|
The most complete world for man is an incomplete world where he can be a partner in its completion. This imperfect world is the perfect setting for challenge, choice, growth, and love. Each day we encounter the forces of chaos and darkness within the world and within ourselves. And each day we are offered the opportunity to become Hashem's creative partner in bringing order, harmony, and light to the world and ourselves-mending the broken vessels. We come into this world to build it and to be built by it. As the saying goes, "Who you are is God's gift to you; who you become is your gift to God."
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, a Torah Scholar and song composer of the 20th century, would often do concerts in prisons. He would greet all the prisoners in their cells, even the most harden criminals, give them each a big loving hug and invite them to join him for his concert in the prison. One time after a concert, as he was on his way out from the prison, one of the prisoners, a tough looking guy, runs after him calling, “Rabbi Carlebach, Rabbi Carlebach, could I get another hug.” Rabbi Carlebach smiled warmly and gave him a huge hug. The hard features of the fellow melted and he said, “You know Rabbi if someone one would have given me a hug like that 25 years ago I wouldn’t be in a place like this.” Sad but true, one of the major diseases of the world is low self esteem and chronic self-deprecation. People don’t believe in themselves. An egomaniac may believe in himself but only in himself and the source of his self believe is only himself. But a truly humble person believes in himself because he knows that G-d believes in him and seeks to become manifest through him to bring goodness to the world. A truly humble person knows that as a soul s/he is an expression of G-d and therefore s/he could not be anything less then great and forever worthwhile. The great Chassidic Master Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that a person has to be careful to always see the good in himself. If you are feeling plagued with low self, doubting your self worth then you need to remind yourself that you are a soul, nothing less than a manifestation of G-d. Judaism teaches that there is nothing that you can do that could damage that truth. No matter what you do, your inner self is pure divine light. Your wrongdoings cannot change that truth but they can conceal that truth. Take pride in the fact that you are a soul; you are definitely holy. Constantly psyche yourself up to act in a way that will express the truth of your inner G-dly worth. Chant to yourself over and over again, I am a soul, I am holy, I am good and I owe to myself to act holy, do good and affirm who I really am. You may have assumed a negative persona. But that only means that your psychological clothing are dirty but that does not make you dirty. Your dirty clothing makes you look dirty and feel dirty but you are clean. So wash your clothing, clean up your act and then you will feel and reveal the pure beautiful G-dly you. Your true essential self is holy and good and you must convince yourselves of that truth. Do something, even something small and you will feel great results because that good deed is a peep hole into the real you. G-d, the Great I, is waiting to be revealed through you—so go ahead give yourself a huge loving hug, do good and let G-d’s light shine through you.
People are often afraid of change because most of the changes we are aware of in our lives are big. But the secret to change is making small change that you can keep. There is a principle in Torah called tafasta meruba lo tafasta, that is, if you try to grasp and accomplish too much you end up with nothing. People tend to have big expectations of themselves, an almost certain recipe for failure. A story is told about a fellow who comes to his rabbi seeking help, “Rabbi, I am in terrible financial situation and I need your help. I need a very large sum of money—1,000 dollars.” The rabbi says, “The only person I know that has that kind of money is a fellow named Moshe.” “Moshe?” the man cries. “Moshe is the biggest miser in the world! We will get nothing from him. Everyone’s tried.” “But we must,” the rabbi insisted. “He is the only one who has this kind of cash.” The two men go and see Moshe, who answers the door with a brisk, “What do you want?” The rabbi explains to Moshe, “This man is in a terrible situation. He needs 1,000 dollars.” He does not stop there, going on and on about his friend’s troubles. After a while, the rabbi sees a break in the hardness of Moshe’s face. Finally, Moshe says, “Ok, fine, I will do it.” He runs into his house, comes back to the door and hands the rabbi a filthy, dirty penny. The rabbi looks at him and says, “Thank you so much. That’s so incredible, so kind, so considerate.” And the rabbi continues to talk, talk, talk. The fellow in trouble looks at the rabbi and thinks, “This is crazy! We need a thousand dollars and this guy gives us a filthy penny. What a chutzpah, what an insult!” But the rabbi just continues to talk. Suddenly, Moshe’s features soften again, until Moshe says, “Fine, ok, ok, I will help you.” He runs back into his house, comes back and hands him another penny. At this, the rabbi has such a smile, such joy, and says, “That’s so kind of you, so good of you, so sweet of you.” And he continues to talk while the other fellow just rolls his eyes, “Two pennies.” The rabbi continues like this for hours, until they walk away with 1,000 dollars. As they are leaving the fellow says to the rabbi, “I cannot imagine where you got the strength to keep going. When Moshe finally broke down and ran into his house, I said to myself, ‘OK, fine,’ but then he handed you a filthy penny and you kept going. How? Why?” The rabbi answered, “It was because of that first penny. When I saw how dirty that penny was I realized how long he had been holding on to it. So many people have asked him for money but he was ready and able to give only that penny. Disappointed they must have just thrown it back in his face. But I knew if I just graciously accept that dirty penny it will be the first of many more to come.” Often times we too throw back the penny—the small changes that we are willing to make right now. We judge ourselves harshly and undermine our growth. But change takes patience and compassion. And the first step is to remind your self that small change adds up to big cash.
