Ten Steps to Greatness

Abraham, “father of all nations,” was the first true pioneer. He stood up to an entire selfish world and trail blazed a spiritual path to life, forever changing history. It was Abraham’s embrace of a higher set of values of love, generosity and service that forged the standard for the basic human rights that we take today for granted.

What was Abraham’s secret? What shaped this man? From where did he derive the power and courage to defy the tide of his times? How can we emulate Abraham and acquire his courage in our own lives?

This week’s Torah portion tells the story of Abraham. And it can be summed up in the concise words of the Mishne: “Our father Abraham was tested with ten challenges, and he withstood them all – to indicate how great was our father Abraham’s love” (Ethics of the Fathers 5:3).

(The standard translation of “nisyonos” in this statement is “tests” or “trials.” But perhaps “challenges” is a more accurate and appropriate translation. Linguists of the world: Please weigh in.)

Why did Abraham need to be tested? G-d must have known that Abraham had unique qualities and that he would withstand the trials; why was it necessary to actually put Abraham through the difficulties he endured? Does every man of faith need to be challenged?

The Hebrew word for “test” (or “challenge”) – “nisayon” – shares the same root with the word “ness,” which means miracle and also banner. A miracle reveals the extraordinary within the ordinary; the Divine within the natural. The same is with a “nisayon,” a challenge: Every person has innate qualities.

By virtue of being created in the “Image of G-d” every soul contains enormous reservoirs of extraordinary potential. 

However, these powers remain dormant when unactualized. A “nisayon” – the true test of one’s character – is a challenge that actualizes our potential and brings the best out of us by revealing the powerful forces we carry within. Like a banner the challenge spiritually elevates us and allows us to fly high.

When we pass a difficult test in life, two things happen at once: A deeper part of our soul is revealed, to the point that it can actually bring on true transformation of the human being. And, as a result, a deeper, transformative dimension of Divine light manifests in existence.

Thus, the Mishne can be read: “Our father Abraham was exalted with ten challenges, and he withstood them all – to indicate how great was our father Abraham’s love.”

That was Abraham. What about us?

Note the Mishne’s emphasis (twice) on “our father Abraham,” indicating that we all, as his children, inherit the features of our father. Both Abraham’s profound virtues and his tremendous fortitude is our birthright as children of “our father Abraham.”

Each of us in our own lives will be tested, or rather, challenged. [Tested has negative connotations with condescending implications, feeding into the nursery school stereotype that “an angry, long-bearded man in heaven is out to get us.” Challenged is much more appropriate].

Each challenge is actually an opportunity to grow – to draw out great strengths from within. Each triumph over a challenge lifts us to unprecedented heights.

Everything that happened to the patriarchs is an indication for their children (Midrash Tanchuma Lech Lecho 9. Bereishis Rabba 40:6). All the events that happened with the Patriarchs [Abraham, Isaac and Jacob] come to teach us about the future…they were shown what would happen to their descendants (Ramban Lech Lecho 12:6).

Just as Abraham endured ten challenges, one more difficult than the previous, we, his children, too undergo in our lifetimes ten similar challenges. With one important qualification: Once Abraham proved himself, his children did not need to be challenged with quite the same intensity. And especially today, after all that we have endured throughout history, we no longer need, thank G-d, to go through “fire” and face life threatening challenges of pain, suffering and death.

Sadly, some of us are still faced with awful challenges. But collectively, we are blessed to live in freedom, without the persecution of old, unlike Abraham who faced the threat of death for his beliefs. And individually as well, after all that we have suffered, at this point we can expect and hope, and pray to G-d that enough is enough: Our challenges today should only be positive ones, focused on eliciting our inner potential.

Here are Abraham’s ten challenges* and one way that they can be applied to our lives today:

1. Abraham’s early childhood, when he had to be hidden for a number of years.

2. Abraham being thrust into a fiery furnace for his refusal to acknowledge the arch-idol of his native Ur Kasdim, the emperor Nimrod, and his continued commitment to teaching the world the truth of a one, non-corporeal and omnipotent G-d.

3. Lech Lecho – the upheaval and change of leaving his home and building a new life.

4. Famine – despite G-d’s blessings of prosperity.

5. Pharaoh’s abduction of Sarah.

6. War.

7. The Covenant, when Abraham hears about the future subjugation and suffering of his children at the hands of different nations.

8. Circumcision.

9. Banishing Ishmael from his home.

10. The Akeidah (binding of Isaac).

To achieve greatness, every one of us needs to experience, in one form or another, these ten challenges. If you study your life and the life and history of your family you will find glimpses of ten different trials and tribulations, what we call “nisyonot.” (They may or may not be in the same order as they occurred in Abraham’s life.)

1. The challenge of childhood

The early formative years of a child are the most precious. They define the strengths the child will accumulate and the challenges the child will face throughout his or her entire life. It is therefore absolutely vital to create a spiritually nurturing environment for your child and protect your child, in these impressionable years, from narcissistic and corrupting influences.

2. The challenge of commitment

Sometime in life, often early on, and perhaps more than once in a lifetime, you will be asked (with or without words) to make a choice: Either conform or “burn.” Today, thankfully, “burn” isn’t literal. But the price of choosing the “road less traveled,” the path of virtue and faith, will be threatened by material pressures that consume us like “fire.” Will you choose to bow and worship an “idol” – money, fame, superstars, whatever – or do you commit to a higher cause?

3. The challenge of change

As you mature into an adult the time comes to “cut the (psychological) umbilical cord,” and leave your home and comfort zones to discover yourself and what you are capable of. This can be a formidable challenge. More specifically, the journey consists of freeing yourself from the subjective forces that shape our lives: Our natural, biased, tendencies; parental influences; and social programming. “Lech Lecho” commands us to leave our inertia-based environments and experience the “real you” – who you are and what original contribution do you make, as opposed to being a product of others.

4. The challenge of deprivation

Then there will be those times when you may experience deep hunger and wonder whether your choices was all worth it. You committed to G-d and yet you have no “food on your table.” You may need to wander to strange, hostile places to acquire some nourishment. Will you give up or see it through?

5. The challenge of sexuality

And then your most intimate needs may be compromised or abducted. Your heart challenged and your love denied. Will this break you?

6. The challenge of confrontation

No matter who you are and what your life space is like, you will be faced with confrontations. Even when you are not looking for an adversary, enemy forces will assault you. They may take on the shape of people – so-called friends, co-workers, neighbors, surrounding nations, or they may be inner fears, psychological phobias, haunting ghosts of the past. But whatever form it takes you can rest assured that you will have to fight a battle or two in your life. These battles will either demoralize you or strengthen you.

7. The challenge of suffering

No one is immune to loss and some form of pain in our lifetimes. Even when G-d is merciful, we will, in our current condition, experience the loss of a loved one, the break of a promise or the dissolution of a dream. We are mortals and fragile creatures. Health issues will crop up. Here too, the challenge is whether we can discover deeper resources to help us through the harder times.

8. The challenge of transformation

Abraham’s circumcision at age 99 marked his metamorphosis to become spiritually complete, as G-d says to him: through circumcision you will “walk before Me and become complete.” The covenant “in your flesh” will bond you with me forever (a covenant stated thirteen times in the Torah). For Abraham the challenge was compounded by the fact that he as 99 years old at the time. Today the challenge is to ensure that our children (8 day year old boys, and girls are considered circumcised upon birth) have engraved in their very flesh Abraham’s’ Divine covenant. The challenge of transformation is not just a partial, limited commitment to a higher cause, but one that is complete and permeates every aspect of our lives, including the material and physical.

9. The challenge of discipline

Often, in the name of deep love and spiritual conviction, we can overwhelm ourselves and those around us. Abraham, the epitome of love (chesed), found it difficult to send away his son Ishmael. But this discipline (gevurah) was necessary for the welfare of Abraham’s own home as well as of Ishmael and Hagar. We too will have the challenge in our lives, where we will need to exercise profound discipline lest we become consumed by spiritual and sensual passions.

10. The challenge of becoming Divine

Finally, the ultimate challenge will be when you are asked to be ready to give up the single thing you love most for G-d. Not with the intention of actually having to relinquish it – but you cannot be privy to that at the time or it will defeat the entire purpose; you will feel as though you actually will be sacrificing your most precious possession. Only to discover, that when you are sincerely ready for such a sacrifice, you not only lose nothing; in return you gain immortality and an eternal connection to the very thing you love so much.

