This episode features a young woman named Hila Baruch, who ended up in the hospital with an almost total loss of blood after a surgeon accidentally left some arteries open during an operation 3 weeks previously.
Having grown up religious and attended a religious school, Hila said Shema Yisrael and Shir L'Maalot as they wheeled her in to anesthetize her for this emergency surgery.
With hardly any blood left in her, Hila's soul started the process of leaving and she experienced the Shema Yisrael prayer as never before.
Hila finally imbibed its true meaning, that one craves to "hear" Hashem straight to the heart of a Yisrael, a Jew.
Deceased aunts and her deceased great-grandmother materialized before her as if to escort her, making Hila feel loved and embraced. Her great-grandmother appeared as a flame.
Then Hila left her body in a single "leap." Gazing down at her physical form on the operating table, she felt as if she'd merely removed a coat and left it behind.
"I finally saw my body for what it was," she said. "A garment for the soul."
It wasn't the real "her." Without her body, she felt complete with no lack.
Still floating within This World, Hila already felt like she'd come home—a beautiful feeling.
She recalled the lifelong questions plaguing her: "What are we doing here? Why is there suffering? Why do we live then die? What is the purpose?"
But as she joined her aunts and great-grandmother, she said, “I received all the answers in one moment like drops of rain.”
Then Hila floated out of the operating room to where she saw her mother davening for her.
Suddenly, the operating surgeon's thoughts flung Hila to a vacation home in northern Israel.
There, the first surgeon, who performed the initial botched operation, relaxed on vacation with his wife.
And because the present surgeon had trained the first surgeon, he knew all about what happened and felt angry at the first surgeon for causing Hila to bleed to death (temporarily, as it turned out).
In Hila’s purely spiritual state, she experienced the powerful thoughts and feelings of others. And she experienced how much the current surgeon cared about her—as if she was his daughter.
"The Only One Judging was Me Judging Myself."
“I thought that through verbal abilities, I could help people.
I really believed this and I believed there was justice.
But in the Heavenly Court, it was so different than my experience as a lawyer throughout the years in the courtrooms as a litigator...everything there was the opposite of the worldly judgement.
The only one judging was me judging myself.
There was a life review in which I saw everything that happened from the time I was born until this moment.
In that life review, I experienced every pain I caused to someone else.
I was every single one of the characters in the scenes the life review showed me.
I understood every person, I felt every person—I felt what is was like to be in their shoes.
And when I hurt them, I felt the pain that I caused them.
It’s not a simple feeling to undergo life review.
It’s to see yourself and you can’t say anything else.
You can’t say, "I have the right to remain silent."
You can’t say, "Objection!"
No posturing, no miscarriage of justice, no mistrial, no procedure...
So there were 3 approaches: Din, Rachamim, and B’emtza [pure judgment, mercy, and something in-between].
I didn’t want to return [to This World] at any price.
After they showed me my life and they showed me how I acted--
Just talking about the life review is a whole topic unto itself, so I can’t go into it now...but it brings to fore a kind of wholeness and understanding, and afterwards, I was told to go back here [to This World].
And I didn’t want to go back.
But the same saintly judge told me, "It’s not your time."
And they showed me my funeral...and even when they showed me my funeral, I still didn’t want to go back.
And so they said, "Okay, so you’ll be in another world."
It’s hard to explain, but it’s sort of like a parallel world on the same level—maybe a drop lower because it’s a world for preparation for the next gilgul.
Then they showed me the family that I would reincarnate into. And I didn’t want to go back, I didn’t want to reincarnate.
And he said, “You will reincarnate and you’ll go through everything you needed to go through from the beginning."
After this, the dayan from the side of Rachamim asked Hila if she agreed to this.
And said said, "I agree."
Then the 3 Heavenly dayanim made her take on 3 promises:
1) I will make teshuvah, I will return inward to myself, to the portion of my soul, to operate from within that portion. That was the first thing.
2) The second was that I’ll utilize the God-given abilities for kedushah.
Before this experience, the kishurim (abilities) were kishronot (talents). That’s how I saw them—as talents.
And after the experience, I realized they weren’t talents, they weren’t me, and nothing belongs to me—it’s a loan.
I received a kli (tool, instrument) and that instrument needs to l'hitnagen (be played, make music).
3) And the last thing is that I need to relate what happened. From my place, I need to say what happened.
Hila explained where she was holding at the time of her NDE and how she reached that place:
The return to my closeness to the Creator emanated from a place from which I distanced myself before the experience because what I absorbed—not from my grandfather’s home—was a lot of conflicting feelings.
What I absorbed in school was reward and punishment.
So I was like, "Okay, I’ll never succeed in keeping everything, so I’m already not okay. And it doesn’t matter what I do, I’ll never succeed because there’s also this, and also this, and also this...and it’s as if you tag the Creator with a label of "the Creator Who punishes," and suddenly, there’s this understanding that He is BRIMMING with LOVE.
What does it mean that He’s full of love?
He IS love!
And He’s full of Compassion! And He wants my good!
And He’s ALWAYS listening and attentive!
And even I when I leave myself, He remains with me!
Even when we leave Him and leave ourselves, He’s still with us!
This astounded me.
And it didn’t just astound me, it pained me.
Because I felt that what I previously thought about the Creator was like slander.
The Great Misconception
I felt like everyone had manipulated me.
I never want anyone to experience that feeling of living under this misconception—that I was irrelevant.
It’s like a man who just played a role in the movie—a leading role—and at the end of the movie, when they show him the edited version, he hardly appears there. He was irrelevant.
And I discovered that many things, which I thought were important—yet maybe I even blocked others from their own development because they were supposed to do it.
We don’t do anyone else’s tikkunim.
We CONNECT, we do "v’ahavta l’reicha komacha."
"Number One, We Each Need to Understand Who am I and What am I?"
She could see and hear everything—even better—without her body because she could perceive intentions.
And she spoke of how this understanding can help others—but one needs to be grounded in the fundamentals first:
Number one, we each need to understand who am I and what am I?
If a person thinks he’s a monkey, so what I can I tell him already? Okay?
I first of all need to make him understand what is his identity.
Why We Want Mashiach NOW
Beit Mikdash—it’s a gate. It’s a gateway to something.
It’s not the purpose in and of itself.
And I say this now because it’s a part of the experience that I didn’t add earlier.
What astounded me is how they always say, “THE Beit HaMikdash will come, THE Mashiach will come"—wait a minute! It’s a GATE.
It’s a gateway to the Creator. In the end, we want Him.
I want You.
It’s a gateway to Him.
It's the conduit toward genuine unadulterated closeness with Hashem.
A common thread weaving throughout the chapters of Sefer Yeshayahu (Isaiah), several of which star as our weekly Haftarahs is how the world will gather around the Jews and the Beit Hamikdash in order to learn more about Hashem and how to serve Him.
(And then, says the Navi, they will return to their homes. Yes, Yeshayahu says it directly, that the nations will come to visit, learn—then go back to their native lands. It's not like now, when most think they come here to replace us or that the Land belongs to them.)
Mashiach will guide us back to our Tribal portions and observing the Torah will be what our soul openly craves.
So Mashiach and the Beit Hamikdash are the best conduit, the most conducive gateway, for achieving our soul's innate potential.
Be Like the Sun – Nurture Others with Your Very Presence
Before we hurry out to "do," to rebuke, or look to change anyone else, it's about looking to influence, to illuminate, to be—just from one's presence, to grant vitality to the thing itself.
You have the ability to not speak at all, and everyone will grow and blossom around you—like the Sun.
Fears, Phobias and Tensions: Tips and Remedies