[Avodah] THE I.R.S.O. AUDIT

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Oct 15, 2007 at 04:51:20PM -0400, Richard Wolpoe wrote:
: > Except that it's difficult to remember every one of the month's
: > transactions. I find it more useful to maintain a cheshbon nightly.
: > It provides good excercise in learning how to watch myself, seeing
: > how I actually respond and make decisions rather than how I like
: > to think I do. Which in turn makes more "room" between stimulous and
: > response besha'as ma'aseh to think about what I'm doing and make better
: > decisions. (Not that I necessarily /use/ that opportunity.)
: >
: > OTOH, I find the idea of spending time on YKQ reviewing it to be
: > compelling. Thanks.
: 
: Maybe this is a a parrellel to sarei alafim, sarie meei'os, sarei Hamishim,
: sarei assoros in taht there is a hierarchy... IOW we can audit ourselves
: nightly, weekly, monthly, and annually.   They all have their places and
: levels...

More people would have to actually try keeping a nightly cheshbon hanefesh
before we could turn that "maybe" into a known.

Given how powerful of a tool it is to know where you really stand
and which way you're going, I find it frustrating that ChN lacks the
popularity of other spiritual practices popularized by even later
acharonim. E.g. saying Nishmas outside the context of Shacharis, Pereq
Shirah, roite bindelakh (which requires relying on a significant kulah
in safeiq AZ), etc... No mysticism required -- it works for pretty
self-evident reasons.


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person lives with himself for seventy years,
micha at aishdas.org        and after it is all over, he still does not
http://www.aishdas.org   know himself.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter