JamShalom Daydreams

Letting Go Of Your Legacy - Parshat Tzav

We all want to leave our mark on the world.  We all want to live a life that matters.  But sometimes we get so caught up in the physical world of shiny things, competition, and consumerism that we lose track of what really matters… what really creates an eternal legacy.

 

Give a listen to this week’s Shu-Shine for some thoughts on what really matters most, and how to realign our lives with the deepest valuable aspects of what creates True legacy in this world.

 

Blessings to all of us to let go of what is false, (re)attach to what is most real, and create awesome Spiritual legacy in the little and big choices we make every day.

 

With Tons of Love,

~Shu

When God Breaks Our Heart - in the merit of the Sassoon Children

As we tuned into the news after Shabbat our hearts were shattered.  Seven children dead in a fire, caused by a device that was turned on in order to honor the Shabbat.

We stammer.  Our minds scrabble for something to hold on to.  The sadness threatens to overwhelm us.

How do we respond to such senseless tragedy?  How do we continue forward when God breaks our hearts?

At times like this, there are no "answers".  But still, our Souls demand us to put our pain into some kind of context...

May these words lead those who hear them to transform their heartbreak into prayer, and their tears into action..

In memory and in the merit of Yaakob, 5; Sara, 6; Moshe, 8; Yehoshua, 10; Rivkah, 11; David, 12; and Eliane, 16.

Seeing What Makes Us Tick - Parshat Vayikra

Hey Sweetest Friends,

It’s so easy to just go through the rhythms from day to day and never think about what we are trying to achieve, what choices we are trying to make in life, and how we are living up to those choices and goals.  

It is so, so, so important to look inside and understand what we dream of, how we are doing, and maybe maybe what is holding us back!

Give a listen to this weeks Shu-Shine to learn a little bit about how to do that important internal housekeeping, to find the courage to look in the mirror and address those internal roadblocks of the heart that might be keeping us from shining as bright as we really are.

Blessings to all of us to believe in ourselves without restraint, to make wise choices, and to live up to our aspirations with flying colors!

With Tons of Love,

~Shu

Creating a Place where the Shechinah can Shine - Parshat Vayakhel-Pukudei

In a Woman's Smile:

 

In our Holy Torah we are told that a man must cleave to his wife and become one with her.  No such imperative is placed upon a woman.  Why is this?

 

This is because it is natural and intuitive to a woman, when she loves a man, to give herself over entirely to the man that she loves.  Such a level is not intuitive to a man; indeed, he must strive every day to achieve such devotion, and even so will have a very hard time attaining and practicing such a high level of love.

 

One of the results of this 'giving over' is that a loving woman will often see herself only through the eyes of the man whom she loves.  If he loves her as he should, then all is well.  But all too often this is not the case, and as a result of a man's negativity and insensitivity, a woman will see herself through lesser eyes than where she actually resides.  This causes great damage to the self-esteem of the woman, and in fact also causes great damage to the world as a whole.

 

For a woman is the very highest of creations, and the light and harmony of the world is directly tied to her state of joy and radiance.  Woe to us that her sense of self is so deeply tied to the perspective of a shallow man, who can only aspire with intense effort to honor the light of the woman in his life.

 

This responsibility, to honor, love and respect the woman in a man's life, is a Trust of the highest order for each and every man who has merited the love of a woman.

 

But should a man fail to understand and fulfill this lofty duty, it is imperative that each and every woman know to herself how naturally beautiful and Spiritually perfect she is.  And that the light and harmony of the world we live in is directly tied to the brightness of her smile.

 

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Give a listen to this week’s Shu-Shine and learn about how we can each use the beautiful material of this world to make it into a place where the Divine Presence can rest, and women can shine!

 

Blessings to all of us to bring Heaven down to Earth by putting our energy into being less smart, and more intuitive, and using the physical tools in our hands to create True Spiritual Vessels.

 

With Tons of Love,

~Shu

You, The Tabernacle - Parshat Termumah

Hey Sweetest Friends,

This weeks Torah portion teaches us all about how to make the Mishkan – an amazing physical space that could receive the Spirit of God, and which could be set up in any place that God indicated.  Also, whenever it was time to move on, the Mishkan was made in such a way that it could easily be collapsed and taken on the road.

At first glance it is hard to understand why any of us need to know about how to make a Mishkan.  That is, until you realize that maybe God is also teaching us how to order our own lives and our own “internal construction”.  

We are all vessels that can receive the Spirit of HaShem.  And life sometimes settles us down, and sometimes calls on us to make moves.  Learning how to ‘architect’ our inner selves can enable us to move with the call of life, and to always find ourselves on positive footing.

Give a listen to this week’s shu-shine, and find a few tips on what we can learn about how to live like a human house of HaShem!

Sending everyone blessings to be strong on the inside, beautiful on the outside, and put our lives together in a way that allows us to always flow with the tides of life.

With Tons of Love,

~Shu

Seeing Your Vision!

