We have learned that blockages in our bodies are the root cause of disease. Detoxification, the removal of blockages is the basic cure for disease. And never accumulating blockages in the first place, is the healthiest and most flowing state for our bodies to be in of all.
Our bodies parallel our souls, and the blockages that cover our souls cause our spiritual sense of dis-ease. It is possible to become aware of what blocks us from accessing our souls, and we can consciously learn how to remove the blockages. It is also possible to help children avoid accumulating these blockages as much as possible. This is done by helping children develop the inner resources to deal with life’s challenges, which are all around.
My Let’s Stay Safe book (Artscroll/Mesorah/Project YES, 2011) focuses on ways to keep a child’s body safe from harm, which in turn protects the child’s spiritual development. My new book, Let’s Stay Pure, highlights the importance of safeguarding each child’s radiant soul by creating healthy boundaries on the materials, activities, and other influences to which we allow a pure neshama to be exposed.
A couple of years ago, a mother contacted me and basically begged me to write a kind of “Guard Your Eyes†book for children. Once I started writing it, I realized it was actually expressing the thoughts that guided my parenting when my children were growing up. From my own experience growing up, I knew that destructive values seep in subliminally, diminishing clarity without our being aware of it. A pure neshamah craves truth and needs all the help it can get to shine brightly and joyfully.
Hashem has given each of us a pure neshamah in order to experience the greatest, deepest, and most lasting pleasure possible in this world. It now seems easier than ever for a neshamah to get covered over with garbage. Yet keeping the connection between a neshamah and its infinite Source clear from debris brings incomparable pleasure. Although children appear small, each child has a neshamah that is as infinitely gigantic as an adult’s, and each neshamah is always seeking pure nourishment. It takes a lot of thoughtful effort to nurture a neshamah in our current generation, but it is so worth it.
When we provide our spiritual heart, as well as our children’s core, with the pure nourishment it needs, the spiritual arteries don’t become clogged. (It’s the junk that forms the gunk.)
Let’s Stay Safe has helped protect the innocence of many children. I hope that Let’s Stay Pure will help to further protect many of our children’s pure souls. Through a honed awareness that comes from learning to be more careful and wary, our little ones actually have a much greater chance of being able to retain, yet refine, their sense of trust in our world, instead of losing it, G-d forbid.
There was one jar of pure oil left that was found amidst the garbage in our Holy Temple during the first Chanukah, and it miraculously created a light that continued shining. Despite the garbage that may presently block all of our light from streaming through, the pure potential miraculously remains in each of us, and we can still find it.
And by helping children protect the spark within from becoming obscured, our little candles retain the ability to shine with a healthy glow, each with a uniquely beautiful radiance.
Bracha Goetz is the author of twenty-four Jewish children’s books: http://www.amazon.com/Bracha-Goetz/e/B001KCI086. Pages from her new book, Let’s Stay Pure, published by Torah Temimah Publications can be viewed here: http://www.judaicapress.com/Lets-Stay-Pure.html.