These are the ten general challenges that we will all face in our lifetimes (obviously, with many subsets within each). How we will rise to these ten challenges will define our lives.

The key thing to always remember, with every fiber of your being, is that these are all challenges that you have the power to withstand, and when you do they will help catapult you to greatness.

Abraham was not just a man of distant history. His story is our story. His travels paved the way for our own. His endurance demonstrates – and empowers us, his children, with the ability to not just survive, but to thrive and reach immortality.

Over 3600 years of difficult history is a living testimony to a man’s absolute dedication to a higher cause. Through all these millennia, and all of history’s upheavals, Abraham remains the pioneering spirit that changed the world forever, and is admired today perhaps even more than in his own time. If that does not instill in us confidence and inspiration that we too (with far less difficulties than Abraham’s) can see it through, what will?
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* Opinions vary as to the exact nature of Abraham’s ten challenges (as to what Abraham’s ten challenges actually entailed consisted of). Here we followed the interpretation of the Pirkei D’rebbi Eliezer (chapter 26-31).

All opinions agree on seven of these challenges (not in chronological order): 1) Lech Lecho; 2) Hunger; 3) Pharaoh’s abduction of Sarah; 4) War; 5) Circumcision; 6) Banishing Ishmael; 7) Akeidah. All the opinions (except for Maimonides) also include: 8) Abraham being thrust into the fire; 9) The Covenant, when Abraham hears about the future suffering of his children at the hands of different nations (Pirkei D’rebbi Eliezer ch. 26. Avot D’rebbi Natan ch. 33. Midrash Tehillim 95. Bartenura. Rabbeinu Yonah). Regarding the tenth challenge – some consider 10) Avimelech’s abduction of Sarah (Bartenura), or Abraham hiding for 13 years (Pirkei D’rebbi Eliezer ch. 26).

Maimonides does not include #8 and #9, and instead separates into two challenges the banishment of Hagar and Yishmael, and includes Avimelech’s abduction of Sarah (which the others consider as part of #3) and Abraham’s taking Hagar as concubine. (Some explain that Maimonides enumerates only the challenges that are specifically stated in Biblical verse.) Rabbeinu Yonah considers the banishment of mother and son as one, and instead adds the purchase of Sarah’s burial plot (Meorat haMachpeilah).

What is Real and What is Not

As Jews prepare to dance ecstatically on Simchat Torah, completely oblivious of the world around them, let’s explore the nature of this dance. Is it a form of escapism or a taste of reality?

This continues the theme of a previous article: the lesson we learn from Sukkot about the deceptive world in which we live.

I want to thank you all for your interesting reactions to last week’s column, and share with our readers a sampling of suggestions some of you offered as to the various manifestations of our lying world.

But first, a story.

October 3, 1995 was Erev Yom Kippur. It was also the day when a jury found OJ Simpson “not guilty” for murdering his wife. It was the talk of the town. That same day I had a pre-scheduled radio interview in connection with my book, Toward A Meaningful Life, on a station in Miami. The host called me that morning and said to me: “I read and liked your book. But frankly, today everyone is interested in only one thing: The OJ Simpson verdict. They just won’t care to hear a discussion on your book. I suggest that we reschedule your interview.”

Until today I am not sure what got into me, but spontaneously I told the host that my book can shed light on the OJ Simpson controversy, and contains the answer to the big question everyone was asking after the finding of the black majority jury split the country into celebrating blacks and incredulous whites: What can we do about racial prejudice? The radio host was surprised. “So you’re ready to discuss the OJ Simpson trial?” She asked. “Absolutely,” I answered not knowing what I would actually say during the interview.

So the interview commenced as scheduled early afternoon on that Erev Yom Kippur, October 3^rd. After introducing me and my book as a distillation of the Rebbe’s teachings on life, her first question was, of course, what, as a Rabbi and author, I think about the Simpson verdict?

My reply: “First of all, allow me the share with you that today is the day preceding Yom Kippur. As we speak Jews around the world are bustling about preparing for the holiest day of the year. Many are completely oblivious of the OJ Simpson verdict. Now you may think that this is an unacceptable form of detachment from society and world events, a sort of religious escapism. The fact is quite the contrary.

