Title: Expanding Potential: Journeying Beyond Who We Think We Are
Jonah Simcha Chaim Muskat-Brown
Mosaica Press
Expanding Potential, inspiring essays to reaching our full potential based on the Jewish calendar, is a sequel to Unfolding Potential: A Jewish Journey of Self-Development.
“Our Sages teach that thirty days prior to each festival, we should begin preparing ourselves to re-experience its majesty and to grow from its messages (Pesachim 6a).”
As the universe is recreated every day, so are we and so are our opportunities for growth. These opportunities are especially available to us during the Jewish holidays.
“This is a collective-help book and a journey of unity as much as it is a journey of personal betterment. It is my hope that this book empowers each of us to become our fullest self, and, in the process, also helps us to grow stronger as a collective,” writes Muskat-Brown.
Within the context of Shabbos and each festival, Muskat-Brown discusses many important issues such as education, parenting, relationships, and lifestyle and, more importantly, gives us points to ponder and discuss. Additions like Purposeful Pauses – questions to contemplate that expand the theme of the chapter, and poems add an additional dimension to the holiday tome.
“We would be mistaken to believe that Shavuos is the climax of our trip rather than a pause along the way. We excitedly count and work on ourselves for forty-nine days in preparation for receiving G-d’s gift of the Torah, but it is easy to forget what will happen forever after that celebration. What should we do after we have reached the spiritual heights of Shavuos? What transpires after we have trekked up the mountain of holiness and reached its apex?”
We are always looking for ways to make the holiest and most defining times of the year more meaningful by assimilating their messages. Both mystical and practical, Expanding Potential does just that, giving us more potential to experience each defining moment and event on the Jewish calendar in a deeper and more meaningful way, enhanced with a compendium of sources and novel insights.
“But the adventure doesn’t stop there. Our goal was not just to leave Egypt’s geographical boundaries. More so, it was (and is) to abandon the slave mentality of restricted consciousness and limited living, and ultimately make it to the Promised Land.”
Jonah Simcha Chaim Muskat-Brown is an educator, social worker, and freelance author from Toronto, Canada. He strives to empower others to be present in the here and now while also looking beyond what lies in front of them, towards the individuals they can become and to the realities they can create. He believes that there are always new aspects of ourselves we can discover. He encourages curiosity, creativity, and courage, and rebels against words like normal, impossible and failure. He strives to empower others to empower themselves, to reach beyond any limitations others place on them (including their own perceived confinements).
In this book, Muskat-Brown draws inspiration from the vast sea of Chassidic wisdom and the many works of psychology and human development, and he uses both to unearth the inherent worth and awesomeness in each individual.
“G-d gifted each of us with our own potentials long ago, but it is up to each of us to expand them for ourselves as we (re)create ourselves over time. We need to give ourselves time. We need to believe in the process. Because, ultimately, Someone else believes in each of us and our greatness embedded within.”
Jonah Simcha Chaim can be reached at [email protected].
