From Your Mouth To G-d's Ear

By Don Yakov Ben Shalom

“In these times, we are allowed and duty-bound to reveal this wisdom."
Regarding the "secrets of the Torah"
Rabbi Isaac Luria ("The Ari" 1534-1572)
Some of the myriads of wonderful ancient Jewish secrets are revealed in this short book, illuminating the path to happiness, success and satisfied desires.
G-d reintroduces Himself to us as the Teacher.
His Textbook; the Torah.
He has already started to spoon feed us lessons we have long forgotten, shunned or pushed away. All we need to do is open our eyes & ears and He will show us how to achieve our desires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Yakov Ben Shalom
• Release date: Mar 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311943385

Don Yakov Ben Shalom

Don Yakov Ben Shalom is a retired Professional Fire Lieutenant and Paramedic and now, thank the One Above, a published author. He lives in a home that was built before the American Civil War, in a city that was established 100 years before the American Revolution and that is four minutes by foot from Temple B'nai Israel.His lovely wife Dena is an over-achiever, his Aishes Chayil, an accomplished woman. She has her Masters in Reading Education, is contemplating a Doctorate, teaches full time, tutors part time and is also a published author, vice president of our local Toast Masters and an accomplished seamstress and award winning quilter.He and Dena parent Don Yakov 's sons and on occasion, his daughter. When able, they travel to Florida and visit Dena's three married daughters, her three strapping sons-in-law and her very cool one and two year old grandsons, her lovely three month and 13 month old grand daughters, and three wonderful step grandkids, thank the One Above again.

Book preview

From Your Mouth To G-d's Ear

The Path To Happiness, Success And Satisfied Desires

By DonYakov BenShalom

Copyright DonYakov BenShalom 2007-2014

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Ch. 9 Bar Mitzvah Boy by Frank Hopper, 1970. Ch. 13 George Washington by N.C.Wyeth. Cover art by Don Yakov Ben Shalom

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part One: I am so blessed, you can be too

Chapter 1 A Little Background

Chapter 2 Something from Nothing

Chapter 3 Words...Just Words...

Chapter 4 We Can Rebuild Him, We Can Make Him Better.

Chapter 5 Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?

Chapter 6 Real Estate 101 Location, Location, Location

Chapter 7 Go East Young Man

Chapter 8 I put together a job for you.

Chapter 9 Temple B'nai Israel

Chapter 10 Some Direction

Conclusion To Part One: The Jews

Part Two: Coincidence Doubles

Chapter 11 Numbers

Chapter 12 Double Secret

Chapter 13 Think Good, and It Will Be Good!

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

In these times, we are allowed and duty-bound to reveal this wisdom.

Regarding the secrets of the Torah

Rabbi Isaac Luria (The Ari 1534-1572)

Preface

This book had gone the way of many unfinished works. For whatever reason, loss of interest, increase in distractions, fatigue, life...I had not written for a while. It had started out as a tell-all about how awful my ex was and how wronged I had been by the court. I had some great chapters written and chocked full of juicy divorce dirt I was going to dish up for your consumption.

Then the laptop I had this masterpiece stored on crashed. Those chapters are now safe and sound, cached and collected, cold stored at an average year round temperature of 70 degrees in my basement in a hard drive that will probably never again boot up. I debated rewriting it from memory, but it did not happen, thank the One above. That's probably a good thing for reasons laid out in Chapter 10 below.

Then, after the book sat dormant for several more months I met Rabbi Ascher Crispe.

I transported this brilliant young man from his home outside Philadelphia to the Medford Community Center in New Jersey. He gave an impressive lecture on a fraction of the myriads of innovations occurring in the physical world today and how they were relevant to his Doctorate.

I was privileged to speak with him for the hour it took to get to the lecture and then again on the return trip. Prior to picking him up I had skimmed his lecture promotion page on the web. I missed the relevance to this book thinking he was speaking in spiritual terms understandable to only the most learned rabbis. I am just the driver.

My lovely wife Dena yelled after me as I ran out, You are really going to enjoy that lecture. I had no idea what she was talking about. She too had read the promotion page and made the connection.

As soon as Rabbi Crispe got in the van he showed himself to be an affable, pleasant man. He had a wonderful knack for explaining the most technologically complex as well as the loftiest spiritual concepts in a readily understandable way. Even for the driver.

Not five minutes in the van, I realized what Dena was referring to. I was sitting next to a guy who could quote from memory what Sages knew millennia ago; and now the subject of this book, that G-d recreates the world every moment of every day and He does this using our thoughts and words; and that we have a great deal of control over the input, the data and even the output; the result.

He told me this as I was myself experiencing this same phenomenon. And I related this to the Rabbi. He then explained how important it is that I write this book and urged me to finish it. He cited his reason from a Midrash, an ethic, which said it was indeed my duty.

My paraphrasation of what the Rabbi said is that every Jew has a book, thought, lesson, insight or even a single letter to add to what is tantamount to fulfilling the Torah on earth. If a Jew does not provide his morsel to his brethren then he is a "Ganneff"; a thief. He has stolen a priceless piece of the puzzle.

It is not enough for one to feel spiritually enlightened, warm and elevated. One must use their own spiritual fire and enthusiasm, to make an effort to kindle the candle/soul of another by bringing them also closer to G-d and His Torah and Mitzvot.

Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber of Lubavitch Ref1

I found in my research it is not only an obligation of the Jew. Both the obligation and the opportunity are available to the world.

Moses Marmonides, a twelfth century sage also known as the Rambam, wrote that the entire world will wish to know the secrets that were given to the Jews. Quoting the Prophet he wrote:

Because then I will turn toward the nations (giving them) a clear lip, to call all of them in the name of G-d and to serve G-d (shoulder to shoulder as) one shoulder. Ref2

The Rambam continued;

"How is this? The entire world had become filled with the issues of the anointed one and of the Torah and the Laws, and these issues had spread out unto faraway islands and among many nations uncircumcised in the heart, and they discuss these issues and the Torah's laws." Ref3

So with this in mind; that the entire world had a potential interest in what I wanted to write; the coincident meeting Rabbi Crispe and the kick start he gave me at around the same time I experienced a phenomenon that literally changed my life: I resumed writing.

Introduction

This book deals with a phenomenon that I experienced after being crushed in a Child Custody Hearing.

The court had been misled and ordered me to attend Anger Management classes for 26 weeks. It also ordered that my parenting time be reduced from every other two weeks to just eight days a month.

The divorce itself was five years prior with its motions and counter motions, the expense, pain and dirt. It was no picnic.

At the time, I was a fire officer and paramedic and possessed a very high threshold to physical pain. But to the emotional stress of the divorce and from being away from my kids, I was a basket case.

But compared to my friends' and my new wife's experiences however, my six-month-long divorce was a walk in the park.

Like many others, I had a choice of dealing with it via drugs, alcohol, etc. I was fortunate in that I chose to throw myself into my faith.

I had cried out to G-d and I believe He answered me and directed me onto this path.

He caused me to meet a Chasid, a kind, pious man named Stu Holzkenner at the Chabad in Oakland Park Florida, in the course of my Shule hopping. A Shule is a synagogue. Chabad is an acronym for Chachma, wisdom, Bina, understanding and Daat, knowledge. It is an Orthodox outreach to Jews. Ref4

Stu told me he had been a New York City bartender. He now had a beautiful young wife and the long black beard, white shirt, black hat, pants and shoes that are the custom of these very observant Jews. He let me borrow a Chumash, a Bible containing the five books of Moses in Hebrew with English translation and commentary.

Chumash is also how you say five in Hebrew.

I believe my merely picking up that book began a series of events that allowed me to co-parent my children in spite of the divorce, and shower me with countless other blessings along the way. It also eventually led me to the phenomenon.

In return for His hearing my cry, I started to try to teach myself to understand Hebrew. I felt I owed that at the very least to G-d. There was not an abundance of folks that spoke Hebrew where I was living. Fewer still that were willing to teach it to me, so I started teaching myself.

There is a movie The Terminal, where an Eastern European traveler gets marooned at JFK Airport due to a coup in his home country. Tom Hanks' character spoke no English but was forced by circumstances to learn how to speak it quickly. He learned by getting identical travel guides, one in English and one in his home language.

Using this same Terminal method; read the English, read the Hebrew, sometimes one letter at a time, led me to discover an ancient phenomenon. It was written of by King David and is repeated in prayer several times a day by observant Jews.

You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Ref5

Post divorce, but prior to the Custody Hearing, the One above was taking very good care of me. He allowed me to study the Chumash, and relocate in order to parent my children. That was my desire and He satisfied it.

But then my ex started the custody battle that ended up cutting my parenting time by nearly half. By the time it was over, it felt like the court had ripped my heart out.

That's when I heard the radio advertising a DVD, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

I was so messed up, so depressed; the advertisement was really just background noise. When it finally made it through to my conscious mind, out of curiosity and as a diversion from the pain of losing my parenting rights, I rented the video.

It lifted my spirits and those of my beloved Dena. It had me refocus on my desires I had lost sight of rather than the wrongs that prevailed after the hearing.

But the DVD also left me wondering about its premise, bonafides and history.

It appeared to me to be intentionally avoiding any mention of G-d. Instead it suggested asking the universe to supply one's desires.

The DVD sounded familiar, save for failing to give credit where it is truly due.

Did the video get its methods and ideology from Judaism, but was just not saying so to be politically correct and reach out to a larger number of the primarily secular audience?

Or was it a non-Jewish belief system and therefore not permitted to me?

Or worse: Was it pagan or idolatrous, G-d forbid?

It mentions secrets possessed by the Ancient Babylonians.

But I wondered from where did Babylon get these secrets?

I knew that the Jews were taken captive after a brutal siege by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, the world's superpower at the time. It was prophesied that Israel would spend 70 years there.

Perhaps it was during that time and from the Jews that Babylon took these secrets. Ref6

And if the Ancient Babylonians appropriated the secrets from the Jews, from Whom did the Jews receive it?

If your desire is to know, then read on. For He opens His hand to satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Part One

I am so blessed, you can be too.

Chapter 1

A Little Background

But first a sidebar about my Dad

10 years ago, my Dad, ZLT had just arrived from Florida when my Cousin Mordechai Labe said I am taking you to the hospital.

My Dad's lungs had filled up with edema on the trip north. We thought we were going to lose him. He thought so, too. They let me and my