How (Chabad) Hasidism Seems to Affect Its Learners

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof agaist all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." - Herbert Spencer

It's about five and a half years since I was exposed to one of the fundamental teachings of Hasidism and spent 50 hours in total for two months with a group of people who included those who live according to Hasidism. I still remember the initial double shock - I was shocked to discover the depth and breath of this branch of Judaism and realize how I used to relate to it with prejudice based on my ignorance and labeling.

About one year later, in November 2018, I started to take a three-year program in Chabad Hasidism in a special school in Jerusalem. I've also come to socialize with more and more followers of this branch of Hasidism. Since then I haven't stopped being impressed with not only its profound teachings but also how it seems to affect its learners.

These days I can identify with a high degree of certainty who has studied Hasidism in general and Chabad Hasidism in particular, but not as a purely academic area of study but as living life wisdom. The difference is especially conspicuous when I hear people who give public sermons, for example, on weekly portions of the Torah.

I also notice marked differences in speech and action as well as in thought that must be producing speech and action. What characterizes all these three types of the so-called "garments" is what is known as positivity bias vis-à-vis negativity bias, which often seems to characterize those who haven't studied Hasidism as living life wisdom. Those who are positively biased are generally full of joy.

Recently I tried to consult a number of people I know about a certain difficult life challenge I've been struggling with in the past few years. Some of them have studied Chabad Hasidism, and others haven't. The two opposite responses I received from these two groups of people have only verified my assumption about how (Chabad) Hasidism seems to affect its learners. Of course, I'm generalizing a little.

The former group of people tried to encourage me by focusing on solutions, while the latter tried to discourage me by focusing on problems though I know they didn't mean to do so maliciously. When I pointed out to some of the latter what I felt as negativity bias, they themselves seemed rather shocked to realize it for the first time.

The best example I personally know of positive transformation as a result of learning Chabad Hasidism is myself! I was deeply trapped in the darkness of my mind-made prison, and I wasn't even aware of this fact. Since I started learning Chabad Hasidism, my life has been fundamentally transformed.

PS: I have a new webpage introducing basic resources of Chabad Hasidism on my personal website.

The Same Propaganda in Different Garbs

It's through checking about 30 investigative journalists and geopolitical analysts I trust about one ongoing global issue that I've come to realize how the mainstream media, at least in the West, has become the main propaganda tool to promote the only narrative by a seemingly small group of individuals and censor and tarnish everyone who dares to challege this narrative. Some call such mainnstream media "*ensorship-industrial complex" (please replace * with c) or "*resstitute" (please replace * with p).

In retrospect I can say that the same propaganda in different garbs was promoted this way to the exclusion of all the dissenting views for the *andemic (please replace * with p) and *accination (please replace * with v). I can also say that I was totally brainwashed about these two global issues as I only used to check the mainstream media, in which I have absolutely no trust now.

Unfortunately, the majority of people I know seem to consume only the mainstream media without realizing that they are brainwashed by its propaganda. In extreme cases some people become propagandists themselves by relying themselves exclusively on these media outlets.

They also categorically reject all the media outlets and independent journalits that question the narrative they are promoting voluntarily, believing blindly that they are doing a great favor to other, "less informed", people without having any specialist knowledge on the issue they are talking about in public.

This time, that is, concerning the above mentioned ongoing global issue, I won't be brainwashed. But I have a new problem. Every time someone hears my opinion on this issue, which totally contradicts the only narrative they are exposed to and brainwashed to believe blindly, they look at me in such disbelief.

Having tried to explain to them and failed miserably in convincing them, I've come to stop talking about this specific issue if I see that the person I'm talking to is totally brainwashed. I've also found a very efficient way to measure how much someone is brainwashed by the mainstream media.

Planning Spontaneity

# Planning Spontaneity

I tell some of my friends half-seriously that I've started planning spontaneity. By spontaneity I mean flowing, as it were, by following my intuition, or the voice of my soul. By planning I mean being aware of what I do. So by planning spontaneity I decide to take action by following the voice of my soul and am also aware of this decision. Every time I plan spontaneity, I feel as if I were dancing on the stage of life.

Last time I made a rather big decision this way was when I decided to visit a certain place abroad. It was a very successful one in many respects.

This week I made yet another important decision to visit a certain city abroad for the first time in six years. I've been postponing this visit for a couple of practical reasons. I was so impressed to watch a long interview of someone who defected to that city last week that I almost cried. Then I also understood how much this place has become dear to me, and made this decision to visit it in the near future. Since then I'm filled with such enormous joy. I also want and have to check if I'm not idealizing this city.

This whole process of planning spontaneity and being filled with joy reminds me how we, or at least I, destroy the joy of life by silencing the voice of the soul and following the voice of the ego, whether individual or collective. Flowing intuitively seems to confuse the ego and doesn't give it enough time to confuse us.

The greatest pleasure of any trip is for me to plan its itinerary in advance. Though I've already plannned a fairly detailed itinerary of this short forthcoming trip, I've decided to follow my intuition there, opening myself to new "chance" encounters and possibilities.

Summer Time and Sabbath Observance

Though I'm well familiar with the putative rationale for introducing summer time, I see and experience more harm than good in what I consider a stupid attempt of the mankind to control nature.

In addition to the inconvenience of adjusting not only the conventional clocks but also our internal clock twice every year, which must have an accumulative negative effect on our physical and mental health, I recognize one problem that concerns Sabbath observance, thus may only be specific to observant Jews.

In Israel, for example, where I live, the regular Sabbath evening (= Friday evening) prayer ends even after 20:30 when the day is the longest. So observant Jews who daven according to this regular timetable have to start eating Sabbath dinner after 21:00. This can pause a serious problem not only to small children but also to adults.

This is why a number of shuls have the so-called early minyan. Before I switched to a Chabad shul last September, I used to participate in such an early minyan at the shul where I used to belong to for 16 years in Jerusalem.

Unfortunately but as expected, such an arrangement is not part of the Chabad custom. After racking my brain and consulting the rabbi of the shul, I've decided not to daven in this Chabad minyan on Friday evenings and start davening earlier by myself so that I may be able to start eating Sabbath dinner at a normal hour, by 20:00 at the latest, at least for four months between the beginning of May and the end of August.

I wish this stupid law were abolished in Israel, too, following countries such as Russia, which abolished it in 2011. I've read that Europe has also been considering to make this decision, but I don't know if any European contry has actually made it so far.

Somehow I had an impression that summer time is implemented in most countries in the world, except for those that are close enough to the Equator, thus have little benefit from summer time. But I've just found out that those countries that have legalized this twice yearly time shift are almost identical to a group of countries - US and its vassals, including EU, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but excluding Japan and South Korea. In other words, the majority of the population in the world, including China and India, doesn't have to suffer from this stupid law. Good for them!