eglah Arufah
INTERPERSONAL IDEAS
· The Chutzpah Smasher
· The Feel-Their-Distress Ball
· Brachah Cards
· Frumy Friendship Cards
· Chag Cards
· The “Leave Them The Way They Are.” Plaque
· The Find-The-Similarities Activity Book
THOUGHT IDEAS
· Thought Mail
· Thought Cleaners
· The Unwanted-Thoughts Scatterer
· The Thought Mail Scrambler
· The Interfering-Thoughts Counter
· The Thoughts Organizer
· The Eitz HaChaim Thought Guarder
TSHUVAH IDEAS
· The Point-Of-A-Needle Hole
· Removable Point-Of-A
Needle-Hole Stickers
· The Middah K'neged Middah Revealer
MIDDOS IDEAS
· The My-Own-Faults Finder
· The See-The-Good Glass
· See-Their-Good / See-Their-Bad Glass
· Bad Middos Ablatement Buttons
· Middos Refinement Buttons
· The My-Faults Book
· The Personality-Trait Blender
· The What's-Right-With-This-Picture Coloring Book
KABBALAH IDEAS
· The Kabbalah Alarm Clock
· The Identity Finder
· Megillas Esther, Revealed
MUSSAR SONGS
· Mussar Songs - home page
· Welcome To The Olum HaZeh Correctional Facility (Hashem’s Prison Planet)
· Everything That Happens
· Have A Smile For Everyone
· You Have That Fault Yourself
· Don’t Get Mad Or Hurt
· These Are Your Guides
· Make Your Enemy Your Friend
· Find A Word Nicer Than Stupid
· Everyone’s Had Better Days
· Just Don’t Get Angry
· A Nice Little Happy Day
· Give Me My Mussar With A Beat
ESSAY NUGGETS
· "I Saw An Upside Down World."
· The Down and The Up
· The Value of Low Self Esteem
· They Don't Play Basketball in Heaven
· Middah K'neged Middah
· On Yisurim
· “You have to get more organized and take better care of yourself.”
· "Good!"
· On Learning Torah L'Shmah
· On Looking For Happiness
· On The Animosity Between Father and Son
· On One's Changing Madrega
· There HAS To Be Something Wrong With Everyone
· Dealing With Adversity
· Life In This World
· How Words Of Torah Help
· “Help me. Save me. Help me. Save me.”
· How To Stop Feeling Sad
· Getting In The Mood For Tisha B'Av
(Donations collected through my friend, Burt West's PayPal account.)
(Donations collected through my friend, Burt West's PayPal account.)
"I Saw An Upside Down World."
The gemora (Pesachim 50a, Baba Basra 10b) relates that Rav Yosef, the son of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, fainted and “died” but came back to life. When his father asked him what he saw while he was “dead,” he replied, “I saw an upside down world. The ones on top [in this world] are on the bottom [in the next world] and the ones on the bottom are on the top.” His father said to him, “My son, you saw a clear world.”
You therefore need to be afraid when you feel that you are “on top” in any way, and glad when you feel you are “on the bottom.” It is probably safe to say that most of the things that are valued in this world are devalued in the World To Come and vice versa.
The Down and The Up
Life is full of ups and downs. We usually think of the downs coming after the ups, as in “Everything that goes up must come down.” The Baal Shem Tov taught that many times the opposite is true - namely, it’s the downs that come before the ups. That is, when Hashem wants to bring someone to a higher madrega (level), He will first lower the person before He brings him up. The Baal Shem Tov compared it to throwing something up into the air - the farther up you want to throw it, the lower down you must first lower your hand. So when you’re in a down, try to predict and anticipate which “up” is going to come afterwards. It will make the down phase that much easier to accept lovingly and gladly.
The Value of Low Self Esteem
Mussar seforim teach us that gaavah (conceit, arrogance) is the worst character trait, and its offspring, chutzpah (impudence, forwardness) is a close second. They say we must avoid gaavah at all costs, even sometimes to the point of making ourselves lowly. (See Rabbeinu Bechaya, Vayikra 1:1, s.v. Shlomo -- brought in both Hebrew and English in my product idea, The My-Faults Book.)
The problem with high self esteem is that it can easily and unwittingly lead a person into gaavah. Having low self esteem makes that more unlikely to happen.
Hashem says that He and someone with gaavah cannot exist in the same world together. Yet, He is very close to someone with a broken spirit. Having low self esteem and recognizing and remembering your faults, makes you have a broken spirit, and therefore makes Hashem want to be close to you.
Middah K'neged Middah
Middah k'neged middah is commonly translated as measure-for-measure. It is the basic way that Hashem runs the world. It means that Hashem treats you exactly like you treat Him and other people. Most of the time, He uses other people to make you be treated the way you have treated either Him, them or someone else, but sometimes He won’t use people as His messengers, such as when He visits you with a disease or some tragedy or disaster, chas v'shalom.