“Let me tell you a short story. The great 18^th century Chassidic Rebbe, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, once led the High Holiday prayer service. Before he began Kaddish, he declared: ‘The Prussians say that their Kaiser is the greatest. The Russians say that their Czar is the greatest. The French say that their Emperor is the greatest. And I, Levi Yitzchak ben Sarah Sosha say… Yisgadal v’Yiskadash Shemei Rabba (Exalted and hallowed be His Great Name).’

“It’s not that we don’t know about social activity around us. It’s simply an issue of priority and context: To define what is real and what is secondary. On the day before Yom Kippur, while the public is consumed with the OJ Simpson verdict and other ‘vital’ events (today it’s OJ Simpson; tomorrow it may be what some actor will wear to the Academy Awards – Jews declare: ‘Today we enter the holiest moment of our lives; we connect to G-d and to the purpose of our existence. We are preparing to enter the Holy of Holies and face our destinies!’

“Yes, it’s all about defining what is real and what is not. Many people are trapped in a ‘matrix’ dictating the rules of ‘reality,’ shaped by social, media and peer pressures, unable to free themselves from its grip. People worship ideals and social structures that may be superficial if not plain negligible.

“We all need a moment of reality check, where we emancipate ourselves from this ‘brainwashed’ condition, and embrace the eternal – that which not man-made. The you can re-enter society with a fresh perspective that will elevate our discourse with the world around us.”

After I waxed eloquent about the virtues of Yom Kippur, the interviewer said: “Quite an interesting perspective, which I did not expect to hear. But what about the actual issues of the controversy around the verdict? Blacks across the country are celebrating victory; many whites feel that the trial was a manipulative mockery. You know, Johnnie Cochran’s line [Simpson’s attorney], which sounded like a jingle: ‘If  the glove don’t fit, you gotta acquit.’”

“Well,” I replied, “here is where the wisdom of Torah contained in Toward a Meaningful Life, can illuminate us. In it I cite an episode that took place after the racial riots took place in Crown Heights, in 1992. David Dinkins, who was then the mayor of New York City, visited the Rebbe, asking for a blessing of peace between the two peoples, the Jews and the blacks.  The Rebbe responded, ‘Not two people but one people, under one administration and under one G-d.’

“The only true and lasting solution to racial prejudice is one that cannot be written into law. It’s the emotional, and invisible, divide that separates peoples, races and those that are unalike each other. Only when we embrace the Divine Image in which each of us has been created can we transcend our differences and our comfort zones, our prejudices and stereotypes, and recognize the sacred dignity of each individual, regardless of background.

“This is the energy we glean from Yom Kippur, a day when we face our common Creator. This day gives us the power to re-enter society with a renewed sense of the Divine in all people and experiences, and with the obligation to actualize that dimension in all our interactions.”

That’s the story.

Now we are up to Simchat Torah, when we celebrate the “marriage” between the Divine and the human on Yom Kippur. We dance with unbridled joy because we have a connection that allows us to transcend all our man-made institutions with their inherent distortions.

Not escape, not denial, not avoiding the challenges of life. Simply a day when we rise above it all so that we can re-immerse with a fighting chance…

****

Here is a sampling of thoughts some of our readers offered as examples of the deceptive world in which we live.

JR writes:

“Thank you for another brilliant article. It provoked fascinating discussions at our holiday meals. At our table there was a consensus that the most blatant deception is the one around Israel. Look at a world – perpetuated by the New York Times and many so called ‘objective’ sources of information – absolutely distorting the reality of the situation.

There never was a Palestinian State. Israel did not ‘occupy’ anyone’s territory. Israel fought several defensive wars to protect itself from hostile Arab neighbors who simply do not accept Israel’s right to exist, and see it a an affront to their Islam beliefs.

Myths upon myths have seeped into our consciousness and by now have become “facts” that we all have to contend with…”

LB writes:

“Sports, for me, are a perfect example of the mythical world which we live in. Instead of facing the real challenges of life and taking on the battles between good and evil, we have become a nation of ‘fans’ that root for teams.

I like sports and appreciate how it can lift our spirits. But at the same time we must distinguish between entertainment and the essentials. We must recognize when recreation becomes obsession, and warps reality in the process.”

