Kabbalah for Everyone Lesson 5: Becheyn: When Truth Becomes Real Life

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In Lesson 5 of Kabbalah for Everyone, Rabbi Bernath explores the Chabad idea of becheyn, the practical result, the bottom line, the moment when an idea stops being “beautiful” and starts becoming life-changing. The lesson teaches that authentic spiritual growth is not complete when we understand something, or even when we feel inspired by it. It becomes complete when it changes how we speak, react, choose, love, restrain ourselves, and live. In classic Kabbalah fashion: mind must guide the heart, the heart must energize action, and Torah must find an address in real life.

Key Points

1. Becheyn means the bottom line: The question is not only, “What did I understand?” but “What changed because of it?”

2. Mind and heart need a practical landing place: Sechel without action can become cold. Emotion without direction can become chaotic. Becheyn brings both into life.

3. Tanya teaches that the brain can rule the heart: We may not choose every first feeling, but we can often choose what happens next.

4. Deed is essential: Study matters deeply, but its purpose is to shape actual behavior.

5. Daat makes truth personal: It is not enough to visit an idea. We need to stay with it until the idea visits us and begins to shape us.

6. Brilliance without conclusion can avoid transformation: Sometimes we hide behind complexity. Becheyn asks: what is the next honest step?

7. The Three Night Questions create daily accountability: What did I do today? What could I have done today? What deeper truth do I want my life to reflect?

8. Soul and body both matter: Spirituality is not escaping real life. It is bringing the soul into the body, the home, the schedule, the conversation, and the choices.

9. Nigleh and Nistar need each other: The revealed Torah gives structure. The hidden Torah gives fire. Together, they create grounded holiness.

10. The real test of inspiration is the next ten minutes: One apology. One boundary. One softer response. One mitzvah with intention. One less sarcastic remark. That is becheyn.

#Kabbalah #KabbalahForEveryone #RabbiBernath #Becheyn #chabad #ChabadWisdom #PracticalKabbalah #Tanya #PirkeiAvot #MindAndHeart #Daat #JewishWisdom #chassidus #spiritualgrowth

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Good morning. It is a beautiful, beautiful morning. So happy to be here. So happy to be together. Before we get started, uh I want to thank any everyone and anyone who has bought our ticket in our annual raffle. It's ndgraffle.com. It means a lot to us, so thank you very much. Also, next week, I'm going to do a little pause in this series and I'm going to do something really special, as it's my birthday, and I'm going to be doing a class for sensitive souls. So if you're someone who is in this category, I'm going to be doing a special class on the gift of too much sensitivity. I'm excited about that. And uh I look forward. If you want to join us in person, it's Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. Just message me for the link. That said, I want to continue this series. This is lesson five of Kabbalah for everyone. And today we're going to begin with what I think is a very honest question. In our earlier lessons, we spoke about Sechel and Midot, the mind and the heart. The mind teaches the heart how to feel, how contemplation can create emotion, how Kabbalah does not want us to be cold and cerebral, and it also doesn't want us to be emotional and chaotic. So today I want to ask the uncomfortable question that comes after all of this great conversation. So what? So what? If I understood something beautiful this morning, if I even felt something this morning, what changed because of it? Did I speak differently? Did I act differently? Did I react differently? Did I become a more truthful partner or friend? Did the idea land anywhere other than in my notebook? And I think that in our society we are used to just kind of taking in data, taking in information. And that is not Kabbalah's interest. Attained data input is not as interesting as something else. In Kabbalah, it's called the Bachin. B E C Phlem H E Y N. Bahin, which means the practical result, the bottom line. And I think this is one of the great honest gifts of Kabbalah. We're not impressed because you understood something deep. Maybe someone else would be impressed. In our teaching, it's not impressive. And we're not even fully impressed because you felt something moving. The question we're going to ask today, and the question that I think is so important in any teaching, is what is the Bafain? What came out of it? Where did it land in life? What changed in the city of my body? What changed in the weather of my home, in the tone of my speech, in the choices of my day. Why is it coming here in lesson five? Because Kabbalah says that the chain, the result, is the unity between the mind and the emotions. It's not emotions that run wild, it's not emotions that are frozen inside intellect. It's emotions that are guided by the mind and translated into real life. And I think this is a really important distinction. I can speak for myself. Very for a while I lived in a world of ideas. Everything is fascinating. Everything is conceptual. Everything is even analyzable. That's a word. But nothing changes. Then I spent a lot of time living in a world of emotion. Things were so intense, urgent, everything is urgent. But because the feeling has no inner guidance, nothing stable was built. So what does Bahrain say? What does this idea of the result say? That a real insight should become a real feeling, and a real feeling should become a real life. I'll say it a little more sharply. If my ideas, if my learning stays in my head, then it's not yet whole. If my inspiration stays in my heart, it's not whole. If it doesn't reach my behavior, then all of my inspiration and all of my ideas and all of my learning is still unfinished. What I'm looking for in my learning is not to learn more. What I'm looking for in my learning is a result. And this essentially is the essence of spirituality. Because we believe the soul came into the body for a reason. So what we experience and what we learn is to be embodied. I want to thicken this idea by bringing in Vitania. Chapter twelve, we've brought it in a few times before this. The idea of Moach Shalit Al-Haleith, that the brain rules over the heart. A person has the built-in capacity to restrain the lust of the heart, the capacity to redirect attention, and to refuse to let destructive thoughts settle in the conscious will. Now, I want to be very careful here. It doesn't mean that if I feel something strong, I'm a failure. I'm going to talk about that next week. The Tanya here isn't saying you should never have negative feelings. We know that people are going to have negative feelings. We're not trying to ignore that. We don't have to give those feelings the steering wheel. We don't have to let a passing impulse become my regular behavior. There's a huge difference between I felt anger and I made anger my speech. Or I felt envy and I let envy write the email. Or a thought came to my mind. I welcomed that thought. I acknowledged the thought. I fed it, I decorated it, and then I moved it into the living room. I'm acknowledging that the thought is there. But it doesn't have to be right in front of me. The first movement, the first thought, the first feeling may not always be chosen. But the second movement, what happens after that first feeling, what happens after that first thought, can be chosen always. And so what ends up happening is we get married to the first thought or the first feeling. And as a result, it takes us down a path that may or may not be helpful for us. And so just acknowledging and noticing, and just taking a step back and saying, wait, do I want to entertain this thought? Now it may be very comfortable, it may be very cozy, but is it helpful? And I think now in the Bahane, in the result, we're no longer only asking, What do I understand? We're noticing something different. The question I would ask is, what will I do with what rose inside of me? You could be in this class and it could trigger something. People have said that, that things that I've said have triggered. Now that initial triggering, that is the first feeling. That's the first movement. You can decide to go down that rabbit hole. You can even blame me.