The purpose of middah k'neged middah is to get you to realize what you’re doing wrong and then to correct it. The problem is that the consequence usually occurs way after you’ve already forgotten that you did the thing that caused it. At first glance, this may seem unfair, chas v'shalom, for how, you might think, can you realize what the punishment is for to be able to correct the cause. However, we are taught that if the punishment came immediately after the cause, that would negate your free choice. This way, you have to constantly be examining your actions for fear that they might cause some negative reaction somewhere down the line.
In addition, it's not too hard to figure out what the cause was when you put your mind to it.
On Yisurim (troubles)
There are 4 steps in yisurim:
1.You do a bad action or think a bad thought,
2.Hashem send you a yisurim,
3.You recognize the connection between steps 1 and 2,
4.You do teshuvah.
“You have to get more organized and take better care of yourself.”
A little while ago, a young man was telling me about what a shambles his life had become. With very honest, fatherly concern, I said to him, “You have to get more organized and take better care of yourself.” Without my saying much more, in just a little while he wound up doing just that, baruch Hashem.
A few days after telling him that, I realized that I also had become more organized and was also taking better care of myself.
I then realized that those words can apply to all of us, at whatever level of functioning we are, and at every stage of our lives.
So, I want to tell you, with very honest, fatherly concern, “You have to get more organized and take better care of yourself.”
"Good!"
The gemora says that in the World To Come we will be able to sincerely thank Hashem not only for the “good” that happened to us in This World but also for the “bad,” for we will see that even the bad was really good and for our good. It’s only in This World that we see the bad as bad. Therefore, if, when something “bad” happens to you, you continually say, “Good!” (meaning, I’m glad it’s happening to me), even though you don’t first believe it, after a while you will get to see the good that was hidden in the event.
Another point is that when you see someone who was mean to you or whom you don’t like suffering, you truly think, “Good, he deserves what he’s getting. Maybe he'll change.” So it is with yourself. If you were objective and could remember all your actions, when something “bad” happened to you, you would truly be able to say, “Good! I deserve what I’m getting. Maybe I'll change.”
On Learning Torah L'Shmah
You can probably remember how badly it makes you feel when people neglect you or pay no attention to you. Well, the Torah, k’viyochol, is the same way. The Torah likes it when you pay attention to it and spend time learning it. That’s what “learning l’shmah” means - learning it for ITS sake - because it likes to be learned. Otherwise, when it’s not being learned, it feels neglected - and you know how bad that feels.
So be nice to the Torah.
Even if you’d rather be doing something else, learn it - for ITS sake - so that it will feel that people care about it. Even if you have to force yourself, or the subject matter is difficult, or you can’t seem to understand it, or it hurts your brain to try to figure out what it’s saying, or you keep thinking of all these other things you should be doing instead - learn it anyway - for ITS sake - l’shmah.
Because it likes to be learned.
On Looking For Happiness
Someone who had been very depressed told me that he was looking for happiness. This is what I told him: “Don’t look for happiness. Look to do the right thing in Hashem’s eyes and He’ll make you very happy. Looking for happiness will just make you sad because real happiness only comes from doing mitzvos and from getting approval from Hashem - any other happiness is temporary and is replaced with longing and sadness.”
On The Animosity Between Father And Son (And Son And Father)
It is written in Malachi 3:24: “and He will return the heart of the fathers to the sons and the heart of the sons to their fathers.” This verse is talking about the days of Moshiach. Only then will the hearts of the fathers and sons be turned to each other, but until then their hearts will be turned away from each other. During our present days, before the coming of Moshiach, the distance between father and son is needed, expected and even welcomed, because without the distance now there could be no “turning towards” later.
On One’s Changing Madrega
Seforim HaKedoshim tell us that a person’s purpose in the world is to serve Hashem and reveal Hashem’s presence in the world. Ones “madrega” is the degree that one is fulfilling that purpose at any one moment. Since no two people are exactly alike in the way they think or act or look or view the world, I would like to postulate that no two people’s madregas are the same, either. Rather, each madrega is occupied by only one person at any one time.
We are also told that a Jew never stays on one madrega for too long but is always either going up or going down. So your madrega is always changing: at one time you’re on one madrega and at the next time you’re on a higher or lower one. (I haven’t heard how frequently one’s madrega changes, but it seems that it is most likely from moment to moment.)
As you reach your next madrega, the person who was occupying it leaves for his next madrega, and someone else comes and occupies the madrega that you just left. And the madregas have no representation in the material world, for you might be in New York and assume the madrega of someone who is in South Africa, while he takes over that of someone in Yerushalayim, etc.
So the whole thing is in constant flux.
It must be quite a marvelous sight from Hashem’s perspective.
There Has To Be Something Wrong With Everyone
There has to be something(s) wrong with everyone and everything. The only thing that has nothing wrong with it is Hashem. Everything else has to have something(s) wrong with it. Don't get mad or disappointed just because you found out what it is.
Dealing With Adversity
Don’t view your times of adversity as unwanted interruptions in an otherwise pleasant life. Rather, view each period of tranquility as a recharging period, preparing you for your next adversity. For it is while you are dealing with your adversities that you are accomplishing your reason for being in this world.
