Guidelines towards a Hassidic-style Torah Study

Guidelines Towards a Hassidic-style Torah Study 1) The purpose of study is to get close, not just wise. Begin by sacralizing the study: Contemplate one of the following before blessing the Torah, •The Torah is the key to unlock the spirit wisdom of the universe. • Every word of the Torah has seventy two possible interpretations. •There are miracles latent in the Torah which can be revealed by Torah study. •Torah study is the story of the healing of the soul. 2) Forget the context, the sentences and paragraphs. Since every word has multiple, ambiguous meanings, you can focus on a phrase or a single word. Each snippet of the hologram is a world unto itself. Remember Reb Zusya of Anipol who ran from the Bet Midrash upon hearing the Maggid begin the discourse with the words, "God spoke to Moses saying." This one line was enough for him to begin to absorb. 3) Assume that every jot and tittle of the Torah has a message for you at some point in your life How does the issue at hand impact the internal experience? For example, when studying about the sanctuary in the desert, consider what is the internal sanctuary to an individual soul? 4) On the whole, the Torah is not seen as a morality play but as guidelines to spiritual attainment and community well-being and the fulfillment of a purpose vis-a-vis one's incarnation. 5) The stories of the ancestors are to be reconsidered as an inner psychology of the soul. Each Torah figure, even the so-called "debased" represent an organic drive or complex within one individual. 6) Sin: because certain actions come out of a more limited world view, they bring one's lifeenergy down from a holistic view, and are thus considered wrongs, or consciousness 'droppers' or 'entanglers'. When capital punishment or death is mentioned, it is to be interpreted as a quantum drop in awareness, a regression to a more primal energy state from which to begin anew. 7) Commands and demands are to be reinterpreted as opportunities to connect with the essence of life. They are connection points offered for interspecies communication with God, not just acts of obeisance to a sadistic, overly dominant super-ego. 8) The settling of the land of Israel is symbolic of the accomplishment of enlightenment, bringing heaven and earth together within the individual, not a parochial account of one nations vanquishing of its enemies .. 9) Destruction of the native peoples adjunct to settling the land of Israel is to be reinterpreted as inner tough love, weeding of psychic parasites and suggest being strict with one's own tendencies towards denial, self-hatred, addictions, etc. It is questionable symbology to consider another people as encapsulations of our inner negative tendencies but that is our struggle with the xenophobic elements of the Torah. 10) Assignment of a lower status to women is problematic and needs to be left behind or reinterpreted as an old symbology of the relationship between different parts of the soul, where the feminine was relegated to the more interior parts of the soul and thus more removed from the plane of action. 11) The various names of God and descriptions of God-experience are considered to be exact, nonpoetic guidelines to the attainment of experience. 12) Curses are to be understood in their Hassidic depth as blessings on a mirror-plane.