|
|
|
Jewish World Review August 4, 2006 / 10 Menachem-Av, 5766 Feeling Totally Alive By Rabbi David Aaron
The secret to daily exuberance and vitality
“You who are bonded with the Lord, your G-d, are alive, totally, today.”
— Deuteronomy, 4:4
G-d wants to give us the greatest pleasure — His presence in our lives; to feel connected to Him. We are therefore, commanded, "To love the Lord your G-d, listen to His voice and bond to Him because He is your life (Deut 30:20)." In other words, you should love G-d because "G-d is your life": the very life force within every fiber of your being. Loving G-d is, therefore, synonymous with loving life. The Torah teaches, "You who are bonded with the Lord, your G-d, are alive, totally, today" (Deuteronomy, 4:4). The more connected we feel to G-d the more alive we feel. How can we know if we are truly bonding with G-d? It's when we feel totally alive; when our entire being is filled with a phenomenal vitality that we know we cannot honestly call our own or refer to as my life.
We feel G-d's presence when we realize that our willpower, wisdom, insights and love are really not ours but His and experience ourselves as merely serving to channel His powers into the world. In this state of connectivity we feel the joy of purposeful and meaningful living.
However, G-d cannot give us this great gift of His presence, unless we want Him in our lives. We must first know in our hearts that G-d's presence is, indeed, the greatest gift we could ever hope to receive; that it is pure ecstasy. Torah tradition teaches that we give G-d pleasure, so to speak, when we want to receive what He wants to give us.
Our problem is that we often get distracted from what's eternally real and pleasurable and pursue temporal things. Not only does this not give G-d pleasure, it causes Him, so to speak, much pain.
There is an odd verse in Bereishis (Genesis), appearing just before the generation of the flood, which says that G-d was "saddened in His heart." The commentator Sforno explains that G-d is sad when we are not ready or interested in receiving the goodness He wants to gives us. G-d wants to give us a connection to Him and shower us with His loving presence. But we do not want it. Instead, we want money, property, clothing, sex, fame and power. This is similar to the sadness and pain a nursing mother feels when her baby does not want to suck. As the saying goes, "More than the baby wants to suck, the mother wants to nurse." When a baby does not want to nurse from its mother, the mother experiences intense emotional and physical pain.
However, when we want what is truly worth wanting, we give G-d pleasure and enable His blessings to flow into our lives. We then connect not only to G-d's presence but also to our true self because our true self, the soul, is only interested in G-d. This is how King David so eloquently expressed it:
"My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You." — Psalms 63:2
"To G-d alone my soul waits silently, from Him comes my salvation." — Psalms 62:2
"Yes, I will bless You all my life, in Your name I lift my hands. It is as if my desire is sated with fat and abundance, when with joyous language my mouth gives praise." — Psalms 63:5-6
In other words, to praise G-d and recognize His glory satiated King David like abundant delicacies.
The soul is not attracted to things, but rather to the presence of G-d manifest within them. Let's use a work of art as an example. When we see a magnificent painting, we are not attracted to a canvas smeared with paint. Rather, we are attracted to the beauty of G-d that is channeled into the world through the painting. But we often get confused and think it is the painting. We see a gorgeous person and we feel drawn to him or her, not realizing that it is not the person who is gorgeous but rather G-d who is gorgeous. Beauty is an attribute of G-d, and this person is only the conduit for that that beauty.
This is the goal of Torah living — to empower us to clarify and awaken our soul to desire want what we truly want and what is truly worth wanting. We study Torah to know G-d's will. We prayer to internalize G-d's will and we live the commandment to embody G-d's will. Torah life is a complete daily strategy enabling us to attuned our will to G-d's and thereby channel His blessings into our lives. For instance, G-d wants healing to be manifest. When we want and pray for G-d's healing to be manifest and seek to live healthy lives, we align our will with His will and the truth of G-d's ever-present healing becomes more manifest in the world, through us and our prayers. G-d wants the Jewish people to be redeemed. When we want and pray for redemption and actively contribute to the well being of our nation, we align our will with G-d's will and the truth of G-d's perpetual redeeming becomes more manifest in the world, through us, our prayers and our deeds. This is our service to G-d.
RESTORING OUR GODLINESS
When we transgress G-d's will, we violate our G-d-given potential. We experience a schism between who we are and who we ought to be; we feel fragmented and conflicted. Divorced from our inner self and from G-d, we suffer psychic pain and feel spiritually homeless and eventually lifeless.
Jewish mysticism metaphorically describes sin as taking holy sparks of ourselves and throwing them into exile. Teshuva — penitence — is the retrieving and redeeming those sparks.
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a great Jewish thinker of the 20th century, describes redemption as restoring our sense of personal adequacy. When we sin, we must first ask G-d to forgive us because we have violated our relationship. Then we must ask G-d to pardon us of the consequences we should pay. But wrongful acts also take a toll on our self-worth. Our failings cause us much loss of self. When we do wrong we are not only being disrespectful to G-d but also to ourselves.
The story of Esau is a good example of how transgression causes us to feel like failures. When Esav returns from the field and sees Jacob brewing a bean stew, he says to him, "Pour that red stuff down my throat because I am tired" Genesis 25:30). The commentator Rashi points out that the Hebrew word for pour — halitani — is a term use for describing the feeding of a horse. In other words, Esav referred to himself in a derogatory manner. Rashi also highlights that Esav said that he wanted the stew because he was tired rather than hungry. Quoting a Midrash, Rashi explains that Esav was tired because that whole day he was busy raping and killing. In other words, sin exhausts a person.
Behaving in ways that contradict our Godly inner-self is exhausting — sapped us of our life force. A person may work in a comfortable air-conditioned office, but if he feels that his work does not fit him, he will feel exhausted. On the contrary, acting in ways that befit our Godliness brings us vitality. It is likely that Esav was tired because he was depressed. When we behave in ways that are contradictory to our divine soul, we feel inadequate, depressed and tired. It is at these times that we do insane things like Esau did when he ended up selling Jacob his birthright for a pot of beans (Genesis 25:31-34).
The secret to daily exuberance and vitality is making His will our will. In others words: You who are bonded with the Lord, your G-d, are alive, totally, today
Interested in a private Judaic studies instructor — for free? Let us know by clicking here.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes uplifting articles. Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. To comment on this article, please click here.
TO ORDER RABBI AARON'S BOOKS, CLICK ON TITLES BELOW
JWR contributor
Rabbi David Aaron is the founder and dean of Isralight, an international organization with programming in Israel, New York South Florida, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Toronto. He has taught and inspired thousands of Jews who are seeking meaning in their lives and a positive connection to their Jewish roots.
He is the author of the newly released, The Secret Life of G0d, and Endless Light: The Ancient Path of Kabbalah to Love, Spiritual Growth and Personal Power , Seeing G0d and Love is my religion. (Click on links to purchase books. Sales help fund JWR.) He lives in the old City of Jerusalem with his wife and their seven children.
© 2010, Rabbi David Aaron
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
You will thoroughly enjoy this book. 