Hey Sweetest Friends,

Enough of spending all our time apologizing for mistakes and trying to fix what’s broken!!  ENOUGH!!

Let’s instead dream a giant dream together!  Let’s dig deep into our hearts and souls, and find that amazing dream we dreamt when we were five, and knew, knew, KNEW that it could be TRUE one day!

Let’s start dreaming big about a world of peace.  About a world of friendship.  About a world where everything can be put together in the best ways!  And about our individual ability to make that happen!

This week’s shu-shine is all about big visions.

Sending each and every one of us the blessing to find our crazy beautiful dreams, and to believe in the dream that HaShem gave the world when he gave us the Torah!  And to make it real, speedily in our lifetime…

With Tons of Love,

~Shu

You have the power to heal the world!

Hey Sweetest Friends,

Did you ever wonder how to heal the world?  Did you ever wonder where the answer lies?

The answer lies inside you!!!

Listen to this week’s shu-shine to understand how much God believes in each and every one of us, and how much He is depending on us to reveal the light He has placed in each and every one of us!!

Sending each and every one of us the blessing to shine our inner light, to believe in our inner light, and together to change the world into everything it dreams of being when it grows up!

This weeks shu-shine is dedicated to my brother, Pete Shapiro, who has found his inner light and is shining it through channel after channel into the world and into everyone who is ready to share in the groove.  :)    Pete, give this one a listen!!

With Tons of Love,

~Shu

--

Rabbi Shu Eliovson

JamShalom ~ The Music Brings Us Together

w. facebook.com/PHIShalom

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Joy is not a result of the things that happen to us; the things that happen to us are the result of embracing the day with joy!

Dripping in this strange design, none is yours and far less mine.  Just relax, you're doing fine swimming in this real thing I call life.  Can I bring a few companions on this ride…

Shine as Bright as HaShem!

Hey Sweet Friends,

So I am now regularly sharing something called ‘Sparks of Light’ via Whatsapp, and this is the same recording.  So if you got that one, no need to listen to this one!

Ever wonder why God seems to let bad people flourish?  Ever wonder how to respond to the suffering in the world? 

Well, if you consider that this world was a gift from HaShem to us, then there is only one real answer: SHINE BRIGHTER!

Give this week’s Sparks of Light a listen, and may we all be blessed to believe in our our inner light SOOO strongly that it outshines even the most powerful negativity we may be facing, contagiously touching all those around, and inspiring more and more people to believe in their inner-selves!

With Tons of Love,

~Shu

Parsha Balak - I am not My Enemy

I shared this shu-shine a few weeks ago, but its message has only become more important during this necessary war for the future peace of both Palestinians and Israelis.  It explains how to hate 'blind hatred', for the sake of love.  Please share it with others.

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What do we do when evil kicks us between the eyes?  What do we do when darkness takes our children from us?  How do we respond to unbridled hatred?

How, when we feel a sense of overwhelming pain, hurt, and anger towards those who have hurt us, do we not become filled with hate ourselves, becoming our that which we despise.

Attached please find a Shu-Shine  for the Torah portion of 'Balak' - "I am not My Enemy"

May we each be blessed to channel our love, even in ager, towards creating a world of growing light and love.

With Love and a Smile,

~Shu

Parsha Shlach - "Rocket to Your Dreams"

Dear Friends,

Sending everyone wishes for the most beautiful Shabbat!  

Also sending an open invitation to send me your spiritual/life/faith/personal/relationship/God/religion/search-for-meaning questions for possible topics of future shu-shines!

It is so easy to give up on the world.  It is so easy to find things to get depressed about and to use as excuses to surrender to unhappiness.  But what we sometimes miss, is that as we give up on the world, really, deep deep inside, we are actually giving up on ourselves.  Because once we convince ourselves that the world doesn't work, then the obvious conclusion of that thought is that we are impotent to do anything meaningful with our lives.

Sometimes, when we realize that we have stopped dreaming – when we realize that we have surrendered to routines and "the second-best options" of life, the key to breaking free is to start finding things to believe in around us.  Look around!  Smile at a bird!  Smile at a cloud!  Stare into the layers and colors of a flower.  Watch little children laugh.  Go to a dog-park, and watch dogs that have just met each other become instant best-friends.  See the world of love around you.  See a world without boundaries and limitations.  And join it!!

Attached please find a Shu-Shine for the Torah portion of 'Shlach' - "Rocket to Your Dreams"

May we each be blessed to believe in ourselves, to believe in our dreams, and to see our deepest and truest dreams become realized in our lifetimes.

With Love and a Smile,

~Shu

Phish Quote (yes, summer tour is coming!): "Step into space, alter my place, that someone else made. Why I have stayed… Into things I could be…  Or if I could see into fog that surrounds, and pins me to the ground."

*** Subscribe to the Shu-Shine podcast on iTunes - it's free!!  Just search for the keyphrase "Good Judaism" in the 'Podcasts' section of the iTunes store!  O:-)