Female Empowerment - Woman's Football - Tzu Veymen Tzu Veymen - Bite The Dust - Mikva - Bittul - How Rav Kook Signed Off

"Female Empowerment". I quoted that phrase in the previous post. It makes me VERRRRRY uneasy. Torah is not the WFL [Woman's Football League]. We are not looking to empower ANYBODY, other than HKB"H. We are actually looking to DISEMPOWER ourselves and rid ourselves of any delusions of grandeur.

Let us take a pasuk we say twice a day in Elul [truly empowered women daven three times a day so they say it too:-)]: ה' מעוז חיי ממי אפחד - Hashem is the strength of my life from whom shall I fear.

Let us advance to Rosh Hashana when we are ממליך [crown as King] Hashem and not ourselves. The whole idea is to DETHRONE ourselves for a personal sense of haughtiness is the root of sin.

Yom Kippur - A day of contrition and confession admitting our great inadequacy and expressing a desire to change.

Succos - Temporary dwelling. Life is temporary. 4 species - they quickly wilt and die - asdoes the schach. Kosher Succah - Minimally a flimsy 2 walls and a third only one foot wide. We have no real refuge in life other than Hashem. [See famous essay of Maran HaRav]. כי יצפנני בסוכו - Hashem hides me in His succah. Complete submission to the higher power.

The popular poem we sing on Simchas Torah, 
העז וההדר צו וועמען צו וועמען? - לחי עולמים
Strength and glory, to whom to whom? To the Life of the worlds [Hashem].

There are countless other places where this is expressed. The notion of "self-empowerment" IS mentioned in the Torah but in a very negative context. We are warned not to say כוחי ועוצם ידי  - MY strength and the power of my hand accomplished all of my success.

Every day in davening we supplicate Hashem at the end ונפשי כעפר לכל תהיה - We want to be DUST to all. Not Betty Freidan and her ilk, talmidos vi-talmidei talmidos, who are always on the hunt for more power but nullification.

Woman [and men if they are fortunate] immerse in a mikvah, bringing about purity. טבל - immersion, shares the same letters as .... בטל. We dunk in order to nullify [בטל] ourselves to something higher and holier. That is the holiest.

THAT is the greatest power.

Sweet friends. I hope that I can be מבטל myself to my wife, my parents, my children, society and the world at large [including you when we meet]. I hope, this Elul, that I can shed those odious qualities of self-aggrandizement, self-service, narcissism, and excessive self-love.

Maran HaRav Kook would sign his letters עבד לעם קודש על אדמת קודש - A servant to a holy nation in the holy land.

הלוואי עלינו!!:-)

Bi-ahava,
Me

לזכות אהובי ר' הערש יונתן בן ר' מרדכי אפרים לברכה והצלחה וכל טוב סלה ועמו רעייתו היקרה ציפורה ליבא בריינדל בת ר' דוד עקיבא