unknown 11:04

Right?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

That's part of going down that rabbit hole. Or you can look at the second movement and say, no, this is not what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna think, I'm gonna feel, but I'm not going to react. It's hard. Because the world says things like, trust your gut. Or it's it's an inspiration, it's a divine inspiration. We can even spiritualize it. It may be true, but it may also not be true. I know that that first movement is not always chosen. And so if it's not always chosen, it could be that there is some kind of divine or universe calling out to us. It could happen. But it could also be that my triggers, it could also be my past, it could also be my defense mechanisms, it could also be that I'm leading with fear. And as a result of years and years of leading my life a certain way, it's created maybe a first movement that I don't like or that I could possibly look at and possibly change. There's a tradition during the summer months, especially between Passover and Shavuot, but also into the summer months to study Pirke Avot, which is this beautiful book that was written by the authors of the oral law, the authors of the Mishnah, and it's their ethics. To me, it's like uh Twitter before Twitter. It's the original Twitter because all the rabbis, these are all rabbis who um were authors of uh the great Mishnah, and they had ethics, lines, little tweets that they lived by. And so there's one, there's many there that are unforgettable, that are unforgettable. One there says, the essential thing is not study but deed. The essential thing is not study but deed. Now, this is written 1900 years ago. And I think it's one of the beautiful things that I sometimes catch myself awe-inspired that we have this ability to study these ideas and these ethics that are they're not even a couple hundred years old. They're almost two thousand years old. Two thousand years is a long time. Now, he's not saying don't study. He's not saying the essential thing is don't study, but just do. I think somebody could come to that reaction. What he's saying is that if study does not become deed, then it has not yet reached its purpose. And so I want to marry these two ideas that the mind hones the heart or the mind dominates the heart, and the essential thing is not study but deed. The Tanya says, right after that, that you can direct what happens next. The ethics of our fathers says, and what matters most is what happens next. So I want to take these two ideas and I want to put it into everyday language. If I'm a patient person and I learn about patience, but then I shout at my partner, then the Bahrain is missing. If I learn about surrender and faith, but I live in this constant panic without ever challenging the story in my head, then the Bahrain is missing. If I learn that every image, every human being is created in the image of God, but then I keep humiliating people in a small, we'll call socially acceptable way, whatever that means, then the Bahrain is missing. So what I really want to talk about today is how do I help truth survive contact with real life? There is so much that I know, but for some reason I can't put it into practice. Like I know that response was wrong. I know that the way I showed up today or in that moment was wrong. How do I put it into practice? I want to go back to dot that we spoke about. As I told you, a lot of these classes, even though you can listen to them or be part of them on their own, I'm gonna put a layer and a layer and a layer, and I'm gonna keep on trying to bring back some of the ideas that we've spoken about before. So dot is that intellectual integration. It's the faculty that takes an idea and brings it into attachment. It brings it, it's the connector between the mind and the heart. It brings it into uh emotional correspondence. Dot concentrates attention, it links reason to emotion, and it becomes decisive for the whole person. I think this is important because a lot of us think that the problem is that we don't know enough. And sometimes that's true, but often I think it's not. Often the problem is not a lack of information, it's a lack of attachment. I know gratitude is healthy, but that process to to actually say thank you, you say sometimes it's hard. Especially if you have a certain dance that you've had with a certain person. Yeah, to say thank you to the cashier, not so hard. But to say thank you to my spouse, maybe a little harder. Because we have a certain dance, and maybe the dance doesn't have gratitude in it. And I'm afraid of changing that dance. I know that anger hurts me. I know that gossip is toxic. I know that that prayer puts me in a in a spiritual state. I know that if I take Friday night and make it family night, it would be so healing for my family to tell everyone to put away the phones and let's just have a face look instead of Facebook. I know that to be true. I know that I can fake anything, but I can't fake showing up. So that presence is so much more important than winning arguments. Like we know a great deal. Why can't they come in and become part of our real life? And so dot means I let the truth stay with me long enough that it begins to claim me. It's not just I visited the idea, the