In the Book of Isaiah, G-d exclaims, “My thoughts are not your thoughts.” This means that G-d’s perspective is totally different from our human perspective. Just as a theoretical being who lives in a two-dimensional reality cannot possibly conceive of the perspective of three-dimensional beings such as ourselves, so we cannot possibly conceive of G-d’s perspective. This essentially is G-d’s answer to Job. Job suffers a series of tragedies: the death of all his children, illness, and material loss. He tries to fathom why G-d has done this to him, given that he is a good person who has only done good. His friends and his wife offer various perspectives, all of which Job rejects as lacking the ring of truth. Finally G-d speaks to Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements, if you know?” G-d is telling Job that he simply does not have the cosmic perspective to understand what happens in this world. Job is left with not knowing the answer to human suffering, not because G-d refuses to tell him, but because there is no way a human being can understand reality from G-d’s perspective, which is ultimate truth. The Sages say that when we get to the next world, we are going to look back at all of human history, and see everything as perfect. Even the worst periods of history are going to look wonderful. This means that in that future world, without the limitations of time and space, we will see everything from G-d’s perspective. But now, ensconced in this world of time and space, that perception is simply inaccessible to us. Human beings trying to fathom the Divine plan are like trying to run a Windows 2000 on a 286 computer. We simply do not have the hardware to understand G-d.
When my wife was giving birth to our first child, she was in excruciating pain. Sure, we had gone to Lamaze birthing classes and learned how to breath and all those kinds of things. But when we got to the labor room, I felt more like a shlamazel rather than a master of Lamaze. I didn’t know what was going on and was a nervous wreck. Here is my wife, going through these excruciating, intense contractions, which are coming closer and closer together, and I am in a total panic. All of sudden, between two contractions my wife looks at me with this incredibly calm face and says, “Hey, calm down.” She then goes into another unbearable contraction, comes out of it and enters another incredibly peaceful state. “I might be in excruciating pain,” she calmly says—and then screams as another contraction comes along—“but I’m not suffering. There’s a big difference between pain and suffering. Suffering has no purpose, while this pain has purpose; I am giving birth to new life.” When a person is going through any kind of pain and they don’t find purpose in it, the pain turns into horrible suffering. But if you find purpose in the pain, you will prevent it from becoming suffering and even turn it into power. Purpose, however, does not mean reason. There is a big difference between reason and purpose for pain. People going through pain often ask, “Why is this happening to me? What did I do wrong?” If G-d wants you to know why it is happening to you, He will tell you. But since G-d doesn’t seem to tell most of us, it must be that the reason is immaterial. People try very hard to figure out why painful things happen to them. While we cannot really know the reason, we can give it purpose. The past, we don’t know. The secrets of G-d, we don’t know. But the purpose, we can decide. If we do nothing with our pain, it turns into suffering. We must give it purpose; use it as an opportunity to give birth to new aspects of ourselves and grow closer to each other and to G-d.
In the Book of Isaiah, G-d exclaims, “My thoughts are not your thoughts.” This means that G-d’s perspective is totally different from our human perspective. Just as a theoretical being who lives in a two-dimensional reality cannot possibly conceive of the perspective of three-dimensional beings such as ourselves, so we cannot possibly conceive of G-d’s perspective. This essentially is G-d’s answer to Job. Job suffers a series of tragedies: the death of all his children, illness, and material loss. He tries to fathom why G-d has done this to him, given that he is a good person who has only done good. His friends and his wife offer various perspectives, all of which Job rejects as lacking the ring of truth. Finally G-d speaks to Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements, if you know?” G-d is telling Job that he simply does not have the cosmic perspective to understand what happens in this world. Job is left with not knowing the answer to human suffering, not because G-d refuses to tell him, but because there is no way a human being can understand reality from G-d’s perspective, which is ultimate truth. The Sages say that when we get to the next world, we are going to look back at all of human history, and see everything as perfect. Even the worst periods of history are going to look wonderful. This means that in that future world, without the limitations of time and space, we will see everything from G-d’s perspective. But now, ensconced in this world of time and space, that perception is simply inaccessible to us. Human beings trying to fathom the Divine plan are like trying to run a Windows 2000 on a 286 computer. We simply do not have the hardware to understand G-d, Who is the ultimate all- inclusive reality. The answer to all human suffering is: I don’t know.
Many people think that the goal of life is to be happy and that we should try to avoid sadness at all cost.. Judaism, however, teaches that sometimes you have to be sad. This is well expressed by King Solomon in his book Ecclesiastes: "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance..." The real goal of life is to be able to know what time it is- to be in rhythm with the movement of life, living the entire spectrum of human experience and the unique challenge and opportunity for growth each situation offers.
A story is told about a frog and a centipede. The frog hated the centipede and constantly tried to trip him up. The centipede, however, moved so fast because of his many legs that the frog could never catch him. One day the frog came up with a brilliant idea. When he saw the centipede walking down the street the frog called out, “Hey Mr. Centipede”. The centipede stopped. “Yes?” “I have been wondering for a long time when you walk, which foot do you put first? I see you zooming down the street and it’s just fascinating. I am so impressed. With all those legs how do you know which foot to put first?” The centipede stopped, scratched his head and responded, ‘Oh gee Mr. Frog I never thought about it’. And from that day on the centipede could never walk again. In other words, sometimes when we become too self-conscious we lose touch with the natural wisdom within us that guides us. We can so analyze ourselves to the point that we paralyze ourselves. We may break ourselves down into so many pieces, trying so hard to figure ourselves out that we may end up never able to put ourselves back together again. People sometimes turn over every stone in their life -their childhood, their adolescence, what happened thirty years ago. It is questionable whether such psychological archeology –digging up all the relics of the past ---is always productive. The Jewish path to self- discovery is to forget your self, remember others, remember G-d and do His will. Doing good and serving the will of G-d is the most authentic way to affirm your true self—the soul which is a spark of G-d. The very source for most of our mistakes is that we are too self-conscious and self-centered. We are so preoccupied with ourselves that we forget everybody else around us and we forget G-d.
Job’s friends tell him that there is no such thing as pain without justice. This means that when a person goes through pain it is simply the fulfillment of justice. Pain is not haphazard or accidental. In some way—even if we cannot possibly fathom why—we have deserved our pain. But Job does not accept this answer. Maimonides, the great Torah sage known as the Rambam, says that this answer is actually the true position of Jewish tradition. In fact, when the Rambam discusses the meaning of “pain” or “suffering,” he quotes the verse in the book of Job recording the answer of Job’s friend who said that there is no pain without justice. How could the Rambam teach that the reason for pain is justice, and yet Job did not accept this approach? And when G-d finally appears to Job to reveal the meaning of his pain, He gives him a completely different answer. Are we to understand from this contradiction that G-d has a different answer regarding pain than the Torah does? I recently heard a brilliant answer to this problem. According to Jewish tradition there are two approaches to pain: One is a philosophical approach, and one is an experiential approach, both of which are valid depending on the circumstance. There are times when we are simply exploring the philosophical meaning of pain. And then there are times when we are personally in pain are struggling to understand why. When we are merely discussing pain then we can find a philosophical understanding of pain. But when we are in pain, we must accept the there really are no satisfactory answers. I recently attended a lecture by a rabbi, who has a PhD in philosophy, speaking about responses to the Holocaust. At the end of the class a man with a thick Yiddish accent said, “Rabbi, I cannot accept anything that you have said. I was in Auschwitz!” The rabbi