Spiritual Ascent for ALL

   I love this old postcard with a drawing of a street in Safed, Israel. It draws me in and definitely makes me want to visit soon!
    These words from a talk by Rabbi Yitzchak Schwartz of 
TheParadisePrinciple.com resonate with me today, looking out at the world and also looking into myself these days:
    "There are a million subtle levels on which we fight our spiritual battles in life, and we have to understand that the pre-condition of our spiritual assent is actually a spiritual descent, an agreement to go down into the muck and to raise ourselves out of it."
​​    Looking at my own challenges and the enormous global challenges we all face can be simply overwhelming. It can stop us in our tracks everyday, rendering us unable to move, or even think about moving. 
    But we are put here on this earth to persevere, and to overcome both physical, material challenges and spiritual battles as well. 
    This Shabbat I am thinking about being a spiritual warrior. 
    And Rabbi Schwartz continues on that subject, "Our inner evil inclination, the Yetzer Hara tries to keep us away from being who we are, and doing what G-d wants us to do. 
    "And as regards being a Spiritual Warrior, it tries to convince us that the only successful warrior is the one who can look back and see that everything is going smoothly."
    Right!  Since when does fighting a battle go smoothly? That is generally not how battles go, is it? It is only my inner evil inclination trying to convince me that rough patches in my life, and in the world, are evidence of failure. 
    Our battles are our tikkun, and tikkun is not failure. This is what we came here to do - to repair the world through our challenges.
    Finally, Rabbi Schwartz says, " We have to know that the measure of success is not smoothness, with regard to a spiritual warrior. In fact, it’s the persistence and encouragement to not give up, no matter now difficult things are and how rough our lives may appear."
    One of my favorite, most precious spiritual warrior friends is Yedidah Cohen in Safed.  Check out her translations of Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag's work, and her wonderful podcasts.