idea visited me. It's not just that was so beautiful. You know, the rabbi said something, it was so beautiful. It's what's the nugget? What stayed with me until it began to shape my responses? What am I taking with me? For those of you who come in person, you know over the years something that's very important to me are the nuggets. What are you taking home with you? Because that's the Bahrain. At least that's where the Bahrain begins. Because once I start noticing, once the truth becomes attached to me, it can start to become part of me. I want to go and thicken and deepen this idea. If I may. For some of you, this may be an aha moment, and for some of you it may be above your head. But it's okay. I I try very hard to introduce ideas that are a little above us, that way we can we can strive and grasp and try to try to lift ourselves higher. I want to talk about two modes of learning. The first mode is sharp and challenging. Always questioning, always refuting, always sharpening, using questions to find answers. It's a very powerful concept. A lot of Talmudic learning is that way. If you study Talmud, sharp, challenging, back and forth, back and forth. The other way of learning is patient and conclusive. That we're able to reach a bottom line. The example that is given in the Talmud are two great scholars, Reb Zera and Reb Masna, to show that brilliance without conclusion can remain incomplete and patient conclusion. has the virtue of bringing the truth into embodiment. Let me um let me try to explain it this way. Some people are brilliant at complexity. They can see ten sides of everything. They can deconstruct every idea. They can question every moral demand. And then nothing happens. It was good. It was a nice exercise. It was a mental exercise. We had fun. That was nice. Mental gym. We fought, we debated. No decision. No commitment. No change. No Bahrain. And other people are not necessarily the most dazzling in abstraction. But they can say, you know, this is what I learned. And I'm simple. I don't know simple is the right word. You know I I I take it at face value. This is what it asks of me. This is what I'm going to do before lunch. That's spiritually powerful. I'm going to say something that may be a little dangerous. Sometimes endless sophistication is a way of avoiding surrender. If I keep analyzing forever I never have to listen if I keep debating forever I could go through the world as the great critic I never have to change. Oh who are you? You're the critic if I keep saying ah it's complicated it could be a defense mechanism. It could be me protecting myself from something that could heal me. So Bahrain means accept influence and actually it's the secret of a healthy relationship. One of the great secrets of a healthy marriage or a healthy of any healthy relationship is accepting influence. Now if you come to a class and there's a teacher that's a that's a vertical experience right you came because you wanted to learn something new so you're you're open you're more open to accepting influence because that was the point of being here. But if it's someone that you're in a relationship with that's more a horizontal experience if it's a partner if it's a friend if it's a family member and you see yourself on the same level as them it's much more difficult to accept influence. Like what do they know? And I would say especially from a partner now let's get into my favorite part of the class the Bachin of the Bahane which means if you follow I've I have been creating a Bahin of every class right I create exercises and ways of integrating. So I've been using this concept in the teaching so far. This is just the under the hood of how I've been teaching so I have an exercise for you I'm calling it the three night questions before I go to sleep I ask myself three questions what did I do today what could I have done today and what is the deeper ultimate truth towards which I want to my life to move so the first question what did I do today it keeps me honest. I don't want fantasy I don't want self-flattery I don't want drama what did I do today what did I actually do? And I'm not saying like what did I say today not what did I think today what did I do today the second question sometimes is harder for me because the its goal is to keep me responsible and I don't mean guilty. I'm not you know very often there's a lot of guilt because for those of us that can relate to this being raised with a lot of guilt when you see like oh like what could have I done today oh then we start getting uh all caught up into the ah I could have done this ah I could have done this. No no no it's what was possible that I did not choose. And then the third question keeps me from becoming small because if all I ask is what I accomplish today, then I'm going to shrink to the size of my current habits. And so what I want to do is I actually want a Bahrain. I want the truth of what I want to grow toward even if I'm not there yet. What is my goal? I don't want to become spiritually dry the practicality thein keeps me from becoming spiritually dry because I can become efficient but not elevated I could become really good at mastering my time but what was I good at mastering my time for I think if you look at a lot of the self the self-help books well