Do Not Fear G-d

Admission: I voted for President Bush. (I hear the murmuring). But it was not a vote for Bush as much as it was a vote against someone else.

That someone was not John Kerry.

My vote was against the liberal establishment of the East and West Coasts that showed utter contempt for faith in G-d – my faith and the faith of millions of others.

And I believe (faith, again) that I am not alone. I submit that the election was determined by one key factor: Americans simply could not tolerate the relentless attack we have been witnessing against the faith of Mr. Bush – not because they support the President and all his policies, but because in the American consciousness there is a profound sense that faith cannot be so utterly discredited.

The icing on the cake was a New York Times Magazine cover story a few weeks ago (Without a Doubt, by Ron Suskind) depicting Mr. Bush as a man whose decisions are determined not through reason and political process, but through Divine inspiration.

He describes the support for or against Bush as a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion. He quotes Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush: The instinct President Bush is “always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do. He truly believes he’s on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence. But you can’t run the world on faith.”

Give me a break. George W. is a politician not a saint. He climbed the ladder of power through political machinations not religious ones. I’ve seen a tzaddik. Bush is no tzaddik. Yet, ironically, many in the media have turned Bush into a man of absolute faith, and Kerry into a man of reason.

Ironically, many in the media have turned Bush into a man of absolute faith, and Kerry into a man of reason.

Once the liberal press painted the picture in this radical fashion, pitting the election as one for or against G-d, the people of faith in this country came out in-masse to vote for faith.

Not that Mr. Bush is necessarily a man of G-d. Frankly, I find it quite hilarious that the left have made Bush into a Divine man. Why Bush earned that right, only G-d knows. But he has. And that is to his credit. Perhaps it is due to his faith.

But the issue here is not about President Bush. It’s about faith. This country is fundamentally built on the principle etched into our currency: In G-d we Trust. And that’s what this election was ultimately about.

I am cynical enough to not believe in the personalities and personality cults created around candidates. In this mass media, “sound-bite” era, you can only feel sad at the way politicians are marketed, how the campaigns are geared to manipulate our impressions, not much different than the marketing of, say, toothpaste. So, one can hardly expect to know what candidates truly stand for.

Americans in particular like to root for heroes – in sports, in entertainment, and why not in politics. People therefore forge personal allegiances to the candidates, projecting upon them their own lives, just as they may fantasize about movie stars. Heroes and villains are easily created, and then perpetuated. For some Bush is almost like a Nazi. For others Bush is the hero and Kerry the selfish liberal. Frankly, all marketing clichés. Don’t buy into all the messages sold to us through multi-million dollar PR campaigns.

On a serious note, however, getting beyond the cheers and the cries following the election results, I for one am not taking a stand – pro-Bush or pro-Kerry. They both have their flaws. This article is not meant to support or criticize the President. It’s meant to address a larger issue that has emerged.

What will go down in history, long after Bush and Kerry are forgotten, is the consensus. Close to 60 million people made a statement that they want G-d in their lives.

By no means does this suggest, that the other 55 million voters voted against faith and G-d; everyone has their right to believe (or not believe) as they see fit. And undoubtedly many people of faith voted against Bush for good reasons. Indeed, some may even have seen in Kerry a deeper commitment to religious freedom. A vote for Bush does not mean a vote for G-d (as Carl Rove would want us to believe). The point here is to understand what compelled so many to come out and vote for Bush, even if they disagree with him and his policies.

When America is challenged, when it is under duress and in crisis, it gravitates to its roots: That we are here because of Divine providence; that all men are created equal, which guarantees us unalienable rights. Take away G-d, and you take away the unalienable rights. Because “rights” on their own are alienable, subjective and arbitrary. And that’s what the election was ultimately about.

The attacks on Mr. Bush’s faith forced the American public to respond. It’s quite amazing to hear that a majority in the state of Ohio chose to overlook the loss of thousands of their jobs, and instead voted on the grounds of moral values and character. What does that tell you?

It will be fascinating to see how the New York Times will cover this. Don’t be at all surprised to hear how some, in their ongoing contempt, will continue to dismiss the morality issue and argue that people were basically hoodwinked; or that the war in Iraq caused people to support the incumbent; or some other excuse how the public was manipulated to elect Mr. Bush.

All you have to do is read Gary Wills article, The Day the Enlightenment Went Out, in the Times of November 4^th. He attributes Bush’s victory to the brilliance of Carl Rove. Rove “calculated that the religious conservatives, if they could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. Mr. Rove understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin’s theory of evolution.”

He goes on to explain that America, with its “fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity” resembles Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Sunni loyalists more than it does the European countries. And that’s why “the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.”

Based on this logic, of course, the majority of Americans elected Mr. Bush because they are narrow-minded fundamentalists, who have extinguished the “enlightenment.”

Some liberals will never concede the possibility that people authentically believe in G-d, and that this faith may have profound merit.

Interestingly, it’s these liberals that forced people to suddenly confront the issue of G-d – as if Bush was G-d’s representative, and the other side was not. Bigggg mistake. Had they not been so vehement and contemptuous they may have had a victory…

And what about the power of a majority – one of the cornerstones of a democracy?

I have a friend who was waxing eloquent about the beauty of democracy. Confident in Kerry’s victory, he was lauding the strength and virtue of majority rule. “It’s the people – the majority of the people – that ultimately decides. Numbers never lie.”  After Kerry’s loss by close to 4 million of the popular vote, this friend tells me in a deriding tone: “What can we do about the fact that America has been taken hostage by the narrow minded “religious right,” and Bush’s campaign has brainwashed the South and the Midwest?”…

What happened to the power of majority? Is the majority only right when they agree with YOU?!

I can’t but help wonder whether the liberal movement today is just an outgrowth of the French Enlightenment’s disdain for “la canaille” [the rabble], a phrase used to denigrate the masses.

“As for the canaille,” Voltaire told d’Alembert, “I have no concern with it; it will always remain canaille.” And it would remain canaille because it was uneducable. The people would never have “the time and the capacity to instruct themselves; they will die of hunger before they become philosophers…. We have never pretended to enlighten shoemakers and servants; that is the job of the apostles.”

