finding your point of choosing

in this general mussar teaching, rabbi rafael helps us understand the nature of human choice and the battleground of the soul

{enclose 2010-10-03-Mussar-Point-of-Choosing.mp3}

patience - life without a script

{enclose 2010-10-13_patience_life_without_a_script.mp3}

rebbetzin malkah explores the idea of our lives being unscripted, and how to cope with life’s expected unexpectedness through employing patience and tolerance

questions to ask yourself

art-questions

Use these questions to evaluate your day:

1. What were the "seeds" that started to affect your order today?

2. Did you start your day with a plan? Did that plan come to fruition, did it fall apart, or were there glitches in it? How did you handle this?

3. If you or your possessions became disorderly today, what was the cause of this?

4. If something unfortunate happened today because of lack of order in your life, how did you overcome it or remedy the situation?

5. Were you able to use prayer or meditation to help create clarity so as to add more order to your day?

6. Did you employ any new order/routine into your day as something that will be permanent fixture?

7. How do you need to reorder your life tomorrow, this week or this year?

questions to ask yourself

Use these questions to evaluate your day:

1. What were the "seeds" that possibly affected your decisiveness today? Social, financial - what were they?

2. Think of how your day progressed - were you able to make decisions with clarity? Why or why not?

3. If you wavered on making a decision today, either regarding something that was for the present or for the future, what was the reason for your vascillating? Were you finally able to make the decision, or are you still up in the air?

4. Were you able to use prayer or meditation to help with decision making?

questions to ask yourself

Use these questions to evaluate your day:

1. What were the "seeds" that started to affect your cleanliness today?

2. Were you able to be pure in your deeds and thoughts today?

3. What events today caused you to stray and perhaps not act as ethically and wholesomely? How did you respond to them? Were they in speech? Movies? Television? The Internet? Emails?

4. Were you able to use prayer or meditation to help you through the circumstances?

questions to ask yourself

Use these questions to evaluate your day:

1. What were the "seeds" that started to erode your humility today?
2. Think of how you responded to praise, or how you responded to someone else receiving praise.  Did you become puffed up when you were complimented?  Did you feel jealous or resent someone else receiving good words?
3. Did you take the time to truly listen to those around you today, or were you more focused on speaking? Were you able to say words to lift up those around you?
4. In the course of your day, did you make an effort to wholeheartedly look at your shortcomings today rather than focus on those of others?
5. Were you able to use prayer or meditation to balance out your humility?
6. When you are around others, do you often feel superior?
7. Are you realistic in your analysis of who you truly are?

questions to ask yourself

Use these questions to evaluate your day:

1. What were the "seeds" that started to erode your ability to maintain a heathy separation from those things that you should have distance from today?

2. What was your reaction in your moments of challenge?

3. If you were unable to maintain a separation from the things or people that cause you to stumble, is this a recurring struggle? What will you do differently tomorrow to prevent it? What fence will you erect to help you?

4. If you were on the verge of losing the battle with separation but won instead, what did you employ that worked?

5. Were you able to use prayer or meditation to help you through the circumstances?