Illuminated Sound: The Baal Shem Tov on Prayer

Product Description \\nIn the year 1698 a great light was revealed to the world with the descent of the holy soul of the Baal Shem Tov. In time, the Baal Shem Tov became one of the most
\nimportant and influential teachers of Torah in all of history, and the founder of Chassidus.\\nAmongst the vast repository of profound and revolutionary teachings of the holy Baal Shem Tov, the teachings on the path of Tefilah / Prayer are the most elaborate.The teachings of the Baal Shem Tov on Tefilah include some of his most innovative expressions, or Chidushim. Tefilah is the essential and central tenet from which all other teachings flow.\\nIn this masterful and practical text, Rav Pinson revives the awe-inspiring and transformational teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, and illuminates his unique path to Tefilah.\\nFrom the Inside Flap \\nTo pray is to dream, to yearn, to long, to reach out and connect to the Infinite.Conversely, life devoid of prayer is a dreamless, disconnected wasteland.Without prayer, a little something within us dies, as it is an intrinsic part of being human to dream, to imagine, to aspire, and to create. \\nThe Hebrew word Adam / human is rooted in the word Dimyon / imagination. We are created in the Divine imagination, asit were, and we, in turn, create our reality through the prism of our own imagination. We are not merely 'Homo Sapiens'; we are more accurately Homo Imaginus. Part of what makes ushuman is our ability to completely reimagine our lives, or even the entire world, at any given moment. Hence, when we lose touch with our Dimyon and stop dreaming, praying, or yearning, we cease being fully human. \\nIn this sense, to pray is to fill our hearts with the 'impossible' dreams and prophetic visions of an ideal future. Despite all the suffering and brokenness we may see in the world in its present state of concealment, to pray means to live prophetically, as it were --to long, hope, dream, envision, and strive for a better tomorrow. Prayer istherefore intricately bound up with prophetic consciousness.\\nTefilah is simultaneously an act of self-reflection and soul-expression. It is a time to attain proper perspective concerning our own personality and our duties towards our Creator, the world and humanity. To pray is to self-reflect in order to see where we have come from,and envision where we would like to go. \\nIn a moment or mode of prayer, we are filled with an overwhelming awareness that we are in the Divine Presence,and thus in a time of revealed truth and clarity. \\nAs a result, our egoic walls of self-deception and delusion come tumbling down. Who we are and what we truly desire become increasingly clear when the garments of our superficial schemes and desires simply evaporate.\\nWe may at first seek prayer as a means to petition the Creator of the Universe to give us things we think we need. Yet, as we move deeper into prayer, through the very act of verbalizing our dreams and yearnings, we are able to become more aware of what we really do want and need. Through the lens of our beseeching and pleading, we gain access to a self-reflective awareness of our own desires.\\nFrom the Back Cover \\nTefilah / prayer is the laboratory where learned ideas become lived ideals. It is the place where lofty concepts such as the Oneness of Hashem, Divine Providence, as well as love and awe of Hashem become experiential realities. Davening cultivates Emunah / faith and Bitachon/ trust, as well as clarity, expanded consciousness and deep inner certainty. \\nDavening /praying is the focal point of theBaal Shem Tov's teachings. The Baal Shem was once told
\nthat all of his spiritual achievements were attained not through his scholarship in learning Torah, butthrough his great devotion in
\nTefilah. For the Baal Shem, Davening is not just another discipline to be learned or just another tool to be acquired in a life of Avodah / spiritual work.It is the discipline and tool; it is t

Publisher:

Iyyun Publishing

Pages:

286

Date Published:

2021