Let me begin with heshbon hanefesh. Making a reckoning with ones own soul.How does one do that? When does one do that? What does one do with it?

In the Talmud they come up with a simile. Mashal, to what can this be likened? To a person who was doing a day's business and he was working for someone else, and at the end of the day he had to cash in and give an inventory of what he sold. So too is it with a soul when the end of the day comes and he has to give back the soul to G-d , G-d wants to find out, I sent you out this morning with so and so much change, with so and so many pieces of merchandise and you did your days work, what did you do today?

“Therefore the tellers of parables say: Bo’u heshbon,” let's have a heshbon what happened during the day. At one time what that meant was that you would in your memory go through the day and figure out what was it that you did during the day and you checked out your acts with a list of schedules. If you do this it's good, if you do that, it's bad. You almost had a list of acts that were kosher and acts that weren't kosher and so you checked out what you did was it a kosher thing to do was it a not kosher thing to do Then you said yes, I failed in so and so many ways, I didn't do that which was a kosher thing do.

That was a very good thing to do for people who had their lives ordered out in a kind of of karma yoga of selfless action. Which was to say whatever you say G-d, I’ll do it. How do you know what you must do, because G-d finds ways of revealing that. How God reveals is none of my business . All I have to do is find out what these acts are and then if I did well I can increase on the good side and I can decrease on the bad side and that's how I can get my life under control. That way is still a way for lots of people among those who say I was looking for a way and I found it by following the code of Jewish law. There it says very clearly how I can serve G-d. If I cut my fingernails one way I'm doing a plus thing, if I do it another way I'm doing a minus thing. If I can please G-d by being obedient to those rules, that's what I want to do. There are many people for whom this is a way.

Yet I take it that most of us aren't such people, because if we were we also wouldn't be here. We might be at Chabad or a Yershivah. Because there it is very clear that if you do that you create the vessel, the vehicle, for getting divine light and energy to come thru you. Can you imagine what a beautiful thing it would be to live a day from the morning on constantly in touch with the divine will for that moment. Time to go to the john . Now I'm doing another one of the things that G-d wishes me to do. Before davening to relieve and clear myself. Wash your hands, you get dressed. Which socks do you put on first. You say in your consciousness, G-d, I get it that you like me to put on my right sock first. So here I do this for you.

Can you imagine a day going like this. It would be a very fantastic kind of thing to do. But I don't think that we are the kind of people who might do that. But let's not give it up too soon. Let's check out something else. If I say tomorrow I intend to a, b, c. d. Do I ever remember a day in which when the day came I did what I said the day before that I would do? When I ask myself that I'm beginning to wonder, maybe I'm such a shmegegg that I could never live a day deliberately. I have to try it out. Could I live a day deliberately. Must I always be a creature of impulse or one who floats on any current?. Must I always run around where it's a momentary whim, drive around where my fickleness takes me, because I don’t want to have to struggle to stay on my path. So I have to find out if I could live a day deliberately and mindfully. To keep in the forefront of my mind to do only the will of G-d Could I live in such a way that constantly? I ask myself can I say the words, I live, in the active sense. I would be a liar. Do I live or am I being a lived?. As a kid I couldn't say I live. Papa lived me, mama lived me, school lived me. Can I say now I live?. Or am I still being lived by habits by all kinds of things. So the willingness to check out can I live deliberately for a day is a very important thing, in this work. Because otherwise I cannot take instruction, otherwise it won't help, otherwise no matter how much effort I put in I can’t get there.

NOW remember there's the other voice that says you don't have to do it it's all happening and it's a process and you don't have to take on such crazy responsibilities, for making anything happen. Whenever it goes up it goes up when it comes down it comes down,. No don't exert yourself. To that voice I think we should say welcome thank you for reminding me-but right now I'm in the middle of seeking deliberateness.

Example, you go and you see a horror movie and somebody gets up and says it's only a movie, so the first time you say thank you. The second time he's gonna say it you're gonna call the manager to throw the bum out I paid my money to get scared and he's telling me it’s only a movie. So I just wanna be sure that we recognize that voice and we can say to that voice thank you, I want you to tell me that from time to time, that it's only a play. But right now back to the work. And in this is play I want to be able to play once to live a day deliberately.