Close to 60 million people made a statement that they want G-d in their lives.

The thinkers of the Parisian Enlightenment felt that the people could not be educated because they could not be enlightened; and they could not be enlightened because they were incapable of the kind of reason that the philosophes took to be the essence of enlightenment. They were mired instead in the prejudices, superstitions, and irrationalities of religion. This was the great enemy – l’infâme. Religion, Voltaire wrote to Diderot, “must be destroyed among respectable people and left to the canaille large and small, for whom it was made.” Diderot agreed. The poor were “imbeciles” in matters of religion, “too idiotic – bestial – too miserable, and too busy” to enlighten themselves. They would never change: “The quantity of the canaille is just about always the same.”

Diderot made it clear that “the general mass of mankind can neither follow nor comprehend this march of the human spirit.” “We must reason about all things because man is not just an animal but an animal who reasons; … whoever refuses to search for that truth renounces the very nature of man and should be treated by the rest of his species as a wild beast; and once the truth has been discovered, whoever refuses to accept it is either insane or wicked and morally evil.” Diderot believed that we must distrust the judgment of the “multitude” in matters of reason and philosophy because “its voice is that of wickedness, stupidity, inhumanity, unreason and prejudice.” “The multitude,” he concluded, is “ignorant and stupefied.”

Is this obnoxious elitism the root of today’s liberal paternalism and the welfare state, as Gertrude Himmelfarb argues in a new book, The Roads to Modernity?

After reading and hearing the passionate arguments being made against the faith-based presidency of Mr. Bush, you wonder who is more fundamentalist: the faithful or the men of “reason”? Edward Gibbon, the 18^th century British historian (far from an orthodox religious believer) jibed against those French thinkers who “preached the tenets of atheism with the bigotry of dogmatists.”

In another article (The Idea of Compassion: The British vs. the French Enlightenment) Himmelfarb quotes Tocqueville, who was speaking of the French revolutionaries – but he might have been of the philosophes – when he said that their “salient characteristic” was a loss of faith that upset their “mental equilibrium.” They adored the human intellect and had supreme confidence in its power to transform laws, institutions, and customs. But the intellect they adored was only their own. “I could mention several,” Tocqueville sardonically observed, “who despised the public almost as heartily as they despised the Deity.” This was very different, he added, from the respect shown by Englishmen and Americans for the opinions of the majority of their countrymen. “Their intellect is proud and self-reliant, but never insolent; and it has led to liberty, while ours has done little but invent new forms of servitude.”

Have some Americans regressed to the French form of so-called “enlightenment”?

Truth be told, I have both a skeptic and believer inside of me. But just as I don’t allow the believer to silence the skeptic, I also don’t allow the skeptic to invalidate the believer. That would be driven neither by reason, skepticism or faith; it would be plain dishonest.

One can fully understand the paranoia and fear of a religious right taking control and dogmatically imposing their religious positions. After all, over the last two millennia hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in the name of religion. The intolerance, tyranny and oppression of the church, ruling with absolute authority had created a “religious fatigue,” which, coupled with the advancements in open-minded reason and science, finally came to a climax with the “enlightenment” and the powerful rebellion against religion and religious authority (at least in its formal form).

And today we don’t need any historical reminders of the destruction wreaked in the name of religion. Fundamentalist Muslims have waged bloody war against the infidels of the West – essentially a replay of the Christian Crusades of the first millennium.

In light of all this, the resistance to religious control by government is quite understandable. Indeed, the powerful fear is in direct proportion to the intensity of church control and the millions of gallons of blood shed in the name of religion for so many years. After being so severely burned by corruption and abuse, there exists, for good reason, a deep embedded suspicion of any governmental authority advocating religious beliefs.

Thus, the severe reaction to President Bush and his faith based initiatives.

However, we must never allow our own fears (even legitimate ones) to cloud our vision. Abuse has the power to cause us to “throw out the baby with the bathwater,” and run away even from healthy experiences. How many people avoid committed relationships because they have been hurt by loved ones?

The true challenge is to know how to embrace the power of faith – even after we experienced its abuse – and distinguish between healthy faith and unhealthy faith.

The Founding Fathers were all too aware of religious abuse. Hence, the separation of Church and State. Yet, their brilliance was the realization that they cannot allow years of abuse to distort mans’ healthy beliefs. Thus, the same framers of the constitutional separation between religion and government, also began the Declaration of Independence with the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The nation’s founders understood that without a Creator who created us all equally, “unalienable rights” are no guarantee. Many monrachs, for instance, believed that they were chosen  by G-d and were superior to the common man. Ironically, so did the elitist French Enlightenment.

Another reason many fear faith and G-d – in addition to centuries of religious tyranny – is due to a lack of understanding what true and healthy faith is all about (and this too, is a result of the distortions created by centuries of faith abuse). True faith is not merely the absence of reason. It is an inherent human faculty, part of the “Divine Image” in which we were all created, that complements reason, and allows us to reach places that we could never reach with pure logic alone. Faith is what gives humans: the courage and the commitment to love (something reason alone could never sanction); the power to discover; the ability to hope; the capacity to overcome impossible odds; the belief in yourself and in others.

I submit that this is what Americans voted for on Election Day 2004: A vote for G-d in our lives. A G-d that we no longer have to fear. After years of religious exploitation, we have matured to the point where we can embrace the virtues and beauties of the sacred, and integrate it into secular life.

This may the challenge of our times: To revisit faith after its misuse and abuse for so long, and reclaim it as a critical and most powerful tool in our lives.

G-d works in strange ways. Not the people of faith but those that fear faith were the ones that made faith such an issue in America today. With the intention of mocking President Bush’s “simplistic faith” they inadvertently deified him and turned him into a (false) saint. In effect, unwittingly they crystallized an issue that otherwise would perhaps not been quite noticed, and provoked million of people of faith to come out and cast a vote against the bigotry and dogma of non-believers.

