A Life of Hishtavus
by Rav Doniel Katz
Just switch out the desire to connect to something bigger to the desire to connect to the BIGGEST.
At the end of the brackets of each moment, of each action, of each thought, in those spaces, in those gaps… we turn to connect to our phone, to connect to the internet, to check our social media, to check our WhatsApp, to see who left messages.
I want to tell you something very deep.
A, that's unbelievable destructive.
B. Why, what are we supposed to do in those moments?
In those moments, we're supposed to connect back to soul, we're supposed to connect back to dveikus, דביקות. We're supposed to plug in…
… because now I've just spoken to my wife, to my husband, to my kids, for that two-minute-19-second interaction.
Then, everything I do, I oscillate back and then release what was there.
Refocus,
Re-center,
Replenish,
Reconnect.
I'm open.
Then not only am I replenished, as in not taken down because I'm maintaining dveikus, דביקות, on a consistent level, not only that my friends, but what I'm now doing is I'm energizing myself for the next interaction, for the next conversation.
It's a conversation, no matter how small. I'm buying tomatoes in a shop, but I'm doing it with love and with light and with revelation. Then I interact and I pay the money and I have a dialogue back and forward, and I get upset because there's a worm in this one, I get another one, I take it back. Okay, now I check my phone. Oh my gosh, what's happening over there?
Once I check my phone, I don't recover from the emotional thing before. I get triggered by what's over there. I'm doing hiskashrus, התקשרות, with everybody's pain and everybody's ego and everyone's frustration. Then I come back and I go back to the tomato guy and now I'm more trunked in. That's just 8:30 in the morning.
Now, imagine the reverse.
Imagine in those parenthetic gaps between all the bits and pieces of reality, each moment you cleanse and clear and you rejuvenate and re-illuminate, by just going back to dveikus, דביקות.
Then you're constantly finding a thousand opportunities in the day to meditate, to release, to open, and to illuminate each time. That informs everything else you're doing, everything else you're doing constantly.
Therefore, I want to say something deep to you. The fact that between the bits and pieces of life we go to connect online, that's a klipah, קליפה. You see where I'm going with that right now?
That's because we sense that between the little bits of life, I'm supposed to reconnect to something bigger. It's just that we think that means everybody on Instagram. We don't realize that that cosmic impulse is now reconnect to Source.
If you would switch out every desire to connect online to a moment of reconnecting to your Source, then you already have the skillset for hishtavus, השתוות.
People get up in the morning and the first thing they do is spend half an hour on the internet going through everything in the world. Then they hang up, then they go and pray, then they check the phone and they have a conversation with their husband, then they check the phone and do something with the kids, and then they check the phone and they go out, and they check the phone.
You already know the ritual of being a chassid, of being a spiritually developed person.
Just switch out the desire to connect to something bigger to the desire to connect to the BIGGEST.
Therefore, you get up in the morning and rather than go online, you go on line. YOUR SOUL GOES ON LINE.
You spend that half an hour, 45 minutes doing that. Then, you're not, okay, I'm up to date with the news in the morning and I can check-in every 20 minutes to know what the news is every day.
You're up to date with the Divine news, the Divine Source, the news, the chiddush, חידוש, the hischadshus, התחדשות. That new energy is coming in every morning.
Then, every five, 10 minutes, you're checking in with that. Okay, am I still connected? Here's the light, what's the download, what's the revelation? That's exactly what you're doing.
That's a life of hishtavus, השתוות.