Deliberate living is awake living. So it becomes clear that if I must do some time on this planet I can either do it asleep or awake. If I wanna be done with doing my homework here I think I'd better wake up. But if we can be finished here that would be nice. I'd like to be able to get on with the job. How do we get on with the job? By becoming deliberate. So we figure out today what we're gonna start doing tomorrow and tomorrow we start doing it.

How are we going to remember tomorrow?. How many times have I made dates with myself, to do this, or to do that to improve in this way to improve in that way. What were the tricks I pulled on myself in order to forget the resolution I made?. Because when we really want to get up the next morning at a particular time we do get up. So it's only when we program where the conscious level is, up and up and you can see it and you say tomorrow I will improve but in the meantime I've made sure to sabotage my intent and I set the alarm that will pull the plug from the other alarm that is to wake me.

How do we manage to stay awake. So heshbon hanefesh is a way in which to do that which first of all says tomorrow I'm going to stay awake. We are told about Reb Levi Yitzhak, the Berditchever who said before he went to sleep at night. Ribbono Shel Olam, today I wasn't so good, I promise that tomorrow I'm going to dobetter. Then he said, but Levi Yitzhak that's what you said last night. Then he said but today I mean it.
This is a fantastic teaching tale. There is no better way to get rid of the sabotaging that we do on ourselves than to try and adjust the I mean it a little each day. Each time we catch ourselves lying to ourselves in that place we can disconnect one more particle of the sabotage. Heshbon hanefesh is the instrument with which we do that disconnecting. So it means being aware of how the day went, checking out and seeing what did this day entail.

When I do this before Shabbos comes, I want to find out how did the week go doing each day of the days of the week. Three, four minutes to check out the content of the day is not enough. Some things need more scrutiny. They need some following down the trail. It's not enough to say I did a bad thing, we have to deal with the context of the act, what was the intention, what was it for , where did my energy come from at this time. Was I in my “face” or was I in my ”heart” in my “moving center” Where was I then? Who is my audience at that time, for whom was I acting at that time. What was I trying to gain. So he sees a lot of homework and he sees that that this homework isn't going to get done thru constant spiritual growth by doing two three minutes on a Friday by doing a quick check. That why knowing what you're working on becomes so important because you can't do everything. But you can do that thing that you are working on on that day.

Where do we learn about the that? between Pas sover and Shavuos we count sephiros and every night of the forty-nine nights we count a different sephira. So there are seven sefirot hesed, gevura, tiferet, netach, hod, yesod and malchut So there are seven of them. Of these seven modes here each one contains seven. So we go chesed of chesed, gevurah of chesed, tiferet of chesed. We go thru nezach of chesed, hod of: chesed, yesod of chesed malchut of chesed. Then we move to the next octave which begins with chesed of gevurah, gevurah of gevurah and so on. It is as if on those days our whole homework is this inventory time between peshach and shavuot. So every day you look at one aspect of the inner and you check it out in action. That's when we do it all together and it's formalized but every day that we are working, each day has its concerns and problems for us. So at the end of the day to start checking out how did I do with this thing alone and then start observing a pattern that in this thing a certain pattern exhibited itself. What was that pattern? Whether it was a pattern in communicating with people, giving straight signals Whether it was a pattern having to do in a bad way with being more sensitive to stupid stuff, then you should. It's a factor. How much of it should come through. So sometimes you really get hurt because you let a lot of garbage through. You could raise the threshold a little bit and it wouldn't come through. So what are you working on, how does it work out during the day, how much happened, what pattern showed itself, what does this pattern mean, what would I say are the reasons that I do that. So after a while it becomes possible to find out in this situation what is it the trouble that won't yield to anything except to seeing what it covers. When I have a blind spot on something, how do I get to find out what is that I don't want to see.