Americans are a very tolerant people. They will tolerate flag-burners and atheists. They believe in freedom of religion, that every individual can choose to worship or not worship any deity one wishes. Separation of church and state – a wall between organized religion and political authority – is a must. No organized religion can rule the country. But Americans will not tolerate intolerant skeptics: Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. “In G-d we Trust” – a non-denominational universal G-d – is the driving force behind all our freedoms and liberties.

Ironically, faith in a Creator and in the edict that “all men  [perhaps it should be amended to “humans”] are created equal” with “unalienable rights” is the reason that we must respect the choice of a non-believer. I wonder if the French Enlightenment would have returned us that favor with equal passion? Would they have honored the right and dignity of each individual to choose faith, even if it seemed to them as inferior canaille?

Be careful what you don’t believe in. Your passion against faith may end up stoking its flames. Your vehement doubts may give birth to the deepest faith of all.

Which atheist was it that said: “I hate you G-d, just as if you had existed.”

A take off on Voltaire: If G-d existed, you would need people who denied His existence. That denial can be as strong as faith itself, and perhaps it is just another manifestation of faith.

So, democrats and republicans, skeptics and believers, secularists and the religious, Europeans and Asians, Christians and Muslims: Whether you like it or not – America has spoken:

Faith, moral values and G-d are the most important priorities in our lives.

This is President Bush’s mandate.

Now let us work on integrating faith and reason.

G-d’s Mysterious Ways

A strange thing happened today. In this week’s column I was committed to continue the theme that I have been writing about for the last couple of weeks: The search for our personal mission in life.

But then, during a moving telephone conversation today about life’s tragedies, I was struck by a very serious quandary; one that cannot simply be ignored. Hence, the following words, before I continue with the sequel to last week’s article.

In this week’s Torah reading, G-d determines to destroy the sadistic and corrupt city of Sodom. But before doing so, we are told that G-d pondered:

“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am going to do [destroy Sodom]?”

G-d then informs Abraham of His plans to destroy the city. Abraham does not remain silent. He adamantly protests, and demands that G-d not destroy Sodom.

“Will You actually wipe out the innocent together with the guilty? Suppose there are fifty innocent people in the city. Would You still destroy it, and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty good people inside it? It would be sacrilege even to ascribe such an act to You – to kill the innocent with the guilty, letting the righteous and the wicked fare alike. It would be sacrilege to ascribe this to You! Shall the whole world’s Judge not act justly?”

G-d agrees, that if there are fifty righteous people He will spare the city. Abraham continues to plead:

“But suppose that there are five missing from the fifty innocent? Will You destroy the entire city because of the five?”

And Abraham works his way down. 40. 30. 20. 10. Even ten righteous people could not be found in Sodom. The city is subsequently destroyed.

Powerful story. G-d will not conceal His plans from Abraham. G-d knew full well that Abraham would challenge His decree, yet G-d still invites Abraham to the challenge. And indeed, Abraham does everything in his power to reverse the verdict.

So many lessons can be gleaned from this story: The depth of our intimate relationship with G-d; G-d’s unwillingness to conceal His plans, even when they are foreboding; the power of prayer; our ability to reverse Heavenly decrees; compassion even for the wicked.

Many lessons. But here’s the big question, one that should not allow us to rest peacefully:

In our own time we experienced a horrifying Holocaust. 6 million innocent Jews, and many millions more, were annihilated. Over a million children alone perished.

Why did G-d not ask the same question, whether He should hide the terrifying future form His righteous people.

Sodom was a wicked city, which deserved to be destroyed; the 6 million were innocent. When it comes to wicked Sodom G-d wonders whether He should reveal His plans to Abraham, and then proceeds to do so. But when it came to the decimation of a third of the Jewish nation – far more than the population of Sodom – G-d chooses silence…

Some say that G-d intentionally concealed the impending Holocaust from His tzaddikim because He did not want them to intervene and stop the decree. “Tzaddik gozer Haokodesh Boruch Hu Mikayem,” G-d fulfills the decree of a tzaddik, and beyond that: “Hakodesh Boruch Hu gozer, tzaddik mevatel,” a tzaddik can abolish G-d’s decree!

Perhaps.

But that still does not quiet our pain.

In this week’s Torah portion, You – G-d – show us that You struggle with the destruction even of cruel people. You inform us that You could not remain silent and conceal Your plans from Abraham. So you know how to speak when You want to. Why then, we implore of you, were You so silent in 1935?! You could have at least warned us to escape!…

We often hear about G-d’s mysterious ways. As G-d tells Job (paraphrased): “were you there when I created heaven and earth that you question me about My justice.” We ask why there’s suffering, but do we ask why there’s joy? We ask why there’s disease, but do we ask why there’s health? We ask why there’s death, but do we ask why there’s life? We come in “middle of the picture” and ask why things aren’t working in the world, but do we ask with the same passion why the world was created for in the first place? We ask why bad things happen to good people, but do we ask why good people were born in the first place?

We take life, birth, health and joy as a given. We are troubled only when there’s pain. The real question is not why there’s pain and suffering, but why is there joy. Not why is there death, but why is there life in the first place – a life that allows for pain and loss and death. Because the secret of death is directly linked to the secret of birth, the secret of pain is directly linked to the secret of life. If we knew the beginning, we would know the end.

These are G-d’s mysterious ways. And as we accept G-d as G-d, we must also accept that G-d has His mysterious ways.

“’My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says G-d. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

All good and fine. However, in this week’s portion our mysterious G-d suddenly decides to not conceal His plans from Abraham. Ahh, now You, G-d, have set a precedent; You have opened the door – You have demonstrated that at time You do share with us Your mysterious ways. So why didn’t You warn us, why did You remain silent – and why do You remain silent when so many suffer senseless pain? When innocent children are being hurt?

If you want to nitpick, you can argue that inn the case of Sodom G-d felt responsible to inform Abraham, because it was G-d Who destroyed Sodom, whereas man perpetrated the Holocaust. But go tell that to the survivors of those that perished in the Holocaust, or to any father or mother who suffers a tragic loss…

It is told that a great Rebbe, who had lost his entire family and hundreds of thousands of his Chassidim in the Holocaust, once said: “Even if G-d wanted to reveal to me the mystery of allowing such a slaughter, I would rather not know.” [Perhaps it was the Gerer Rebbe. If anyone has more information on this, please let me know].

The only thing one can really say is that being exposed to G-d’s mysterious ways is no simple matter.

Perhaps that’s why G-d deliberated and wondered – and let us know about it – “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am going to do?” G-d knew the implications of inviting Abraham into the “inner chambers,” to be privy to the cosmic secrets of existence and beyond.

As we read in the heartrending Yom Kippur prayer how Rabbi Yishmael, the high priest, purifies himself and with reverence pronounces G-d’s ineffable Name and ascends to the heavenly heights to inquire whether the Divine Will sanctioned the Roman decree to brutally kill the ten greatest Jewish leaders of the time.

He ascends and inquires of the angel clothed in white, who answers him:

“Take it upon yourselves, righteous, beloved Sages, for I have heard from behind the Curtain that this decree has been imposed upon you.”

“Behind the curtain.”

What else lurks “behind the curtain” wouldn’t we all want to know. But that knowledge comes with a heavy price. And that price is not something we should take lightly. That’s why the above-mentioned Rebbe said that he would rather not know.

Perhaps that’s what happened to the three of the four great men who entered the Pardes (lit. garden), and did not come out intact. One went insane, one died and one became an apostate. They saw things “behind the curtain” that they could not contain.

But then there was Rabbi Akiva, who “entered in peace and left in peace.” The same Rabbi Akiva that was able to laugh and see redemption where others saw the desolation of the Temple Mount after its destruction.

What is the secret of Rabbi Akiva and Abraham? Perhaps knowing that is precisely what distinguishes them as Rabbi Akiva and Abraham.

Yet, we still cry out.

 * * * *

[Long pause].

One lesson we can derive from this episode regarding our own personal mission is that in our search and our journey there will be many mysteries that we may not be able to fathom. There is no need to force yourself into discovering the answer to all mysteries.

Yes, there is a curious, voyeuristic – even sensational – human side that is drawn to the unknown and the exotic. Many seek out “crystal balls” to discover our destinies, our previous lives, our dreams and our stars. But we must also know that our primary goal is; personal responsibility. Not how much knowledge you have, but what you do with the knowledge that you have. We were given all the information we need to fulfill our mission. And if something was not told to us and remains a mystery that means that we don’t need that knowledge to fulfill our calling.

It’s not that healthy to peek “behind the curtain.”

That’s why true Kabbalists and Mystics rarely share these secrets. Guided by the maxim: “Those that say don’t know. Those that know don’t say.”

Figure out what to do on this side of the “curtain” before venturing further.

* * * *

We now stand in the fourth stage of the sequence defining our mission in life. As discussed in last week’s article, the Torah chapters from the beginning of Genesis outline the story of our lives:

The mission begins (Bereishit).

The mission is revitalized, with the cleansing of the world following mans’ great fall (Noach).

The mission is embraced and begins to be realized by Abraham, with the first step being the need to transcend our own subjectivity (Lech Lecho).

Now, in this week’s chapter (Vayeira), the mission develops further and takes on new dimensions.

Primarily, the focus is on self-sacrifice.

To fulfill our mission in life we have to be ready to embrace higher standards than the narcissistic struggle for survival. We must be ready to surrender our immature need to “have it our way” and accept a greater calling. This includes, transcending even our “good” and “holy” interests in face of something more Divine.

This is the inherent message in many of the lessons in this week’s story:

Abraham “turns away” from his personal relationship with G-d in order to greet guests, from which we learn that “greeting guests is greater than receiving G-d”! By greeting the guests, Abraham actually experienced G-d in a higher way. Never allow your own religiosity and commitment compromise your love and graciousness to other people. After all, the more you love G-d the more you’ll love what G-d loves – His own children. (See last year’s Religious Selfishness).

Abraham tries to protect even the wicked city of Sodom. He does everything in his power to reverse their impending doom. Even though Abraham was completely committed to G-d and His ways, and he therefore clearly did not condone the criminals of Sodom, yet Abraham transcended his own personal comfort. Abraham could have easily retreated to his own spiritual oasis to build his family and students and ignore the undeserving Sodomites. Instead, he challenged G-d to save the city. Because Abraham was not a “tzaddik in peltz” (a righteous person in a fur coat), whose sole interest is to keep himself warm, but he knew that our Divine calling is to “light a fire” that warms everyone, not just yourself. (See How to Treat Infidels).

The lesson is obvious in our own mission. Your mission is never just about you alone. It always includes illuminating and warming the people and the world around you.

Finally, at the end of the portion we read about the Akeidah, lit. the Binding of Isaac. How Abraham was ready to offer his son to G-d. – Perhaps the most controversial story in the Torah. Abraham was prepared to offer to G-d not just his son but also the profound love of a father for his child – and all the promises that G-d had made about this child! This was the ultimate test of dedication. G-d didn’t want Abraham to kill his son; He wanted him to transcend even the personal, subjective love that a parent has to a child, and infuse it with an objective Divinity. For an elaborate discussion on this see Kill Me a Son.

We too, in our mission, will at times be tested. And the ultimate test is when you are asked to transcend even your own healthy commitments and loves, and when you do you come out a greater person. Example: As a healthy parent you have to often ask yourself: Do I want this good for my child because it is my good or because it is my child’s good?

To return where we began. The search for our mission consists of two parts: Things we know and things we don’t know. Our personality, opportunities, people and places are all available to us. But even the things we don’t know are also part of our mission: To forge ahead despite the mystery.

One thing we know for sure: Part of our mission is about love – selfless love.

We have to know how to transcend even own mission, that is: our understanding of our mission.

It’s interesting to note, that the reason G-d feels He cannot conceal His plans from Abraham is because (as the verse continues):

“Abraham is about to become a great and mighty nation, and through him all the nations of the world will be blessed. I have given him special attention so that he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep G-d’s way, doing charity and justice. G-d will then bring about for Abraham everything He promised.”

Abraham’s commitment – and leadership – give him the right to know G-d’s ways. Our relationship with G-d is a two-way street: The more we immerse ourselves in our calling and the more dedicated we become to our mission, the more access we gain to the deeper mysteries of life.

So, the plot thickens. As you continue to embrace your mission in life you will continue to grow and the journey will gain momentum. It may get more complex but also more exciting.

It is your mission; your journey; your music. If you open yourself to it the voyage will be exhilarating.

Why is it so difficult to recognize your life’s mission?

The obvious answer is that we are distracted. Our struggle for survival consumes us with the means, which can easily obscure the ends. The pursuit of money, status, power and pleasure takes hold of us, and in its powerful clutches we can completely forget our mission. Indeed, we can even convince ourselves that we don’t need – or don’t have – a mission. The here and now is all that matters. Survival of the fittest. Dog eats dog. And may the best man win. (There’s a mouthful of clichés).

Yet, this answer is not adequate. Even people who are committed to discover their mission find it difficult to do so. Determination is vital; but something still seems to stand in the way between you and your mission.

This week’s Torah portion provides us with the solution. But first, a short introduction.

The sequence of the Torah portions contains the story of our lives. As the new year begins, following the holiday season, we begin the journey of life anew, refreshed and empowered:

Chapter one, Bereishit – Genesis – is exactly as its name implies: The beginning. Life commences with the statement that G-d created all of existence. In other words, the universe is not here by accident; it has purpose and design.

The first step is recognizing your mission.

Human then loses sight of his/her mission. Existential detachment is born with the eating of the Tree of Knowledge. The world then goes into a free fall, generation after generation wandering farther away from their calling, until it spirals into a society dominated by corruption and greed.

Chapter two, Noah, is the story of the flood that comes to cleanse the corrupt world (like the waters of a mikveh, ritual bath), and allow for global renewal.

Chapter three, Lech Lecho (this week’s portion), is the fascinating story of Abraham, who begins to reverse the fall that took place in the Garden of Eden. He first searched, then discovered his mission and the mission of all people on Earth. He then committed his life and the life of his family to forever embrace this mission, and never let go.

After that life and history were never the same.

What did Abraham discover? What tools did he acquire? How was he able to discover, and even more importantly, maintain, his mission in life?

Studying Abraham’s life can uncover for us invaluable resources to help us face the struggles of our own lives today.

The story of Abraham begins this week with G-d’s call – the first “mitzvah” – “Lech Lecho.” Go to you, away from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.

Very strange command. When you offer someone directions, the most important thing is to clearly describe the destination. You must specify the destination so the traveler knows where to go. “Go to this and this country, this and this city, this and this street, this and this address.” The point of departure is not vital, because the traveler knows where he is leaving from; he needs to be informed where to go. Yet, when G-d instructs Abraham, He focuses entirely on the place to leave, and with three (seemingly redundant) descriptions: “from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s [parent’s] house.” When it comes to the destination, G-d vaguely says go “to the land that I will show you”!

Is Abraham supposed to go east, west, north or south, and then to which country and which city?!

Therein lies a vital secret in discovering your mission in the world.

Subjectivity is the most blinding influence in our lives. Specifically, three subjective forces in each of our lives cloud our vision and, resultingly, our ability to seek out, recognize and embrace our respective missions.

“Your land” – social conformity and peer pressure, which affect our standards and mind-sets.

“Your birthplace” – your inherent bias and self-love, that distorts your views and judgments.

“Your father’s house” – parental attitudes that shape and influence your life.

Subjectivity per se is not a negative thing. It is the driving force that compels us to protect ourselves and our loved ones, to excel and to demonstrate our personal strengths. Subjectivity can adversely affect us when we don’t acknowledge its existence, and when we allow it to blind our judgment.

Like the doctor that says, “I’ll tell you when you need a second opinion”…

“Bias [bribery] blind the eyes of the wise and distorts the tongue of the righteous,” tells us the Bible. Why are they called “wise” and “righteous” if a simple bribe can blind their eyes and distort their tongues? Because that is precisely the power of bias: It blinds everyone, even the eyes of the wise. This distortion can become so grotesque, that the wisdom can end up being used to justify a subjective, unjust cause. Unfortunately, examples of this abound, so there is no need to elaborate further.

All growth comes from an awareness of one’s own subjectivity and the willingness, the courage, to climb higher and see a broader horizon.

Being stubbornly locked in one’s own subjective views, just to “feel good” or “feel right” or out of pride, is basically off any possible movement.

Now, the Torah tells us that there are three primary sources of our own subjectivity:

1/ “Your birthplace” – “A person is naturally close to himself,” the Talmud states, meaning, that by nature we are born with certain self-love that blinds us to some extent to our own shortcomings. We see flaws in others more acutely than we see our own, even if they are worse. It’s much easier to give someone else advice than to follow it yourself.

This inherent subjectivity can cause us to be self-righteous, protective and unwilling to acknowledge mistakes.

Natural subjectivity also includes, of course, the particular shape of our inherent personalities.

2/ “Your father’s house” – the subjective attitudes we assume from our parents, for good or for bad, which shape us in our early impressionable years. Even if these attitudes may not be genetic they become etched in our psyches.

3/ “Your land” – social mores constantly pressure us to conform. Human nature is such that we want to be accepted and respected by our peers. But what if the standards of our peers are petty and superficial? Then, that becomes a force that shapes and informs us, for good or for bad. Every society has its subjective standards that are always affecting us. Add into the equation the media and all the streaming images that inundate us in contemporary society, and you have a whole new entity shaping our subjective self-image

Add together all these three subjective forces that shape us, and you can just imagine the distortions that we may have in our own self-perception. Can you know who you really are in face of all these shaping influences?! Perhaps the person you think you are is a product of your parents and society? Throw into this combination your own inherent subjectivity and you have a real confused mess. How can you distinguish between who you really are and who you think you are based on all these subjective forces?

After all, your parents were the ones that By the time you can start thinking on your own (if that is actually happening), you have already been shaped and hardened and most of the big decisions (like what type of education you should have, what if any religion, what exposure) has already been made for you, again for good or for bad.

That’s why G-d’s first commandment to Abraham and to each of us is: “Lech Lecho” – Go to you, away from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. “Go to you” and discover the “real” you is only possible when you leave the subjective influences of your inherent bias, your parents and society. Then you will go “to the land that I will show you” your true self.

Think about the first time you left the comfort of your home and went to school or summer camp. Initially disconcerting, but that is where you had your first real accomplishments. As long as you are in the shadow of the powerful influences in your life you can never know your true self, and inevitable you can never truly excel.

To find your mission in life you do not need to know the destination as much as you need to know how to free yourself from the shackles of your present state. Why? Because your mission is ingrained inside the very fiber of your being. You need not travel elsewhere to find yourself and your calling. It’s right there inside of you. But in order for it to emerge you need to strip away the subjective layers that don’t allow your true self and your true mission to emerge. Like flowers embedded in the earth, you need to cut away the weeds and allow the flowers to emerge.

By no means does this imply that all the subjective influences in our lives are like “weeds.” Many of these influences may be powerful forces for good that have helped and continue to help shape our characters. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, subjectivity is also very much part of our unique individuality and self-preservation. However these subjective forces can become like “weeds” when left unchecked, and more importantly, when they control our lives and our decisions. They become impediments when they blind us from seeing “outside of our box” and seduce us to remain in our “comfort zones.”

After getting married, the great Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, was living in poverty with his new wife. His wealthy in-laws wrote to him that if the new couple comes to live in their home, they will provide for all their needs and he can freely and comfortably pursue his studies and spiritual travels. The Rebbe replied: “The most comfortable place for a child is in its mother’s womb, where all is provided for and the child is protected from the elements. Why then does the child leave the womb upon birth? Because there’s one problem: the place [inside the womb] has become too small, and the child has become too large”…

Life has many stages. In the early stages of life we depend exclusively on the protection and nurturing of family and home. Even later in life it is healthy and necessary to maintain the love and the connection. Family, friends and society are a powerful source of support. But then comes the stage of Lecho Lecho, when you need to go out of the “womb,” cut the “umbilical cord” and discover and actualize your true self and your mission – and fly with it.

We go through many Lech Lecho’s in our lives.

Lech Lecho teaches us that the mission stated in the beginning of Genesis and renewed in Noah is accessible when we challenge our status quos and free ourselves from the subjective narrowness of our initial perspectives.

How do you free yourself? Invite in ideas, books and people that challenge you and your perceptions. The great gift and blessing of Torah is that it provides us with a Divine blueprint how to live our lives, which offers us a backdrop as a contrast to our subjective and natural tendencies. Consult a trusted mentor or friend, who can offer a more objective view on your choices.

Free yourself from the exclusive influences of home and society by traveling to other environments and meeting new people. Allow yourself to use your unique strengths to help improve these new environments and people.

By all means utilize the strengths you gained through your home and society; see them as springboard for your growth. But then spring.

What is heartening about this is that you have the answers you need inside of you. Your unique mission statement is embedded within you, waiting to be released.

Making a Lech Lecho move and moving away from the subjective forces in your life – all the things that you think are important today – is the key to discovering your mission. It will help you look at your life in a new way – at your personality, opportunities, people and places – and know how to realize the mission for which you, and only you, were sent to Earth in the first place.

No small feat.

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.

*  *  *

If you could request one thing of G-d, what would it be?

The single most important need in life is to know why you are here; to recognize your personal mission statement. Everything else follows.

Just as a business or any project could not succeed without a mission statement – a vision and an objective that defines the direction you take – how much more so when it come to your entire life: You must have a mission that drives all your activities and endeavors. Without a mission, everything you do will be compromised and rendered dispensable.

You may request wealth, health and all the amenities that make life comfortable. However if you do not know your own personal mission, all these gifts will leave you unfulfilled, and thus, unhappy. A business may have abundant material resources, but without its mission, it will not succeed. We should all be blessed with everything material and spiritual, but never forget that these are means to an end: Fulfilling your unique calling.

Rosh Hashana is the collective birthday of the human race. It is therefore the time of year when we reconnect and re-embrace our personal mission in this world, our Divine calling – the reason G-d sent us to Earth; a time when we realign all our interactions and experiences with our higher calling.

Of all that is important to us, the one that is more necessary than all others is to recognize the purpose of your life.

May you be blessed with discovering (or rediscovering) your unique calling, together with all the resources to fulfill that calling.

*  *  *

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 response to many of your requests how to make a donation to us in honor of the New Year, 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.

Can You Swim?

Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Akiva were walking in the vicinity of Rome. From far away, they heard the sounds of a thriving metropolis, and three of them began to cry, but Rabbi Akiva laughed.

They said to him, “Why are you laughing?” {Rabbi Akiva responded:]“And you, why are you crying?” “These barbarians, who bow to idols and burn incense for false gods, are living in peace and security, while we, the footstool of whose G-d is burnt with fire – should we not cry?” He said to them, “That is exactly why I am laughing. If people who violate the will of G-d have it so good, how much better will those who act according to His Will, have it?”

Another time, the same scholars were walking towards Jerusalem. When they reached Mt. Scopus (from which it is possible to see the Temple Mount), they tore their clothing. When they arrived at the Temple Mount, they saw a fox running out of the area where the Holy of Holies had been. They began to cry, while Rabbi Akiva laughed.

They said to him, “Why are you laughing?” He responded, “Why are you crying?”

“If from the place about which it is written, ‘And the stranger who enters there, shall die,’ we see a fox coming out, should we not cry?”

“For that very reason, I am laughing. Isaiah the Prophet said, ‘I will bring two reliable witnesses regarding my People, Uriah the Priest and Zecharia ben Yevarech’yahu. ‘(Isaiah 8:2) Now what do Uriah and Zecharia have to do with each other? Uriah prophesied in the time of the First Temple, and Zecharya in the time of the Second Temple! But the verse in Isaiah makes Zecharia’s prophecy dependent on Uriah’s.

“In Uriah’s case, it is written, ‘Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed under like a field.’ (Michah/Uriah 3:12) In the case of Zecharia, we find, ‘Yet again, elderly men and elderly women will sit in the streets of Jeruselam (and each will have a staff in his or her hand from great age. And the streets of the city will be full of children, playing in her streets) (Zecharia 8:4-5) Until I saw the fulfillment of Uriah’s prophecy, I had some doubt as to whether Zecharia’s prophecy would come true. Now that I have seen Uriah’s prophecy fulfilled in full detail, I know that Zecharya’s prophecy will also be fulfilled.”

Hearing that, Rabbi Akiva’s colleagues said to him, “Akiva, you have comforted us. Akiva, you have comforted us.” (End of the tractate Makot)

This time of year is the saddest one in the Hebrew calendar. During these “Nine Days,” the period from the first day of Av until the 9^th of Av (Tisha b’Av), we mourn the destruction of the two holy Temples: the first Temple destroyed by the Babylonians 2426 years ago, the second one by the Romans 1936 years ago.

Why would we still be grieving over a structure destroyed thousands of years ago?

For two reasons:

1/ The Temple was not a mere piece of real estate. It was a window between heaven and earth. The Temple bridged spirit and matter. Thus its destruction was not just an isolated historical event, but one whose effects are still reverberating today. As long as tension remains between the physical and the spiritual, we are experiencing the loss of the Temple. Which is why our sages tell us that:

“A generation that does not rebuild the temple is considered as if it destroyed it.”

2/ Time is not linear but spiral. Events that happen in a particular time of year are related to the energy flow of that respective time. And that energy flow repeats itself each year as the cycle returns to that point in time.

The negative energy that manifested when the Temple was first destroyed repeats itself each year during this period in time.

In other words: Historical events are merely outer manifestations of invisible forces that are always at work behind the scenes.

Our grief for the destruction of the Temple includes all areas in life that cause us anguish.

Therein lays a profound lesson in life, and a universal lesson at that.

The Hebrew calendar reflects the true rhythm of life. Life is not a comprised of particles but of waves. Like the waves of the sea, life consists of cycles, with troughs and crests, some of which may be extreme.

A good swimmer recognizes the dynamic nature of water, and adjusts accordingly. In contrast to a static plateau, which one can navigate without fluctuation, the waves of water require constant vigilance to negotiate the cycles. When a strong wave hits, a proficient swimmer will not resist or fight the wave, but “go with the flow” and allow the cresting wave to carry him. Any attempt to ignore or fight the wave will quickly deplete the swimmer’s energy, with the risk of drowning the swimmer. In the case of a severe stormy sea, the need to surrender to the flow of the waves is only amplified.

On the other hand, when the waves are relatively calm, the swimmer uses their energy as a catalyst for forward thrust.

Interestingly, when negotiated properly, both stages, whether it be stormy waves or calm ones, are forms of energy that are all part of the swimming cycle. Indeed, a powerful wave that cannot be fought can be tapped in a powerful way, as long as you ride it and don’t try to resist.

Now back to the wave-cycle of time. Time too consists of crests and troughs. The Hebrew calendar is a sort of travel guide through time that helps us align ourselves to the inner rhythms of life’s cycles.

As the Talmud declares:

“Just as when Av arrives decrease joy, so too when Adar arrives increase joy.”

Strange statement: Why equate the two periods in time? Even if the Talmud wanted to make both statements, it could have simply said: “When Av arrives decrease in joy; when Adar arrives increase in joy”?!

The Talmud is telling us that time is a cycle. Av and Adar are not just two unrelated, diametrically opposed, periods in time: One filled with sorrow, the other with joy. They are like the trough and crest of one wave: Just as Av brings on a decrease in joy, so too Adar brings on an increase in joy.

And therein lies the secret behind Rabbi Akiva’s laugh. It goes without saying that Rabbi Akiva also fasted and grieved on Tisha B’av, and probably shed a tear or two. The Temple’s destruction was no less a tragedy for him than it was for his colleagues. Yet, Rabbi Akiva recognized the bigger picture: Within the tragedy he was able to see the end of the story. Within the death he was able to see the birthing of a better future.

When he heard that the Jews continue to mourn the destruction of the Temple for close to two millennia, Napoleon purportedly said:

“Because they continue to cry for the Temple, they will ultimately get it back.”

Crying over the loss of the Temple is like riding the difficult waves. By not ignoring and not fighting them, the tears become part of the swim, part of the journey, that swim ultimately leads us to our destination. If you forget and get desensitized to the sadness of life, then you become desensitized to the joy as well. In other words: If you don’t cry when it’s time to cry, you won’t be able to rejoice when it’s time to celebrate. If you cry when the situation calls for it, you will see it through and rejoice when the time comes (“Just as when Av arrives decrease joy, so too when Adar arrives increase joy”). When you navigate the troughs you have the power to ride the crests.

This also explains how the Munkatcher Rav (Minchas Elozor) interprets the Talmud: “When Av arrives decrease – the negative energy of Av through – joy.” How can he turn around the literal meaning of the statement, which specifically directs us to decrease joy? In Jewish thought, based on faith in G-d, even a decrease in joy is not an end in itself, but part of a larger picture. In that context, even the decrease in joy in the month of Av is only a decrease on an ostensible level; within the sadness lays a deep joy – the joy of the light at the end of the tunnel, that our mourning today is a yearning that will lead us to the rebuilding of the Temple. How do we reveal that joy? By acting joyously (in ways that are halachakly/legally permitted) during the month of Av.

There are two ways to celebrate joy. One is through revealed joy, like the overt celebration of Adar; the other is through the joy that lies within the challenges of life as well. Both are part of one story – both part of one journey, the journey of our life’s waves.

There was once a Chassid who was unjustly imprisoned by the Czar’s regime, a common event in those days. His Rebbe was allowed to visit him once. When the Rebbe came to see him he noticed that the Chassid was despondent. “Why are you feeling so down?” the Rebbe asked him. Didn’t we learn that one must always serve G-d with joy, and even negative experiences are also for the good?” The Chassid replied: “I am not saddened by the fact that I am in prison, but because it’s now two weeks that I have been unable to recite a blessing in this prison.” In his cell there was a pail used for lavatory purposes that did not allow one to recite a blessing.

The Rebbe smiled and told him: “But isn’t it true that the same G-d who commanded us to recite a blessing, also commanded us not to recite on under such conditions. So, even as you don’t recite a blessing you are equally performing a mitzvah, which should be done with joy!”

