Cry out now! It is in our laps!
Bringing ourselves back to the state of Adom and Chava before the chait is where ultimately Judaism tells us we are headed.
How do we get there?
Perhaps the first step is to really feel what happened to Adom and Chava when they are expelled from the Garden of Eden.
Adom did not follow the one lo asei, do not do rule, that Hashem set for him. Everything was beautiful in the world and there was one restriction, one tree, that was off limits. It had to be this way because Hashem created a real entity of free will, of choice, of man’s ability to be self-determining.
Adom broke the rule. He went outside of the framework. He “wildly” ate the apple.
Did Adom have a limited analytical mind before the chait? NO! His mind was completely involved with the Divine mind. Afterwards, Hashem attached internally the evil inclination, which causes us to have a limited constricted mind, a subjective reality where we can make the mistake over and over again of thinking that there is not just the simple unity of Hashem. When we live within our limited constricted analytical mind, trying to figure out from the four inches between our ears and with the resources in our hands how we are going to get it all done and accomplish, and when we gloss over or lose connection with the true state of things, that there is nothing but the simple unity of Hashem and that we are given free will to choose to remember Hashem before we exert effort to accomplish goals in this world, we are eating the apple over and over again. Hashem created the world in a way that man can choose how we put forth effort. The world we live in is a world where Hashem is responsible 100% of the time for success. All of our efforts are nothing more than effort with our beings to plead with Hashem for success. If Hashem sees that we are using the energy He gives us according to His Will, the ase tov (positive mitzvahs) and the lo ase (negative commandments) then He is more likely to grant success to our efforts, because our efforts are truly His Will.
Why is it easier to do what is right when it comes to positive commandments than to say no to ourselves? If we look at the birth of Esav and Yaakov, we see that Esav had the potential to use his energy to open the channels of the lo aseis. Had he done so, the tribes would have been born into a spiritual space where these channels were established. But Esav was a gilgul of the nachash, of the Satan himself. Thus Hashem did not make it easy for us to say no to our feelings of desire, our lacks, in this world of adversity. Hashem wants us to strengthen our gevurah and implrint it upon our souls, ultimately as a repair or teshuva to Adom’s sin.
What is prevalent in today’s world, from Redemption Unfolding p.131-132 :
“Whenever the Jewish people sin and begin to collectively reflect and display a certain negative characteristic, Hashem sends a nation whose essence and culture are steeped in that same traint, to rule over Bnei Yisroel Under their rule, we can see this trait being practiced at its most extreme. We become aware of its negative aspects and begin, hopefully, to rid ourselves of this characteristic. Once we do so ,the ruling nation loses its power and we are redeemed….
…the fatal flaw in Yishmoel, is that he is a pere odom – a man whose actions and feeling are unbridled, who is not prepared to limit his desires, and who does not accept restriction. The obvious conclusion is that when Yishmoel is able to afflict us, it must be because of a certain element of pere odom that we are exhibiting. …if we do not harness ourselves sufficiently to the will of Hashem – instead hearkening to our own desires without limit, and often thoughtlessly following old habits, power is given to Yishmoel from Above to harass Yisroel. Correcting this type of weakness requires constant and diligent attention.”
From kids who are chutzpadik to off the derech to horrible shalom bayis and the succumbing of families to destruction lured by the temptations of the internet, we see the ultimate conclusion of a Divine minded being – Adom – falling to a mortal world with an limited analytical mind.
The entirety of human history is designed for us to learn to be restrained, to see that when we discipline our minds to live as Hashem instructs us, through the six constant mitzvahs, the 613 commandments, and the 13 attributes. And guess what? It is falling in OUR lap.
We, the ones who are suffering from being swallowed into a “me” generation mentally, whose emotional makeup has been infiltrated by the constant nagging of the lower soul that cannot defend itself against wildness without succumbing to the same tactics, whose emunah and bitachon may have not been nurtured because of the losses of the Holocaust – WE are the ones who Hashem wants to do teshuva.
And He is spelling it out for us – a wild world? Stop being wild. What is wild? Violating His 365 lo aseis, of doing what we are explicitly told is not permitted. Or rebelling against the 248 positive commandments, denying their importance in favor of being able to do what we want, when we want, with whom we want, whenever we want, for as long as we want.
And we won’t be able to enjoy like by violating these 365 lo aseis or rebelling against the 248 positive commandments until we do teshuva and Hashem decides to bring the geula shelama.
It is up to us. To you, to me, to our children.
Do we comprehend how real Hashem is? Do we seek Him the way a baby trusts and attaches to its mother, especially when the baby is crying and suffering? He is all there is in the world. But He gave us the free willed choice to be self-determining. CHOOSE! Soul over body and emotion, soul over body and emotion. Cry out! Let Hashem know that we comprehend! And may Hashem find our choices pleasing and redeem us speedily!
Many thanks to Rabbi Yaakov Zalman Labinsky www.becomingdivine.com Please see free shiurim at that site
Comments