[Avodah] Eating Pas Yisrael During Aseres Yemei Teshuva

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Sep 07, 2012 at 09:18:11AM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
:> 2- The distinction, even if real, isn't relevent to the comparison of
:> pas palter to the original objection about people asking us how we could
:> post in some tone / on some topic during Elul. "Do you think you're
:> fooling Hashem?"

: aspirationally of what we would like to be. I'd humbly suggest that pas
: yisroel is a fine thing but for most of us not the primary challenge we
: face in our avodat hashem so by all means do it, but the real question
: isn't "Do you think you're fooling Hashem?", it's "Are you fooling
: Yourself?"

Returning to my earlier post, where I suggested that if mitzvos
are letovaseinu, not because He needs them, then so too are chumeros
excercises to improve ourselves, not statements to G-d -- neither honest
nor misguided attempts to fool Him. ...

There are two ways of fooling ourselves into thinking we're better than
the we actually are: One leads to complacency. We got there already.

The other is to act a certain way even though I don't feel it yet, so
that the feelings follow.

In Or Yisrael, RYSalanter discusses kibbush hayeitzer (acting correctly
despite the yeitzer hara) and tiqun hayeitzer (where the negative
desire no longer exists). Kibbush hayeitzer naturally leads to tiqun
hayeitzer.

This is akin to a self-help concept called "fake it till you make it"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it>, a/k/a "act as
if".

So maybe the idea /is/ to fool oneself -- in this latter way.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             None of us will leave this place alive.
micha at aishdas.org        All that is left to us is
http://www.aishdas.org   to be as human as possible while we are here.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner