Conscience and Gd-consciousness
Rabbi Kessen shared in a Tisha B’Av shiur that at the time that Adom sinned and was thrown out of the Garden of Eden, Hashem cut the spiritual flow of life force to the nachash, the snake, and attached it to the spiritual flow of life force that is instinctive to man. Hashem did this in such a way that the forces of good and evil would be competing for the energy of man. When mankind chooses to do what is good, the energy to the Satan is diminished and when mankind chooses to do evil, the strength of the Satan is increased.
Through our choices we direct spiritual energy.
Hitler hamach shemo wanted to remove the Jewish people from the world because the Jewish people blemished the body with circumcision and blemished the will of man by inflicting conscience upon the world. His thought was that without the Jews, there would no longer be a conscience, a moral objection, to doing whatever people desire. Gd forbid!
Recently there was a terrible crime committed against a girl, a 19 year old Jewish woman who utilized a popular social networking site and text messaging. A man found her and took her, drugged her, took her money out of her account, used her for sexual activity and would have sold her as a sex slave had not Hashem intervened to allow the police to find her. She is now psychotic.
The police are unable to charge the man with a crime. Because the girl is over 18, he can say the sex was consentual and that she took the drugs voluntarily. He walks away, having taken her money, raping her, selling her to others, and destroying her brain, with no sense of conscience and absolutely no reason to not do it again. Surely this an example of the world that Hitler hamach shemo had hoped for. Without conscience, there is sociopathy. Why?
An animal is born with instincts but there is no maturation process nor need for them to learn ethical choices of right from wrong. A human is not constructed so. Built into our instincts is the attachment of the Satan, the evil inclination. Without creating for ourselves a way to rise above what is natural, we have no chance of behaving in a manner that is instinctively decent. This is why Hashem gave us free will and choice and the opportunity to have a personal relationship with Hashem.
When we recognize the choice between good and evil and we want to do good, and we ask Hashem to give us strength to do good, Hashem helps us and we are able to rise above the built-in negative downward pulls. Without comprehending that we are CHOOSERS and that we have free will to do so but need Hashem at every step of the way, we Gd-forbid fulfill the dream of a sociopathic society. Mankind is not able to legislate morality anywhere near to the extent that free willed choice can implement it.
We exist in a world that appears to be cause and effect. When we teach people to obey based on our emotional responses or laws rather than on actual ethical value of right and wrong, we create reinforcements for relying on cause and effect based on emotional reactions and people pressures. Such conduct adds a layer of concealment to hester panim. Our own anger assaults the consciousness of others, lowering them into their natural reactions where the Satan reigns supreme. While we and they have free will, we don't always rise to the challenge.
How do we rise to the challenge? When we reach to remember at all times the simple unity of Hashem and that there is no other force or power in the world, and we include in our awareness that we are contained within His Mind and want (and need) rapport with Him at every moment, cause and effect no longer seem as rigid and controlling. We begin to see differentiations within our days that begin to show us how miraculous all of life and nature really are – everything is miraculous but when we notice it, we see differentiations that reveal the will of Hashem and His hand.
Shall we build or weaken within the world Hashem’s light? When we use the Divine gift of free will to have rapport with Hashem, we counteract the darkness in which a man can disregard the respect and life of a 19 year old girl for his own gain. When we relent and throw up our hands, or worse, if we admire and learn to manipulate in the same way the blind spots inherent in human ability to legally prove a crime, we sign away any chance of joy in life, trading it in for the bottomless pit of taking and fulfilling appetite after appetite in a manner less befitting than any animal life on this planet.
The easiest thing to get rid of is darkness. A small match can light an entire room. But we have to choose to strike the match. It isn't enough to accept the darkness and make the best of it, for we are here to bring light.
Where in our lives are we taking from others in a manner that is either out of sync with the morality and intent of Torah or designed to ease the Torah prohibition so that we can do what we emotionally want? Let’s find a repair, a way to move onto the path of bringing into this world the ethical value we might in the past have violated. Even if we cannot undo what we have done, we can still shine light now. And every match we light can dispel so much darkness.
Please pray that this poor girl regain her mental capacity and sanity and be able to recover. Please pray that our legal system not be content with allowing a predator like this to operate with impunity. Please pray that the ethics that Hashem has given to us are the source of our choices rather than the angry emotions of people with agendas to inflict upon us their beliefs and politics. Please remember that every one of us is part of the same soul and that we each have a light to shine that puts mankind back together.
Each one of us is a delegate from the Divine mind. Are we going to call Home to remember to do our mission, what we were delegated to do, despite the obstacles? The obstacles are the test, the opportunity to choose to rise above the natural reaction dominated by the Satan. Dial 1-800-ALMIGHTY – ask Him what He wants you to do, and then ask Him to give you the strength to do it – and then push to do it.
By the way, you may want to read up ahead of time on what He expects…613 mitzvahs of the Torah, 365 do not do’s and 248 things to do.
Most of us have trouble with the do not do’s. We have had this trouble since Adom ate the apple, so one “DON’T” turned into 365 don’ts. But the inherent ability to do Hashem’s will by following the “do not do’s” is still our choice and within our reach, with Hashem’s help. There is no other Power, not our emotions, not others emotions, not our weapons, not our money. Conquering the world does not bring joy or eternity.
Each one of us has within us resistance to listening to the do’s and don’t do’s. That is natural. But running free does not bring the happiness we think it will. It makes us prisoners in a society that cannot prove where a sociopath broke decency and destroyed sanctity. The joy of doing as we wish pales in comparison to the delight and out of this world pleasure we experience from a relationship with Hashem that we can slowly and surely build, that can last for all eternity.
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