SJ responds:

“Please read George Will’s column in Newsweek, Modern Life in NFL Nation. He writes how football is the ‘distilled essence of modern life.’ He concludes with the following: ‘In Sports Illustrated’s recent 50th-anniversary issue, Jeff MacGregor wrote, ‘Organized sports are the perfection of the unnecessary.’ Perhaps. But, then, most of what makes life sweet involves emancipation from necessity. The NFL is an acquired taste that Americans have acquired less as an alternative reality than as an intensification of modern reality, although why they want that is a mystery.’

‘Emancipation from necessity.’ Hmm. That can include selfless volunteerism, giving your life to save others, faith and virtue. But on the other end of the spectrum, it can also include frivolous nonsense, empty minded activity, drug and other addictions, and yes, that may include sports addiction (or obsession, if addiction is too harsh of a word).

Sports may be an ‘acquired taste’ and an ‘intensification of modern reality,’ but that does not mean that it is not an ‘alternative reality.’ It just means that modern life itself is an ‘alternative reality,’ and sports just enhance that alternative experience.

And that may be the secret behind the mystery why people embrace it so.”

YG writes:

“…Ahh, distortions. I can’t find an example of something that isn’t distorted. But if we’re looking for examples, take the recent Bush bashing. The ambiguous, undefined liberal establishment has waged an unprecedented attack on Mr. Bush that can only be explained by their great fear of any moral clarity. Any defined position on the issue of terrorism and our enemies simply abhors then to the point that they accuse the President of being a terrorist!

C’mon. After 9/11 the president made it abundantly clear that he is leading a long war against terrorism and countries that harbor terrorists. You may not agree with that approach, but many do (and if you don’t, what is your alternative, pray tell?). We need leaders that will stay the course and not waiver as time passes and pressure builds. This is sustained war and it must be won.

I do not agree with all of the President’s policies, but he is our President and he has taken up a cause that we all embraced after 9/11. Some people may not have agreed with President Harry Truman dropping the Atom bomb on Japan (I’m glad that it wasn’t open for debate on CNN), but he did and as a united country we must support the decision, and we must believe that the world is safer place for it.

When politics takes over in peacetime it’s one thing. But if you want a distortion, look around when self-serving pundits and ‘enlightened’ politicians begins tampering with issues of life and death. One Commander-in-Chief leads the battle. Leave it up for consensus and disaster follows.

I wonder what would have their response had the President not gone on the attack, and Saddam Hussein ended up attacking America (or supporting terrorists to attack).”

RB writes:

“Happy and healthy new year. Enjoyed very much your Sukkos piece. Two examples come immediately to mind.

1. Suffering: when we suffer, we experience sheer hell. However, suffering, much more than contentment, allows for the possibility of true change.

Suffering is growth because it demands hope, which depends on the idea that things, even the worst possible things, CAN change.

2. Politics: Often the slick, polished and well spoken talk a good game. But what lies beneath the surface?

As to your comment on the origins of man, I recently attended a Gateways lecture where a noted physicist told a simply unbelievable story, especially to me, as a journalist. He said that the magazine Nature wanted to interview various scientists about where they got their inspiration. The physicist agreed, on one condition: that the magazine print exactly what he said. They agreed, and proceeded to the interview. When they asked him about the source of his ideas, he said his inspiration came from Heaven. They were incredulous. They told him they simply could not publish that, that his reputation around the world would be destroyed and they were not about to let that happen to him. Needless to say, he canceled the interview. It is amazing to me that people who hold their skepticism in such high esteem would not be able to see things from another person’s point of view. The intellectual has the most dangerous path to travel in search of meaning, and that is the belief in himself–or his opinions, above anybody else’s. When confronted with a noted scientist’s honest assessment that in fact, he didn’t know where his inspiration came from, but that his BELIEF was that it came from Heaven, the others could not bear to hear that someone else’s belief could be different from their own.”

****

Thank you again for your comments, and please keep them coming.

To reiterate the thought: Half the cure of the disease is knowing that you have it. To free yourself from the shackles of this lying universe, you have to first recognize the falsity around you and not get caught up in it.

