You can skip this post if you don't want to be pulled down into my negativity. I've been thinking, on and off, over this Sefiras Ha'Omer period, about how these are meant to be 49 days of spiritual growth. I've listened to a number of shiurim that discussed the sefiros and were about working on chesed, gevura etc. I own and have read two books that go into the 49 permutations of the sefiros and give examples of how to implement them.
And with all that, the only thing I manage to accomplish is to count the omer (no small accomplishment, as every mitzva is great). The weeks go by and the specific combination of sefiros just pass me by. The examples in the books do not spark my interest. It seems to me that with all the talk about 49 levels of spiritual growth, nothing actually happens.
This is actually an old complaint of mine. Did you feel cheirus on Pesach (to cite a recent example)? It seems to me that even for those who are serious about learning and changing, there is a lot of reading and a lot of attending or listening to shiurim, but no real results. By "real" I mean something measurable, being able to look back and say - I was there before Pesach and I am here now. I suppose I should just speak for myself. For all I know, many people can look back with satisfaction at how they refined 49 middos, but I have a tiny suspicion that I am not alone.
I think it is like killing germs. We don't see the germs and we don't see them die but we kill them before they kill us. I think it is the same thing with the spiritual growth of the 49 days. We don't see ourselves being elevated but it is still happening. I guess that every year we are another year older and we are hopefully spiritually ahead of where we were last year.
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice perspective :)
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