you can make more money what is the money going to do for me so I have more money and what am I going to do with the money just wasted on random Amazon stuff? That's not elevated it's nice maybe I'm a I'm a things person so I have to have things. Okay. I noticed that too if I only stay with the ultimate ideal with no practical result it becomes fantasy. So I need a lofty truth I need a an elevated truth I need a goal and a concrete next step I'm going to call this if I may steal a word I'm going to take two words that probably have never been put together before I'm going to call it spiritual psychology you need a horizon you need a next act you need a vision and you need Wednesday and it's putting the macro and the micro in this in the right place now I want to go on to another thickening idea I want to talk about bodies and souls or the soul without a body and the body without a soul we are humans the human experience is comprised of both a body and a soul a person cannot live only in the soul while neglecting the reality of the body and we cannot live only in the bodily function while starving the soul. They both need to eat if I can be so bold to say this I think this is one of the deepest correctives of fake spirituality sometimes we imagine spiritual life means floating above ordinary life oh you're so spiritual no sleep no schedule no health no practical responsibility let's go sit on the mountain nothing against the mountain but we can we can we can get into lofty ideas and we won't have any responsibility and we can get into the the the fountain of youth we'll look young we'll be young there's nothing wrong with with with being human and you can say that you're young with a lot of experience but that experience is important. I don't know if I want to be my younger self because the self that I am now has much more perspective and experience than my younger self I don't want to offend anyone so if I offend you take it as a trigger and trigger as medicine I don't think this is a soul in the world I think this is a soul trying to escape the world and sometimes the opposite happens sometimes there's a person who becomes very hyper practical, very scheduled very productive very optimized but there's no inwardness there's no tenderness there's no curiosity there's no wonder no soul and I think that too is broken the the body itself is morally neutral. It's an instrument that can be used for good or for bad it can be used with the divine soul or with the more animalistic soul and both of those souls are interlocked in the living person so maybe the question is not body or soul the question is how does the soul inhabit the body am I eating mindlessly how does my eating become my service how does speech become refinement how does money become for a higher purpose how does time become holy how does a conversation become a dwelling place for God that is what Bahrain is a lot of people get spirituality wrong because somebody said oh go to the synagogue go to the church go to the place of religious space and that's where you're going to find spirituality that is not where you're going to find spirituality maybe that can nurture your spirituality that you already found but it's not where you're going to find it where we're going to find it is in the Bahin I want to go into another idea if I may there are two there are two experiences in study of Torah right Kaba is going to use the study of Torah as the metaphor for for these experiences Nigla and Nistar nigla is the revealed dimension of a Torah and Nisdar is what is called the hidden dimension of a Torah. Now if we only study abstract mystery then we can fly away and if we only study the revealed and practical without soul then we get stuck in the mud the ideal is the feet on the ground and the mind in the sky and it's not only about what we're studying it's about a way of being the revealed part of the Torah is going to ask what do I do? What are the mechanics? How do I do something? If I want to keep Shabbat how do I keep Shabbat? What are the laws of Shabbat? And the hidden aspects the Nistar is going to ask who am I becoming and where is God in all of this? If I can use the metaphor the nigla the revealed aspects give form the hidden aspects give fire the the revealed protects me from vagueness and the hidden protects me from dryness. And the Bahan doesn't mean that I choose between the two I need them both. I need the hidden to animate the revealed and I need the revealed to discipline the hidden I'll explain it like this and I know we're going to have to thicken this idea because I'm just kind of touching on it. If I want my spiritual experience to be lawful enough to be real and alive enough to be part of me. And I need both of them which means I can't I can't have this kind of airy fairy ideas then I what what am I focusing on? Where's the next level? Where's the next step? But at the same time I can't just have the mechanics because then it just becomes absentminded recitations for example I can see you're having a hard time with this so I'll I'll I'll keep it at that and maybe we'll have to thicken this idea in the next class. I think there's a lot here or maybe I'll do a um a follow-up class. I think I'll do a follow up class to this one to kind of explain this a little