responded, “Listen, I am a philosopher, I am talking about pain from a philosophical point of view. I am in no way proposing that what I have to say could comfort you in your pain.” If you are in pain, no philosopher can give you an answer. If you are in pain there are no answers, but there is a soul-ution. To understand the difference, let’s imagine what would have happened if Job accepted his friend’s answer. Would G-d have appeared to Job? No. Would Job have had a revelation, a personal, experiential encounter with G-d? No. In light of this, it is a good thing that Job didn’t accept his friends answer. If he had accepted the answer, he would have never met G-d. When we are in pain, not only will the philosophical approach not give us an answer, we really don’t want answers. I understand this point well. When I am in pain, I never want answers. Have you ever had that experience, when you were in pain and you spoke to a friend who gave you reasons for your pain or advice how to overcome it? “Maybe this is why it is happening….Maybe you should do this.… Maybe this is how you could solve it. …” And you get annoyed and perhaps even a bit angry. Well, what do we want from them? We share our problems and our pain with them, and they simply try to help by giving us answers. The truth is, when we are in pain we are rarely interested in philosophical answers or psychological guidance. What we first want and need is comfort and empathy; warmth and compassion. When my son scrapes his knee and runs home crying, I have two ways to respond. I could say, “It’s okay, we’ll just put a bandage on it. It’s really a small little thing. It will go away.” But the more logical I am, the more my son will cry, “You don’t understand!” Kids in pain don’t want logic; and neither do we. When my son scrapes his knee, he wants me to say, “Oye, oye, oye …” When he gets empathy and compassion he quickly responds with, “It’s not so bad, Daddy, it’s not so bad.” He is looking for love not ans. When we are in pain then it is the personal connection that solves the pain, not logical answers. If Job would have given up and said to his friend, “You’re right. That answer makes sense,” he would have forfeited the opportunity to find G-d in his pain and experience G-d’s comforting presence.
A couple of years ago a woman applied to one of our Isralight seminars. She was one of the most amazing people I had ever met. She was radiant with the joy of life.
I said to her, “You are a remarkable person, you're really beaming with light.
She responded, “Oh Rabbi, I can tell you why.”
She pulled up her sleeve and showed me scars running down her arm. Then she showed me her other arm also filled with scars.
She said, “Rabbi, I have scars all over my body. About five years ago I was in a car accident. My friend was at the wheel and lost control of the car and it went over a cliff. The car rolled over a number of times and finally came to a halt. In that moment, I realized that I'm still conscious, I'm still alive. I pulled myself out of the car, but then I saw that my friend was wedged into the wreck. So I ran back to pull her out. At that point the car exploded. And I exploded with the car. The ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I was put into rehabilitation for about a year and a half, to relearn the basic motor skills of life. Rabbi, I have to tell you, that it was the greatest gift of my life. My radiance and happiness did not come without much pain and work.”
I once addressed a group of people in Miami who had suffered much damage from Hurricane Andrew. The class was titled “Serenity and Suffering” and it was held in a home that was hit badly by the hurricane. You could see that the attendees were still devastated by the horrifying experience they had gone through. I asked them how they were feeling and I was shocked by their response:
“It was so amazing! We felt so much love for each other -- like we never felt before. We will forever cherish the awesome feelings of unity, compassion and sensitivity that emerged during those frightening times. Although we experienced very painful moments there were so many precious feelings and realizations that we achieved precisely because of those painful moments.”
Does God experience these great pleasures of life that come only through the great challenges and difficulties of life on earth? Does God suffer, struggle with suffering, transcend suffering, and experience the pleasure of triumph?
Yes, through you and me!
And we can experience that ecstatic truth when we invite God into our daily struggles by praying and by rising to the challenges and improving this world and ourselves for God’s sake. This is the true meaning of serving God. This is what we can do for God.
Life is a Divine drama. The theme of the drama of life is all about challenge, choices, growth and love. It’s all about the journey. We -- with all our problems and complexities -- are the stars of the show. The ideal setting is this messed up world. Our true inner self, however, is none other than the soul -- a spark of God. Our mission is to accept the challenge and turn it into a service to God. Our deepest fulfillment and ultimate meaning comes from the knowledge that God joins us in our pain and challenges.
King Solomon realized that our real accomplishments in life is not building the kingdom or the temple on earth, but what we make of ourselves -- the kingdom and temple we build in our inner world.
This does not mean that you should not build in this world but rather that you should recognize that what you build on the outside is not the goal but the means to what you build on the inside.
The early pioneers who courageously came to re-settle the land of Israel would often sing, “We have come to build this land and to be built by it.” What is real and lasting about what you build on the outside is how it builds you and others on the inside.
When you live with this understanding you will not be devastated when your kingdom or your temple is destroyed. You will realize that you did the will of G-d to build the kingdom and the temple and although they are destroyed what you built inside yourself can never be destroyed. It is not as if the past was all for naught and you will have to start all over again. Rather you now have new opportunities to continue to build yourself through the challenges and choices the destruction creates. We were not put on earth to build this world but to build ourselves into the living image of G-d. We can always be growing, even -- and sometimes, especially -- when the world around us is falling apart.
Sometimes the winner is truly the loser and the loser the winner. If the winner learns nothing from his victory and doesn’t grow into a better person, if he simply becomes haughty and obnoxious, then though he holds the trophy in his hands, he is actually the loser. However, if the loser accepts his loss humbly, overcomes feelings of anger, self-pity and chooses to be happy with his lot, then he actually walks off with the greatest victory -- an evolved self. He is the trophy.
The Talmud teaches that whatever happens to us is always for the best. People assume that means that if I lose this job it must mean that an even better job is about to come my way. But I am not sure that this is always the case. Losing that great job may be for the best because the next job, which pays less and throws you into a company of very difficult people, gives you a better context for some very life changing choices to know G-d and do good. In this new lousy job you will make less money but become more. In the end, what is best is not what happens on the outside but what happens on the inside.
For just a second, do me a favor: Stop thinking. Impossible, right? If you cannot stop thinking, then it really is not your thinking; if it was yours you could stop it. So who is thinking your thinking? Sure, you can choose what to think but you cannot choose to think. People think. But who is it that is doing our thinking? If it is we that are thinking, then surely we could stop for a couple of seconds.
Now try this. For a couple of seconds stop feeling. See what happened? You can choose what to feel but you cannot choose to feel. If you cannot stop feeling or start feeling, then you are not the master of your feelings. If our feelings do not start with us or end with us then we are not the masters of our feelings. Who, then, is the master of our feelings? Are these feelings really our feelings?
To a certain extent our thoughts and feelings are our own, but to a certain extent our thoughts and feelings belong to G-d. After all, we are not the masters of thought or feeling, we did not create thought or feeling, they do not start with us or end with us. Rather, they flow through us.
Here is another good exercise: For a couple of seconds stop your heart from beating. When I posed this challenge to a recent seminar group, it was fatal--someone took me seriously. Just kidding. But realize that if we cannot stop our heart from beating, then we are not beating our own heart.
This is true for our will in general, you can choose what you want but you cannot choose to want. Choice is not a choice. What you choose is your choice, but to choose is not your choice.
So who is beating my heart? Who is telling my guts to feel? And who is telling my mind to think? Who is fueling me with willpower? Whoever it is, Judaism calls Adonai. Who is Adonai? Certainly it could not be G-d as most people perceive Him—some force or being floating in outer space could not feel my pain. That understanding puts G-d far and removed from life on earth.
But a lot of people think this is true, and it is precisely why they are so angry with G-d. They think that their pain is really theirs’, that G-d is not with them in their pain and that G-d is watching them from above. But this is not a Jewish teaching. This is not a true understanding of G-d. G-d is not in some transcendental realm on the other side of space, looking down at us. Judaism believes in Adonai—the master self. You and I are not the master self.
Even though there is a distinction between G-d and us, there is no separation. We are completely one with the master self. We are not the master of thinking, the master of feeling or the master of life at large. And we are not the master of will. The One who is the master of all these powers is whom we call Adonai--G-d. And G-d is involved with us constantly, feeling our feelings, thinking our thoughts and living our lives. We are never alone.
The psalmist teaches that a holy person – tzaddik - lives in his faith. In other words, faith is our orientation to life and the way we perceive life is the way we receive and experience life. We create our own perceptual world. We don’t create our own reality--G-d is reality. But we do create our perception of reality which is our perception of G-d and that determines the perceptual world we live in and experience. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was walking with a woman who was extremely annoyed because her son at the age of 33 was having his bar mitzvah. She turned to Rav Shlomo and said I don’t believe in G-d. He said, “So don’t.” She was shocked by his comment, “How can you say that, you are a Rabbi?” He said, “If you want to live in a G-dless world, go ahead.” In other words if we do not believe in G-d then we will not experience G-d in our life. However the more we believe in G-d and affirm our belief through what we think, say and do the more G-d’s presence will fill our world and our life.
—Rabbi David Aaron, author of Endless Light, Seeing G-d, and The Secret Life of G-d.
|