So heshbon hanefesh is working on the blind spot. Let's see how the blind spot likes to work. Let's say you are in a good place and you begin to notice that there is a pattern, this thing gives me trouble here and there. The pattern, I see what it is that gives me trouble. What is it that I don't want to see here. First of all, what was happening the last moment before I got to the place that I did this stupid thing that flipped me out of where I wanted to be . So then you notice that there is a pattern and you check it out and you notice it happened before here, it happened before there and as you follow it through all of a sudden you can see it so clearly but a moment later it's gone. You've completely forgotten where you came from at the point in which you had that great insight. Then what happens. It so deflects you that you start shaking yourself saying where was I, what happened. I was like hit over the head, so most of the time you forget about it and you move to somewhere else. That would be for me often a sign go to the fridge and get yourself something to eat. Like I have the feeling that something got so very close to me and I didn't want to have it so very close. I got a good scare along with that flash and in order not to have to do it it just cuts out and I want to go and eat. What happens if you say now wait a minute in it's all right you'll have something later on to eat from the fridge right now you still have some homework to do. Let's go back over the ground again. If you can have a friend who helps you in this it goes far better than doing it alone. For the friend that too is going to do a very important discipline which is the discipline to stay out of the other person's homework . A person who can do that is really a very, very special friend and helper because when you're doing the homework and somebody else gets tripped on his things and then they start feeding that one in, you aren't going to get back to the place where the blind spot was. So a good friend then says okay it's your turn to work, I'll just monitor you, let's see where you were and take those words as you were recording them and say you were saying this and you were saying that. You come closer and closer and once more flip. For a moment you're on the other side. If you can go over the the terrritory a few times and each time you can breathe it open a little bit longer so it doesn't shut right a way. After a while so that you see that it's not so terrible what you come to see it's not so terrible that you can’t face up to it. then it gets to be a little easier to even do it yourself and so that's what a good thing to do at kriyat shma shel hamita, to take some time out and review the day and if you can share with a mate, great, go through this process and switch back. Because if you've seen little kids in the crib they do that, they rehearse all the words that they learned that day and all the motions that they learned that day. if you ever watch it, it's a really beautiful thing to see and if would be so nice if in raising kids we could encourage that past the place where it where it normally happens. So you don't have to forget this. Did you do your day already. What we try to do is to get into the kids head and we say, so you tell me what did you do today. Often we don't allow for the report to come and we interfere in the report. You did that today. You get angry. How could you do such a terrible thing. So before long they stop telling. If we could encourage kids to do that to say did you do your day today, it would do the same thing for us, we could flow into the same kind of good­ night prayer. The other thing is another part of the prayer is to think about the cares. good night What things do we care about. What things do I care about that happened today. I may not be able to do a thing about them but I really care about them. This morning I saw a candidate for the presidency on the screen on the news and I really want to have an idea for whom to vote. Oy,, dear G-d, I wish that there was someone I could vote for in this coming election with my whole heart. It' s good to say such a prayer before you go to sleep because you're digesting the whole day. So it isn't only because a question of what did I do and how did I work but also some things I can't do a damn thing about except put myself at the disposal of G-d. So at this point I'd better check out x those things I couldn't help today but I became aware of I offer them up to G-d. Then there is one more thing I want to mention at this time. Is there a conscious way of falling asleep? It sounds crazy to say that. You might say there isn't anything you can do about it. That answer is true. It's like the question of surrender How do I surrender? Can you imagine a yente trying to surrender . Nu, take it already. I'm surrendering so why don't you take it. Go ahead. How do you do it when you surrender. Here it is do you want to take it, if not I'll hold it for you in my hand. Which is one thing The other thing is nu, take it already . So where should I put it. Which tries to be active about that which it can't be active about So you must say how can I surrender. How can I fall asleep? But on the other hand in which we: are we responsible for surrender. There is a paradox in there. If I say to myself Zalman you must surrender. That calls for something active to do, almost to the po int of why did you not surrender. So that there is this whole business. I feel responsible for it. But can I surrender if I feel responsible for So I go into this crazy place, I can't figure it out. I know that I must let go.