The Sukkah as a Metaphor for Life

As we celebrate the Jewish holiday season, one of the important challenges facing us today is to make the holidays come alive by recognizing their personal relevance. Relevance is the key word and integration is the primary objective: To experience the holidays as a process of personal growth and improvement, and to integrate it into our lives, routines, talents and aspirations.

Mechanical holidays celebrated by rote will ultimately lead to waning commitment. Perpetuation of our rich heritage – in a crowded marketplace aggressively competing for our time and attention – cannot depend merely on guilt, fear or blind commitment; it must include a personal dimension that makes the tradition indispensable to our lives.

So, let us look at one aspect of Sukkot that resonates in our life experience.

One reason for the mitzvah of dwelling an entire week in a Sukkah — a portable shack — instead of the comforts of our home, is to remind us of the temporal nature of existence. The material world is not our home. We must never succumb to the illusion that our man-made structures and mortal edifices are our natural environments. Corporeal life is a means, a road that leads us to a deeper, spiritual reality.

The transitory Sukkah reminds us that we are just travelers in this impermanent material world; we are spiritual beings on a material journey, not material beings on a spiritual journey.

By no means is this reminder a simple matter. Fighting the illusion of material reality is no simple battle. The world has a powerful hold on us – so powerful that it sucks us in, like a black hole, into its own reality, making us think that this material existence is the only thing real. Until it comes to a point that we are no longer neutral and we become part of the illusion; in one vicious cycle we feed it and it feeds us: The blind leading the blind in a seemingly airtight Matrix.

Indeed, mystics have a name for our world: Alma d’shikra, a deceptive universe. [Olam – world in Hebrew – is rooted in the word “helem,” hidden]. Quite harsh, but quite accurate. Why is the world false? Because it lies all the time. What you see is not necessarily what you get. Some would even say, what you see is never what you get. PR and image cynics put it this way: It’s not important what happened, but what people perceive happened. Hence, spin, buzz, positioning, hooks and angles – all to create the proper package that will project an image that may or may not reflect the substance within.

My grandfather used to tell me that newspapers are filled with untruths. Even the date on the paper is false: Today’s paper was printed yesterday! I used to dismiss his extremism as the distrust of the older generation. But as I have grown older I see the wisdom of his words. True, the media may tell an objective story, but there is always the possibility, which unfortunately is often the reality, for subjectivity, distortions and worse.

We do not live in a seamless universe. The body hides the soul within. Someone can smile at you and then stab you in the back. Abusive people are honored. Thieves rewarded. Good people suffer. Scientists falsifying data. Indeed, all crime is driven by the fact that our world is one where you can get away with murder, and the universe won’t cry out.

Wherever you turn, whether in business or relationships, science or education, in virtually every sector of life, deception (actual or potential) is part of our reality. This doesn’t mean that there is no truth and one can’t choose to be honest; yet that doesn’t change the fact that deception is always a lingering possibility. To the point that as adults we see no problem with this: This is the way of the world, the way of all flesh.

Above all, existence itself hides its true nature and can deceive us into thinking that nothing exists beyond the surface level. Had we not searched who would know, for instance, about DNA, or about the complex subatomic infrastructures that make up existence, the elaborate world under the sea and in outer space, or the sophisticated systems that keep us and the universe alive and balanced. Even after all our research we have barely scratched the surface and cannot even fathom how much more there is to know.

A psychological study has yet to be made as to the myriad effects of this deceptive world, all its manifestations and consequences; the psychological toll that it takes on us humans. Such a study would be some project wouldn’t it?

However, such research would first require a level of clarity that could only come from a force outside of the deceptive world. As long as you are part of the universe, you are part of the problem. As the maxim goes: If you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that we have Sukkot: A reminder from another place that the material world is not where’s it’s at. Or more accurately: Material existence is not airtight; it carries within profound truths that must be uncovered by us humans. Our role is to reveal the beauty that lies concealed within our deceptive universe.

With all the falsities in life, there are also majestic truths; with all the hypocrisy there can be found astonishing nobility and virtue.

Half the cure of the disease is knowing that you have it. To free yourself from the shackles of this lying universe, you have to first recognize the falsity around you and not get caught up in it.

As humans created in the Divine Image we have been charged with the power – and the responsibility – to transcend the cloaked universe and reveal its inner spirit.

