Elul
is here, and the King is in the field. These days approaching Rosh Hashanah are
designated for teshuva – a time when
the universe is ripe for personal growth, when we concentrate on our middos and our Yiddishkeit. But how do
we use the power of Elul to be our best selves? To make even one small change?
For more than 20 years, Rabbi Aryeh Nivin has focused on this work and guided
thousands of others on how to do the Elul avoda,
using Torah sources such as the Arizal, Derech
Hashem, and the Slonimer Rebbe.
Rabbi Nivin is a former senior lecturer in Aish HaTorah’s famous Discovery
program, who also taught personal development and counseled Aish’s students
before going out on his own. His Elul
Experience chabura, an
advanced teleconference class with hundreds of men and women participants (separately
of course), begins during the first week of Elul with the question, “What are
one or two things you could do this year that, if you did them, would upgrade
everything else?”
By Elul 25 – the day the world was created – everyone in the chabura, including Rabbi Nivin, has completed
an Elul plan. Actually, Rabbi Nivin works on his plan with a chavrusa daily throughout the year. And
those in this advanced virtual community work daily on their own plans.
Rabbi Nivin calls Elul “International
Deep Thinking Month.” This year-round deep thinker is intent on
discovering innovative ways to help Jews grow in an age of technological
advances that take up our time and distract us from our life’s mission. In
2011, Rabbi Nivin founded Machon Ha’adam Hashalem, where he and his staff
research new ways to help Jews get back in touch with themselves.
The rabbi says that Elul is what life is all about. “Every person has a
positive life purpose,” says Rabbi Nivin. “What is it you have to fix up? How
can you shine?” These are questions Rabbi Nivin asks in Elul, and his weekly chaburas carry that message of
discovering the joys of Jewish personal growth throughout the year. He adds
that it sounds more mystical than it is. “All souls shine in certain areas,” he
states. These could include leadership, finance, education, and many others.”
Rabbi Nivin’s chaburas help Jews
tackle the challenges they want to fix or the areas they want to shine through
personal development exercises, polishing character traits, learning to be
happier, and growing closer to Hashem. About 100 modules deal with both serious
and light topics, such as How to Live a Powerfully Motivated Life, Jewish Humor,
How to Really Enjoy Your Marriage (couples), Time Management, How to Transcend
Life Challenges, Analytic Mind vs. Intuitive Mind, Self-Esteem, How to Access
Powerful Joy, and many others.
Workshops break out in the middle of the teleconferences, and Rabbi Nivin
answers questions. Within two weeks of a lecture, members of his staff call
each student to ask if the student understood the presentation and if not, how
the message could be more powerful. Then the staff member gets back to Rabbi
Nivin and shares the suggestions.
“It’s a whole science here,” says Rabbi Nivin, an obviously humble man, who
encourages people to have a mentor such as a rabbi or rebbetzin or even a
trusted friend to help them change. “My goal is not to be inspiring,” he says,
“it is to help people change.”
* * *
At the age of 18, Aryeh Nivin made a
big change when he left Fairlawn, New Jersey, where he grew up and moved to
Israel. He enrolled at Aish HaTorah to learn under the direction of Rabbi Noach
Weinberg. Rabbi Weinberg is responsible for bringing tens of thousands of Jews
back to Torah, and his students, whom he encourages to teach while they learn,
have also ignited sparks in Jewish souls. Rabbi Nivin was one of those
students. He taught personal development based on mussar and chasidic sources at Aish and counseled students. Through
his work, he also became Rabbi Weinberg’s personal assistant.
After 15 years at Aish, Rabbi Nivin left the yeshiva to establish his own
counseling practice. Even after he was officially on his own, Rabbi Noach
helped him. When his beloved Rebbe died, Rabbi Nivin felt like an orphan. “I
have hundreds of stories of Rabbi Weinberg from everything and everywhere,”
says Rabbi Nivin. “He was a man of total love for klal Yisrael.”
Searching for another great rav, Rabbi Nivin visited the Pittsburger Rebbe
in Ashdod. “As soon as I walked into his office, I felt like I was entering a
womb of love,” he says. Not long after that initial encounter, Rabbi Nivin and
his family moved to Ashdod to be near their Rebbe, who was known for caring for
every Jew.