But how can you let go deliberately, consciously. the funny thing is that we can let go ..and we do fall asleep and that we somehow know how to do it. It's at that still point, where I'm not pushing it and it's not pushing me, It at that center of being free that one gets results. So it's worth trying these three phases. When you are in the world of yetzirah, that's the world in which we have our garden in which we accompany feelings, situations functions with the proper staging. Know what I mean? Example, you feel depressed you feel like crying and you don't have a good scene in which to cry. So you look, you make incidents, you look for a way of getting something going that isn't there. You want to feel pissed. You feel short, you feel kvetchy. But you haven't got scene. So you gonna pick a bone with someone and give him a sarcastic dig and all of a sudden there is whole scene which justifies your feeling pissed So we are creating provocations sometimes in order to have a scene for a feeling. The same way we also have scenes for good feeling:. So an infatuation is a way of having to create an inner scene in order to have to feel good. So there are places where we make our scenes. In prayer in active good prayer there are lots of places for lots of scenes. A crucifixion is one of the top scenes in a prayer life Greater love hath no man. I'm offering myself I'm Rebbe Akiva, I'm burned at the stake for G-d’s sake. I can take on so many martyr scenes. Martyr scenes are fantastic. I'm at once making fun of it and I'm also not. Unless the imaginative can come then I can't give my heart to G-d. I might give my limbs to G- d, I might give my mind to G-d, but I can't give my heart to G-d unless I have a scene. That's what Krisna and the Gopis is all about. It's a scene. That's what the Ramayana is all about. It's a scene. A nd Hannman. I want to be hannman to somebody. Wow, I'm just willing to go to the ends of the earth and what a fantastic scene. In the end he gets sita back because Hannman helped Rama. It's a fantastic scene for creating loyalties. A lot of Jewish scenes like going out from Egypt, receiving the torah, building a temple are scenes that we need to have alive if we want to daven good. Friday night, queen Shabbos is coming to visit me. Wow. So I have a date with queen shabbos. Take it on any level you want the divine presence is going to be here and we'll be able to be with her. So when the zohar tells us of the scene that Moses and shechina made love. That's a good way of thinking of a Moses. Moses is the guy who made it with the shechina and brought back a massage, It's a great scene so if you have a number of scenes in your head for your prayer life, you'll find that's what midrash is all about. Midrash, a lot of the Torah learning is to have the right kind of a scene. If you can imagine then the scene in which G-d is here and the day is gone and energy leaves you and you're beginning to crash and with each breath out you give G-d your soul. You try that every night after you've done the prayer and the sorting out. That helps make the finale beautiful. It would be nice to be able to orchestrate our last scene. To be able to end in such a way. So kriyat shma shel hamita, the shma at night is very much a practice for the last shema. And is that such a good way to part the ego. Now turn the key off and say, okay, until the curtain rises tomorrow morning you can get out of your suit. You don't have to Zalman for the night, you can be who you are between incarnations.

I feel the nearness of L-rd my light heart's delight
Thy sweet love O G-d above thrills me (2x)
gives me light.

With thy pow'r my rock entow'r gives me will to do thy drive etc.

Is there any question that anyone want to raise at this point.

That's a really good question. It isn't only about jews, it's about anyone who is a bhakti. In every situation where a bhakti has to do that he goes out. It is in the nature of bhakti that it wants another. Let's check this out a little bit and then we'll see what one can do about it. Bhakti, the way of devotion, the way of the heart, Remember before we were talking the scenes in order to do the way of the heart. So this chief scene goes like this.