Sukkot is a time when we are asked to act on this awareness. Move out of your home, recognize the temporal nature of everything material, submit to the fact that security comes from above.

Sukkot focuses our attention to recognizing the real from the false. Seven days of the year we are asked to physically move out of our so called “homes” and comfort zones, and actually live in a temporary shack, teaching us that our physical homes are not necessarily our definitive source for security. Sukkot is meant to provoke us and imbue the entire year with a higher sense of priority.

Perhaps a useful daily exercise would be to identify deception in our lives. Make a daily list of both your true and false experiences.

One example recently came my way. I was reading a fascinating article on the cosmological search for the beginning of existence. Every possible theory was being explored. The consensus among scientists is that “the great, great, great (to the power of a gazillion) grandparent of you and me and everything else that we see (or can’t see) living around us” is traced back to what they call LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor). LUCA they believe is a hard-bitten little extremophile (primitive bacteria, a single-celled organism) of some kind or other. Somewhere along the line these single-celled primordial superbugs and their specialized functions “got co-opted, in a kind of primitive symbiosis, into the greater service of the more secure, membrane-bound, multitasking complex that would become the eukarytic cell and its subsequent multicellular manifestations, most prominent among these (at least in our minds) being ourselves.”

What came before LUCA?

“Many scientists now argue that before LUCA and the emergence of our current DNA-protein world, there was what’s referred to as an RNA world, one made up only of rudimentary RNA-based entities that were later subsumed into RNA’s current role as our DNA’s messenger. And before the RNA-world, there has to have been what might be described as the real prize for astrobiologists, the so-called first living organism, or FLO.”

Now FLO “had to have been an even tougher entity than LUCA was merely to overcome the universe’s most prohibitive law, the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that all matter tends toward entropy, the dissipation of energy. All life is in utter defiance of that law, a bound, energy-gathering stay against entropy.”

The other essential requirement for life to begin is that there had to have been a “first bit of information, some kind of biochemical message, or code, however crude, to begin to convey. Or, in this case, to misconvey, the whole story of life’s emergence and evolution on earth being, in essence, a multibillion-year-long game of telephone, in which the initial utterance, the one that preceded all others, was increasingly transmuted and reinvented the further along it was passed. It is the precise nature of that first utterance that astrobiologists are trying to decipher.”

Throughout this entire article – and all the exhaustive material that addresses these issues – no mention of G-d is ever made. I am not stating this from a religious perspective, but simply from an intellectual one. When you are exploring the origins of life and you see a miraculous order, and you have the Biblical texts that describe creation, why should that not be included in at least as one of the possible theories? Perhaps the “initial utterance” was G-d creating the universe with “ten utterances”?

The possibility that perhaps, perhaps G-d created the universe from nothing is not even presented and dismissed. The entire concept is not even a consideration. The article mentioned creationism, not as a theory but as the belief of some fundamentalists who still embrace archaic texts.

Now tell me, even if you are the biggest skeptic, how could you not consider that maybe the universe was created by G-d from nothing, and the human perhaps is not just evolved bacteria, but created in the Divine Image? Can anyone utterly rule that out?

The only way I can explain how certain “facts” have become “facts”, with a complete disregard for the possibility in the truth of the Biblical narrative, is that the universe is an “agnostic” one, so airtight that it can deceive anyone within this universe that there is nothing more than what we can empirically experience. If you so choose, G-d the can simply be totally disregarded by His creation…

I would greatly appreciate hearing from you any other examples of the deceptive world in which we live, especially in areas where we may not see the obvious deception. As the Baal Shem Tov says, there is a darkness that is so deep that it conceals the fact that it is dark: War is Peace. Deception is Truth. Evil is Good. It’s 20 years after 1984, but Orwell’s world is alive and kicking.

Every day life is replete with falsities. Identify them and you are well on your way to freeing yourself and discovering truth.

That’s the true way to celebrate Sukkot.

And that’s the ultimate beauty of our Sukkot challenge: Not to escape a lying world, but to reveal its deeper truth.

More Sukkot Resources

With the seven-day festival of Sukkot upon us, The Meaningful Life Center is happy to present you with selections from this website, offering insights that will enhance your holiday experience and tools to turn it into a personal, meaningful journey.