Life In This World
The Medrash says that Hashem created many worlds and destroyed each one until He created this one (Bereishis Rabbah 3:7). Seforim tell us that if Adam and Eve wouldn’t have eaten from the Tree Of Knowledge they would have gone right into Olum Habah and we all would have lived for eternity, basking in the Presence of Hashem, and there would have been no death or suffering or toil in This World.
One reason Hashem might have destroyed each world as He created it (if we can assign reasons to Hashem’s actions) is that it’s possible that with each world, when He told Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree Of Knowledge, they DIDN’T - and they went right into Olum Habah and therefore the Torah couldn’t apply to them while living in Olum Habah (Hashem created the Torah first and looked into the Torah to create the world). So therefore He destroyed each world, until He got to our world, where they disobeyed Him and DID eat from Tree Of Knowledge, and then Hashem finally had a world in which the whole Torah could come into play. So this world He kept and didn’t destroy. And here we are.
How Words Of Torah Help
If you are fortunate enough to spend enough cumulative time letting the words of Torah enter your mind, they will eventually burn-up/gobble-up all those other thoughts and influences, until your only concern will be learning Torah - and then all your other problems will automatically and perforce disappear.
The only thing YOU have to do is force yourself to spend enough time letting the words of Torah enter your mind. They take care of the rest automatically.
“Help me. Save me. Help me. Save me.”
Bad things happen to us (small, big and in-between, chas v'shalom) for a variety of reasons. But whatever the reason, Hashem takes great pleasure in rescuing us from them. Therefore, whenever something bad starts to happen to you, preferably at your first inkling of its occurrence, say out loud and very earnestly to Hashem, over and over again, “Help me. Save me. Help me. Save me. Help me. Save me. Help me. Save me.”
If you accompany your cry with honest self-examination for why the bad thing might be happening and follow it up with actual teshuvah, you will find that Hashem will gladly protect you from the bad event.
Once Hashem becomes confident that you will always use each bad event that happens or threatens to happen to either you or someone else as an impetus for self-examination and teshuvah, you will find that He will save you from it as soon as you begin to call out to Him.
How To Stop Feeling Sad
If you happen to suffer from unwanted feelings of sadness, the next few times that you’re sad and the next few times that you’re happy, take note of how different parts of your body feel at those times. You’ll probably notice that physically, sad and happy are very similar.
They each have a tightened feeling in the throat and a constricted feeling around the heart; and the feeling of doom that accompanies sadness is also very similar to the feeling of excitement that accompanies happiness.
The primary difference between them seems to be that sad is accompanied by looking down with constricted attention and a scowling expression with eyebrows down; whereas happy is accompanied by looking up, expanded attention and an open expression with eyebrows raised.
So if you’re feeling sad and want to feel happy, just raise your eyebrows, smile and pretend to be excited. In no time, you’re sure to feel happier.
Of course, this is only a temporary measure. But since we are commanded to serve Hashem with simchah, this technique can help you get started. Then, if you follow it up with self-examination, straightening up your thoughts and actions, doing mitzvos more the way they’re supposed to be performed, and spending more time learning Torah, your sadness will soon be a thing of the past, b’ezras Hashem.
Getting In The Mood For Tisha B’Av
The Gemora in Taanis (30b) tells us, “All who mourn over Yerushalayim will merit to see its joy, and all who don’t mourn over Yerushalayim will not see its joy.” We are encouraged to cry on Tisha B’Av, but who is able to honestly cry over the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash and Yerushalayim? Below is a list of things you can do to get in the mood during The Nine Days, each person according to his interest and ability.
1. Eat foods that you don’t care for.
2. Don’t eat foods that you like.
3. Don’t change your underwear or socks every day.
4. Don’t wash your face every day.
5. Don’t change your sheets or towels for Shabbos.
6. Don’t shower on Erev Shabbos.
7. Say Tikun Chatzos.
8. Try to keep a worried/sad expression on your face.
9. Try not to smile.
10. Don’t sing, hum or whistle.
11. Don’t drink coffee.
12. Eat as little as you can and as infrequently as you can.
13. Don’t talk a lot.
14. Make up with someone with whom you are quarrelling.
15. Go out of your way to give tzaddakah to poor people.
16. Don’t clean the house so well.
17. Spend less time engaged in the things you normally do for entertainment.
18. Cut down on the amount of time you relate to those people who make you happy.
A lot of people try to take the restrictions of The Three Weeks in stride and not be bothered by them. Actually, the more bothered you can become, the better off you’ll be.
ESSAY NUGGETS
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When you allow the words of Torah to enter into your mind and take up residence there, they have the ability to burn up the other thoughts and influences that are already there - those things which prevent you from being able to learn Torah properly and do mitzvos properly, and which also cause the distress that occurs in your life. The words of Torah act, l’havdil, like little PacMans, going around gobbling up all the junk that they find in there.