Shiviti hashem lenegdi tamid. I place the L-rd before me always. That's the chief scene. G-d is in front of me. I am in front of G-d. I do something in front of G-d that of that at action, offer sacrifice, offer prayer. It's my way. It's the way of bhakti. I will want to do this vis a vis this image with a name. I'm looking for form. I'm looking for name and rupa. I'm looking a way in which the G-d before whom I stand will accept my offering. If my way is the way of karma yoga, somebody is hungry and I feed them, somebody is sick and I care. I do things for them. Tnen in these ways of actualizing the help, It's between people and that's very easy. Because I don't have to have either an inside view of G-d or an outside view of G-d to do that. Either way it's gonna be okay. If I have an outside view of G-d and he sees what I am doing for this other guy, which is a way of saying see G-d it's for your sake that I'm doing this. They once asked this nun. This man said to this nun who worked in a hospital I wouldn't do what you're doing for a million dollars and she said neither would I. You start figuring about someone working with lepers, St. Damien, would you do this for a million dollars. So when Reb Moshe leib sassover says if you claim that you love another human being right, what does it mean. Ahavas yisroel is that which could get you to suck out a pussy boil from, someone else in order to relieve their pain and if you can't do that you haven't begun to love. So you have that sense, I wouldn't do that for a million dollars but I would do it for the love of G-d. So it is that sense that either G-d watches or G-d is the person who is suffering. Either way I don't have to make up my mind for that whether G-d is outside or inside. When I'm going into consciousness, then I have another problem, sometimes I want so to meditate to think about G-d that I do what the giyani does. That is to say I go to the way of the mind, the contemplative way and I go the way of knower. when I go that way I've got a problem. The problem is easily resolved. I'm not involved with a G-d on the outside, when I'm thinking, meditating. I'm thinking with the G-d on the inside. It would be much harder for me to meditate to a G-d who wouldn't be inside of me. Do you know I'd really have to be such a fantastic telepath to do that. I'd have to go phshhhht zap it up this way, because G-d is on the outside. But if I don't think that G-d is on the outside, if I think he's on the inside doing consciousness for G-d is easy. and G-d is in there. I'm just doing it in my head. So a lot of the ways that have to do with the giyani are ways of G- d on the inside. The devotee is involved with the G-d on the outside. If we've got that much together then the question isn't is it judaism or hinduism, but, which way are you pursuing at this point. We are told that the world stands on three things, on torah, worship and good deeds(action). So when I'm doing good deeds it doesn't matter whether G-d is on the inside or on the outside. When I'm involved in worship and G-d needs to be on the outside for me to get that scene and even when G-d is on the inside he's on the outside part of the inside. Like sometimes I might not move but I might do a dance with G-d in this place. Even if I'm on the inside G-d is on the outside vis a vis me. But when I'm going to the way of the knower then G-d is on the inside. And so we have three ways of cutting it rather than doing it in the eastern way. Once we say that we have to move to something else.

What is the Judaism that you have seen up to now, what did it look like? It looked like as if it were bhakti but at the same time sort of don't believe a word. So in walking into the synagogue, if all people were to be bhakti, devotees, as the words are that they say, Remember the prayer book, the words go “and I in the abundance of thy grace have come into thy house, I bow down in worship before thee.” Nobody bows down when they come to this. So you watch a couple of times and you see that in that place if you act like you believe it says here, you can't make it. They send the shammos to throw the bum out. So the same thing goes with words like clap your hands, jump for joy before the lord your maker. Don't you dare. So it goes also with a number of things. So now we have seen that the bhakti thing which we had hoped would happen which they advertise in the prayer book is not really taking place. So we learnt from this that shul is a fake. 'Then we say that we once went to a store-front church and all of a sudden you hear people say the word of the lord and the people say hallelujah!

Tell it brother! As it is. And it gets to be really hot. Then you know that people are there because they really want to hear the word of the lord. So then we are saying, okay, what did they do when they read the torah?Nobody listens. If in the day they read it in an orthodox shul they read it so that nobody could understand. and if they read it in a reform temple in English they read it in such a way that they say even though we want you to understand we don't want you to believe a word of it.

There's a chassidic story that goes about the Russian muzhik who comes home and finds a letter and he can't read so he goes to the guy in the village who writes letters and he pays him a kopeck He writes a letter for you. So he says to him, hey Fedko read me what 's written on this letter. So he begins to read and he says "Dear Ivan, mother died.” So he says, “I don't believe it. I don t believe it.” So he says, “look you showed me the letter, I read you the letter.” So he says, “I don’t believe it. You didn't read me the truth. It doesn it say Mama or Papa . I'm going to the priest.” So he goes to the priest and he says, “I went to the guy who writes letters for a kopeck and showed him to read me the letter. And he read it to me and I don't believe him. So would you please read it to me.” He reads the letter and he gives a sigh , he says “Fedko I must tell you it's really bad you brought this letter to me . It's very sad news and may the Lord have mercy on her soul.” He starts saying, so she did die. So then he says so how come I didn't believe him. The priest says it's simple, he read it like it wasn't his mother.

So when you get the lord spoke to Israel saying, and you read it like talking to the wall, you don't hear it any more. You don't hear it like it was meant to be heard. And I feel so much that has been in our background that they didn't show us what to do in meditation. So what could and should happen in chance to hear in silence. silence you didn't get a If you can imagine a even today the rebbe makes the brocha before the blowing of the shofar. He stands up there. There are more than 5000 people up there and you could hear a pin drop. Because before you hear the shofar you want to hear the quiet and there it still happens. There are some places where it still happens where you can do something with the quiet . It doesn't happen very often. So that whole stuff that gets done on the inside, Doesn't get done much in the synagogue nowadays. So you've got all those problems.