Check out these articles:

• Joy, the Four Species & the Sukkah
• Sukkah: The Easy Mitzvah
• Sukkot Stories
• The 4 Species: 4 Mysteries of King Solomon
• The Pouring of the Water – Liquid Joy
• The Secret of the Etrog
• The Water Drawing
• Unity in Three Dimensions

A Personal Note

As we approach the New Year, I want to extend to you my personal blessings for a sweet and healthy year.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have sent me your kind wishes and blessings for the New Year. We are told that all those that bless, shall be blessed. May your blessings be fulfilled many times over in your life.

May you have a year of love and peace, a year of marriage and joy, a year of healthy children and nachas, a year of material and spiritual success, a year of health and wealth, a year of life with purpose. Those that need special blessings in health or other matters, may G-d see what you need and fulfill it in the fullest measure. Above all, may we all have a year of global peace and redemption.

*  *  *

The Baal Shem Tov once sent his students to observe a local innkeeper as part of their preparation work for Rosh Hashana. The students dutifully checked into the inn. Initially they observed nothing remarkable. After saying the Saturday night Selichot (special penitential prayers recited before the New Year), they went to sleep, only to be awakened by the innkeeper moving about in the lobby. They tip-toed out of their rooms to find the innkeeper opening up a cabinet and removed two big ledgers.

From one ledger he proceeded to read all his sins of the past year: he confessed that he was insensitive to his family, that he didn’t fulfill all his obligations to his community, that he didn’t study enough Torah, he once came late to prayers, etc. Then he opened the second ledger, saying to G-d, “These are my failings, now here’s what You didn’t do … I asked for a better living wage this year and you didn’t give it to me. My wife is still ill. My children need shoes. The cow stopped giving milk…”

In the end he concluded, “Look, I didn’t live up to my obligations and You didn’t live up to Yours. So let’s call it even. I’ll close my book, You’ll close Your book, and we’ll start a new year again with a clean slate.”

The relationship between us and G-d is a partnership. When G-d created human beings in His image, He invested something Divine in us. There is a partnership between us and Him to perfect the world.

G-d founded a business, and said to us: “I am the investor, but you stand behind the counter.”

Partners are accountable to each other. We can call G-d to accountability but we must equally know that we are being called upon to know how we are caring for His investment in us.

Before we confront our partner G-d it would be wise to do our part of the “deal” and show the complete effort we made. Then we can come well armed to our partner and challenge Him to reciprocate.

 *  *  *

As we enter the New Year I would like to declare my renewed commitment to fulfill my mission: To create an environment where all are welcome to explore our common and unique spiritual journey. To produce programs, events and publications that will help us all discover our calling and integrate it into our personal and professional lives.

I am excited to share that this year we will be taking this work to an entirely new dimension – stay tuned.

I thank you for all your support, including financial support, which provides the fuel so that we can continue our important work. At this time of year, it is especially appropriate to add in giving tzedakah (charity), which opens up new channels of blessings for the New Year.

I thank all our staff and friends – high quality people – dedicated to helping others and transcending their own comfort zones.

Above all I want to thank all the special souls that I have met directly or indirectly through my travels and writings. The written word – especially sent via e-mail – presents a unique challenge. The reader knows much more about the writer than the writer knows about the reader. It’s actually quite unbalanced. That is why I greatly appreciate receiving your feedback and thoughts, even your critique and rebuttals.

However I must say that all of you have enriched my life and the work that I do. Even if you have not written to me, perhaps vibes flow back through cyberspace. You have taught me – and continue to teach me – the beauty and the agony of life; the dignity of struggle and the courage of pain; the vulnerability of love and the strength of selflessness; the insecurity of being a taker and the security of being a giver. You have taught me to be more sensitive and understanding of the complexities of life, and also to be more joyful and less intense about the simple innocence that we all carry.

You have enriched my life indeed. Hopefully I can reciprocate.

Thank you.

May it be a truly blessed year, a year of simchas (joyous celebrations) – with openly revealed blessings that we can all appreciate.

With warmest wishes for a shana tova u’metuka,

Simon Jacobson

P.S. In honor of the New Year, please click here to donate securely on-line, or please call us at 718-774-6448. It is an honor to partner with you in bettering the lives of so many people. All donations are tax deductible.