better because I think this this point but the main thing I want you to get out of this is the Bethane. I hope I can use the Hebrew now that we've we've spoken about it so many times I like to uh take a pause here and see if I can uh bring a guided meditation a guided reflection into this are we okay with that so I've gotten really into these two or three minute meditations I used to do these longer meditations I find these two or three minute meditations to be a lot more beneficial so if you're listening to this after and maybe you're driving it may not be the best time to uh to be listening to a meditation but uh if you're in a space where you can kind of stop and pause this would be a great opportunity to stop and pause and just to find a comfortable place. It's just going to be two or three minutes not longer. And I'm going to invite you to just a soft focus take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth just notice notice the parameters notice where you are if you're if there's walls if there's a floor there's a ceiling or if you're out in nature see tree leaves notice what you hear you may hear the fan you may hear the birds depending on where you are just kind of notice all of that and I want you to take another deep breath and as you take this breath and release ask yourself where in my life do I already know the truth but I have not yet built a Bahane a result where do I keep saying I understand but my family would say but nothing changes What feeling in me has been running the house without supervision What truth have I admired from a distance but I avoid it in practice I'd like to invite you to say the following to yourself I do not need to follow every feeling I do not need to fear every feeling my mind can guide my heart my heart can energize what I know And the question is now not only what I understand but what is the result And I like to invite you just to pause and think of what is the result. Now that I'm processing this now that I'm feeling what I'm feeling what is the result And I want to invite you to just let one concrete answer come. Not five, just one phone call one apology one boundary one extra three minutes of presence one less sarcastic remark one act of hidden kindness one shift in in bedtime so tomorrow doesn't begin in a panic one realignment That already is enormous. And whenever you're ready you can open your eyes and rejoin us. So I want you to leave this class not only with inspiration but with something practical. So we spoke about the three night questions what did I do today? What could I have I done today and what ultimate truth do I want to affect my life we I'd like to maybe introduce based on this meditation I'm just kind of broadcasting live here what I would call the Bahane pause the the Bahin pause if I feel emotionally hijacked I'm going to pause and say What am I feeling? What am I feeling right now? And put a word to it, overwhelmed, out of control, whatever, whatever that word is. And then ask, what does my mind know to be true? And number three, what would be the Bahane in the next ten minutes? Or the next five minutes. That's what I'm going to call the Bahane pause. The third exercise that I'm thinking about is the soul and body balance. And my my challenge or invitation to you this week is to do one thing for the body each day, and one thing for the soul, but on purpose, not by accident. You can't look back and say, oh, you see, I did that. Good check. No, on purpose. Actually, intentionally do one thing for the body and one thing for the soul. For the body, it could be sleep, it could be water, walk, eating properly for the soul, it could be prayer, it can be gratitude, it could be sadaka, charity, it could be uh study, one thing for the body and one thing for the soul each day this week on purpose. I'm gonna uh take a minute and kind of close this lesson. If if I had to say the whole lesson in one sentence, it would be this. Bachin, the practical result, Bachin, is what happens when truth finally gets an address in my life. Not when I necessarily admire it or when I discuss it, or the momentary feeling, but I want the Bakin to become part of my words, part of my actions, part of my discipline, part of my softness, my restraint, my courage, my alignment. And maybe that's why it says in the ethics of our fathers that the essential thing is deed. And that's why it says in Tanya that the mind can rule the heart. Because Kabbalah, spirituality, is not asking us to become disembodied admirers of holiness. It's asking us to become people where holiness actually lives. So I bless us. Here comes my blessing. May Hashem help us that we should become what we feel, and what we feel should become what we do. And what we do should become a home for the divine in this world. And may we not be satisfied with beautiful ideas alone, but marriage, but merit the courage, the honesty, and the joy to bring them into our lives, into the Bachin, into the bottom line, into real life. And I thank you for being here with me today. I thank you for being part of this process. I love to hear which ideas landed for you and which ones we need to thicken because I can do another class just thickening some of these ideas. And with that, wish you a beautiful, wonderful day until we meet again.