Question: Zalman, could you tell us why this happened to the jewish people, why such a heavy dose of karma.

Audience comment: It's been my experience that happens to all people not just the jewish people.

Zalman: okay, let's accept both. On the one hand there is a description of ramakrishna going to an aryo samaj meeting and he feels they're saying let's meditate and they're quiet for half a minute, then he goes on to do something else, to give a sermon. So ramakrishna starts laughing out loud, saying, there wasn't even time to burp yet and already they're claiming they meditated.

On the other hand if we go to your side of that, it has something to do with not respecting simple people We had created a hierarchy of learners. So the bigger a big shot you were, the more you knew. So we had this hierarchy of learners, people who were more and more clever when learning gets out of hand. So there are some people who got really really clever in pilpul. Pilpul is cutting fine distinctions and arguing that way. When they got the upper hand it set up for some people what it is to get the top payoff. The top payoff is to get wordy and clever. The simple folk who couldn't play these games were despised. When the baal shem came he tried to restore some of the balance. He'd say that there are some other things that are worth something besides just the word. So he brought back a number of things that were good things. But nowadays chassidim have to do a job that at one time non-chassidim performed. Which was to keep standards of behavior for jewish things. So a chassid could yield to the devotional, could yield to the meditational, could go to do all these things. Because the other people were minding the store. Now that there really isn't anybody minding the jewish store anymore that people should put on tefillin. So chassidim have to do that rather than being involved with meditation and with davening and with things of the spirit. So where it's getting to that we can't mind the chassidishe store because we have to mind the general store so the whole thing sort of moves out of phase. But I get the feeling that the general store needs minding. Let me ask you something. How many of you have got mezuzahs on your door. I'm more interested now in raising the question why the others do not. It's not because you don't want to. lt's not because you've sat down and said, well, a mezuza is a reminder when you walk through this door of what it's all about. If you don't have a reminder all the time that tells you what it was all about. Remember the problem of living deliberately of having reminders These are reminders the tefillin are reminders. I'm not saying that you have to have this particular reminder. There are other reminders too.

But along with it being a reminder it also says if you're down and out and if you are a shema yisroel sayer and you're hungry. If you seen such a door you should be able to knock on it and say I'm hungry, you belong to that religion of Abraham, lsaac and Jacob the guy who fed the people who are hungry, you believe that G-d is mechalkel Hayim be-chesed, that you believe that hungry people should be fed. When you celebrate passover you say whoever is hungry let him come and eat. It's very nice to have such a sign which says that people.

Zalman: no, no, I'm saying that it tells you that that's a door you can knock on. How do you advertise something. I know that sometimes it can advertise, I got a fancier mezuza cover than you, I was in Israel. Or it can advertise that here is someone who promised or thought at some time that he would love the lord his G-d with all his soul, with all his might. He's inviting the world to have such a claim on him. So I'm just wondering where are the mezuzahs. If such a sign is a good sign to have. I'm not pushing mezuzahs and I am pushing mezuzahs. I'm not pushing mezuzahs to say that this is the way to salvation. It is unfailing way and if you do it you're gonna get so and so many light credits, brownie points or what have you. But I am saying something about the use of tradition or things. That's one way to do it. Well Elana said to me not too long ago Zalman why don't you wear the tzitzis out over your belt and I said I don't want to. Why not' Whenever she says that to me why not it's the kind of question that I have to start asking myself afresh. Why did I feel right away no I won't So I had to check it out. I checked it out and I found I didn't want people to think of me like a frumie on the campus. If you've ever had to do with guys who have their tzitis out on the campus and the yarmulke and the jdl button, then you already know that you don't want to be seen as one of them. At least I don't want to be seen as one of them. So that was one of the reasons why I didn't want to wear my tzitzis out. So I started to raise the next question with myself, what have I got that the tzitis are intended to do­ namely act as a reminder. A reminder that I am in the service of G-d. Like metropolitan security services. At least when you see a guy sitting around in his uniform you can say hey there are some suspicious characters hanging around would you go after them. So it's good to have those reminders.