Suffering as a Spiritual Wake-up Call

"Pre-birth planning" is a quite well-known phenomenon among spiritually minded people, most notably thanks to the work of the hypnotherapist Robert Schwartz, including his three books (Your Soul's Plan, Your Soul's Gift, and Your Soul's Love) that collect testimonies of his life between lives regression clients (I'm one of these past clients of his). Right before our souls reincarnete into specific physical bodies in their respective life between lives", they choose a couple of sufferings - or challenges, to use a more neutral term - that maximize our spiritual learning and eventual growth through physicality. If you've heard this for the first time, you may find it hard to believe; I can't blame you. ;-)

I received his 3.5-hour life between lives regression session in January 2018, a couple months after my ex-wife decided to leave me and I started suffering a lot as a result. I wanted to understand why I chose this suffering as well as another suffering that seemed one of the direct causes for her decision.

More than three years since then, my interest in pre-birth planning was rekindled by an invitation I received from him this week to participate in his seven-week online workshop entitled Awakening to the Spiritual Purpose of the Life You Planned Before Birth that would start next Thursday. Of course, I immediately registered in this event. As a kind of preparation I also started listening to some new interviews of his on this topic.

Pre-birth planning doesn't mean that everything, including all the details of our planned sufferings, is predetermined before "birth". This time I've discovered something new I didn't notice before. It's that there is even a way to minimize, if not totally nullify, these preplanned sufferings.

If you are new to this amazing phenomenon, you may wonder what the use of a suffering. It serves as a kind of spiritual wake-up call. We as souls with physical bodies are here to work on a couple of "divine virtues" in each reincarnation. A suffering we encounter reminds us that our life decisions are based on hate and other negative virtues rather than love and other divine virtues. Like an alarm clock the suffering also becomes noisier if we keep ignoring its "sound", until we won't be able to ignore it and forced to wake up and change our direction. This means that if we wake up early enough, we can minimize the suffering.

Actually, this is exactly what happened to me with my divorce crisis. I kept ignoring the wake-up call until my ex-wifed decided to leave me. Only then I finally woke up once and for all. Since then my life has changed completely, of course, for the better. I've also changed my life path in such a way that it might be in tune with the newly (re)discovered mission for which my soul descended into this body.

After discovering the possiblity of minimize sufferings, I've deciced to make further efforts to base my future decision and resulting actions on love and other divine virtues though I may not be able to completely eliminate all my negative virtues in this lifetime. Even after making such a decision I continue encountering people who get on my nerves. But unlike before I can tell myself now that they are sent to help me notice my negative virtues and work further on them. From the frequency and intensity of my negative emotional reactions I can also identify a couple of negative virtues my soul has planned to work on this time.

Smartphone Revolution in My Torah Study

I've never liked a telephone of any kind as a means of online communication, except with a significant other when I happen to have one, because of its intrusive nature. This is why it was only several years ago that I started using a cellular phone, and a very simple one at that. It was only about one year that I finally started using a smartphone.

I have to admit that I've become quite addicted to my smartphone since then, but not to its telephone part but to the convenience of those various applications that have nothing to do with online communication. One of such categories is Torah study. Actually, I also have to say that my Torah study has been revolutionalized since I started using a smartphone about one year ago.

One area of my Torah study that has been affected most by this smartphone revolution is daily Torah study, to which I dedicate about half an hour right after I get up in the morning on weekdays and davening. The applications I use now are Daily Torah Study, Hayom, The Daily Sicha and Chayenu. I'm also planning (but haven't started) to use Steinsaltz Daily Study and Daf Hachaim.

A smartphone may not be an ideal electronic platform for reading lenghtly texts for an extended period of time, but nevertheless it's convenient and even assuring to have Torah libraries at my fingertips. I especially cherish Sefaria, RebbeDrive, and Igros Kodesh. When I daven outside (and sometimes even when I daven at home) on weekdays, I use Siddur Tehillat Hashem - Classic Edition. And last but not least, I check Chabad, Chabad Hebrew and Chabad Russian daily on weekdays to keep abreast of what's new in Chabad.

Jewish Books and Jewish Bookstores

Paradoxically, it was when I started thinking of leaving Israel for sociocultural difficulties here that I felt I had finally become a true Israeli. Though my daily contact with and exposure to the native Israeli culture remain quite minimal, I've stopped thinking of this idea, partly because I've realized that the problem is more in myself than in the outer world, and mostly because I've come to feel that living in Jerusalem is a real blessing for someone like myself who studies Chassidus as life wisdom.

Why? There are a couple of reasons. First of all, Jerusalem seems to have the largest concentration - or at least one of the largest concentrations - of Chassidic scholars (not in the academic sense but in the traditional Jewish sense). I've been blessed with the privilege and honor of studying Chabad Chassidus in a special school here in Jerusalem with amazing teachers who have not only received its oral teachings but also incorporate them in their daily life.

But the main reason why I consider it a blessing to live in Jerusalem as a student of Chassidus and a lover of Jewish books is the existence of some of the best Jewish bookstores in the whole Jewish world. I'm especially indebted to the following three Jewish bookstores here in Jerusalem for my growing private Chassidic library: Heichal Menachem (in Hebrew, English and Russian), Pomeranz (in English and Hebrew), and Yahad (in Russian).

This will not be my Jewish hyperbole even if I go so far as to say that these bookstores alone are sufficient reason for me to continue living here. Every time I discover some Jewish book or books I don't have or haven't read, I can simply drop in at one of all of these three Jewish bookstores without waiting for days or even weeks for their arrival by mail order.

Since I left academia last September, I have no reason - nor budget - to leave not only Israel but even Jerusalem. There are, however, two cities outside Israel that are two of the most important Jewish cultural centers in the world and have one important Jewish publisher-cum-bookstore respectively - Brooklyn and Moscow. I'm even ready to visit these cities just to visit these two Jewish bookstores - Kehot (in Hebrew and English) and Knizhniki (in Russian).

Even when I visited various big cities, mainly in Europe, to attend academic conferences, I spent what little free time I had visiting local bookstores. Museums and other conventional tourist attractions have never interested me; they even bore me to death.

I'm still hoping that travel restrictions will be removed by this summer and I'll be able to visit Moscow, especially Knizhniki (as well as my favorite Russian bookstores) there. This seemingly amazing Jewish bookstore in Russian was opened since I last visited Moscow in September 2017.