* * *
In
2013, Rabbi Nivin contracted a virus which caused a bacterial infection around
his heart. He survived the ordeal, and says that he now understands tragedy and
can better relate to others in pain. He credits his wife, Ayala Shoshana, for
telling him to give up everything and concentrate on getting well, a message
she gleaned from the Slonimer Rebbe. “Just be with G-d and work on yourself,”
she said.
While Rabbi Nivin felt as if he were dying, the Pittsburger Rebbe visited
him in the hospital, The Rebbe held both his hands in his and said, “I promise
you will live and dance at your daughter’s chasana.”
That was hard to believe since the chasana
was only two months away and Rabbi Nivin was not even able to stand.
A day or so later, a nurse came into the room and loudly announced, “We
killed it!” Did she mean a terrorist? thought Rabbi Nivin. What did they kill?
“We killed the bacteria,” she explained. Although 80 percent paralyzed,
Rabbi Nivin returned home to a hospital bed in his living room. One night, he
had a dream in which a voice said, “You’re ready to walk. I want you to walk
from here to the guest room.” In the dream, he laughed. He woke up, then went
back to sleep. Again, he heard the voice. He thought it might be the voice of
his father, a Holocaust survivor. “Why don’t you start walking?” said the
voice.
Rabbi Nivin thought, the worst that could happen would be that he would
fall. So he moved his legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and didn’t fall.
Then he started walking – like a two-year-old, he said – and screamed, “Ayala!”
His wife came running, and so did everyone else. (Baruch Hashem, they have a large family.) They couldn’t believe
that he was walking. And yes, as the Rebbe had said, he danced at his daughter’s
chasana.
Last Succos, Rabbi Mordechai Leifer, the Pittsburger Rebbe passed away from
Corona. For the second time, Rabbi Nivin felt like an orphan. The Rebbe’s 40-year-old
son, Rabbi Meshulem Eliezer Leifer, became the new Pittsburger Rebbe, and his
advice had something to do with Rabbi Nivin’s married son being featured on the
front page of the New York Times.
On Lag B’Omer, two of Rabbi Nivin’s sons were at Meron. His teenage son was
watching at the side of the event. His older son was standing on a bottom row,
when hundreds of people tragically slipped on the wet walkways and landed on
top of each other. Rabbi Nivin’s son found an air hole and then grabbed the
shoe of a police officer, who pulled him out. “Baruch Hashem, he survived,” says Rabbi Nivin adding, “There’s more
to the story.”
Two weeks earlier, this son’s wife had given birth to a boy. His wife’s
grandfather had recently passed away, but the Pittsburger Rebbe was also gone.
So Rabbi Nivin’s son asked the new Pittsburger Rebbe (who lost his father the
year before) if he should name his son after the grandfather or the Rebbe. The
new Pittsburger Rebbe told him to name the baby after the grandfather because “Kibud Av Va’eim gives long life.”
* * *
“G-d is shaking up the world,” says
Rabbi Nivin, “First Corona, then Meron, Stolin, and Miami. G-d is talking to
us, He’s talking to us loud and clear.” The rabbi says that each of us needs to
change – not out of fear, but out of love. “Elul is the most powerful time to
figure out who you are, what you’re here for, and how you can change.”
Elul begins the process. Rabbi Nivin quotes the Ben Ishai, who said that
one moment of Elul is equal to a whole month of the Jewish year. That sounded
scary to me, but when I shared my concern with Rabbi Nivin, he reminded me that
an acronym for Elul is “Ani Ledodi Vedodi
Li – I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me.” Then he added, “When
you introspect, you do good things.”
That’s what Rabbi Nivin, with so many years of teaching Jewish personal
development, is doing in Elul and throughout the year: introspecting for the
best ways to help himself and more and more Jews to change. And, as he learned
from two great rabbis – Rabbi Noach Weinberg and Rabbi Mordechai Leifer, the
Pittsburger Rebbe – he does it with love.
Rabbi Nivin’s Beginner’s Elul Program
starts August 11 at noon Eastern Standard Time, and his four-day Elul Boot
Camp, for one hour a day, starts August 30 at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. For
more information, email newchabura@gmail.com or call/text whatsapp
602-469-1606.