Upon hearing the Rebbe’s words, the Chassid jumped up and began to dance. His exuberance was contagious and the other prisoners, Jews and non-Jews, joined him in celebration. One of the rabid anti-Semitic guards inquired as to the reason for the joy. One of the prisoners told him, “That Jew over there is the one that began the dancing. I don’t know the exact catalyst, but I know it has some connection to the pail in his cell.” When the guard heard that, he immediately entered the cell of the Chassid, and said, “I’ll show you. I am getting rid of the pail in your cell!”…

The Baal Shem Tov uses an analogy of a spiral staircase. In Yiddish a spiral staircase is called “shvindel trep,” literally: Swindling steps. Why? Because when you climb a regular vertical staircase, you see the destination and you see yourself getting closer to it as you climb the stairs. A spiral staircase “swindles” you, because as you get closer to the destination you have to turn completely around, in a 360 degree turn, to the point when cannot see the apex. Indeed, just before you reach the top, you must turn completely around for the last time. When you’re still far from the destination you may be able to see it, but just before reaching your destination you have your back to it.

The challenge is to know how to see it through.

Rabbi Akiva, a man who paid many prices, a man who discovered his soul at age forty, was able to see the big picture. He was never swindled by the apparent dips and downs in life. Therefore he was able to laugh when others cried.

And his vision helps us all see better. It comforts us and helps us smile.

Ironic isn’t it that good times can allow us to be trapped in the small picture. Sadder moments leave us no choice but to recognize the bigger picture.

But after all is said and done, we have been promised that the worst is over and the best is yet to come. We have had more than our share of troughs, and are ready for the ultimate crest.

Are we ready?

Us and Them

Dear Rabbi Jacobson,

I read your article on yichus [distinguished pedigree] with great intrigue. You see I am what they call a “baal teshuvah.” Having grown up in a secular Jewish home – bar-mitzvah, Yom Kippur, Israel and not much more – I discovered the power of my Jewish heritage in my 30’s.

I was enchanted by the beauty and warmth of the observant Jewish community. I was welcomed into it with open arms, kindly invited to Shabbat tables, introduced to fine Jewish women, getting married to a wonderful lady, all with the support of the new friends that I made.

However, it didn’t take long and I began to see the cracks in the community. But that was not the problem; it was simply unrealistic for me to expect that people who are observant have to be perfect. What really troubled me was the subtle – and sometimes not so subtle – condescension that I felt from those born observant to people like myself. I discovered that many FFB’s (FFB=frum from birth), often avoided marrying BT’s (baalei teshuvah). How often have I felt the snicker of the more educated Jews as they dismissed me and my ignorance?

The feeling of “us” and “them” was an undercurrent in the interactions between FFB’s and BT’s or non-observant Jews. I felt that I would never be totally accepted as an equal. I’ll never forget the time that I asked a “stupid” question at a Shabbat table, and I overheard the host whisper to another ultra-FFB guest in Yiddish: “er is a tzugekumener,” literally a “newcomer,” a greenhorn of sorts. What struck me was that it was said with a dismissiveness that was startling in its relative innocence. My host did not intend any malice. He was a kind and gentle man; it was simply a given from him – and many others – that we are of a lower class.

Some Rabbis and teachers are even invested in ensuring that we remain “recipients” of their benevolence and wisdom; that we always should be reminded of our “second class” citizenship.  Their intensions might be good: they feel that we need to respect the authority of Torah scholars, and that since we were not born into the system we may be lacking some of the “between-the lines” sensitivities that an FFB has ingrained into his psyche. But regardless of intentions, this leaves a serious schism between the FFB’s and the BT’s, to the point that I have noticed how many BT’s gravitate and hang out with each other, feeling that they are not part of the “privileged club.”

By no means does this include all FFB’s; I have encountered some who are totally accepting. But there are enough FFB’s who feel this way to draw attention to this issue.

In no way does this diminish my respect and appreciation of the Jewish community that so welcomed me. It is a wonderful community, with many excellent qualities, and it’s worth the price to be part of this virtuous life style. Yet this elitist sense of entitlement continues to bother me. Discrimination of any sort just doesn’t resonate as being consistent with Torah values. Yet, time and again I find many observant Jews, including Rabbis and scholars, caught up in this practice.

Reading your refreshing articles I see that you don’t hesitate to address provocative issues that others back away from. I was therefore wondering whether you could address this issue for those of us that have to continuously face the challenge of yichus.

Respectfully,

E.D.

Dear E.D.

Whew! That was a mouthful…

I appreciate your candidness, and am glad that you raised this issue. I will attempt to reply with reciprocal candidness.

First of all, I want to acknowledge that you are not mistaken. It is true that there are many in the observant Jewish community who are condescending to so called “tzugeukemene.” This may not be intentional, but part of an overall mindset, which I will soon discuss.

I will not defend this attitude, yet for the record let’s be honest: Most groups and communities with strong beliefs often share a sense of superiority which translates into subtle condescension to those that do not embrace these beliefs. This is true in all arenas – religious, political, cultural and so on. Groups are defined by classes – upper class, middle class, lower class – which carry an inherent arrogance. What do employers and owners of businesses feel about their employees? What do first class passengers think about those traveling in steerage? They think they are better because they have more money. Others feel they are superior because of their ideology, and yet others feel special because of their skills.

Is there anything wrong with feeling elitist for your unique achievements or status? Not by the normal standards of our society. It’s quite acceptable to feel special about who you are – as long as you don’t hurt others in the process.

True, condescension is more than just feeling special. But once you feel unique, how far is it from feeling a certain measure of condescension to those that don’t have your qualities?

Human nature is such that self-esteem often borders on feeling superior, which is never far from seeing others as somewhat inferior. After all, if the other person is not inferior then how can you be superior? This is especially true when it comes to religious beliefs, which dictate absolute values. Once you believe that a certain system is absolute and you educate your children in that belief, it seems inevitable that you will see yourself and those that embrace your belief system as superior to those that don’t embrace it. When your children ask you “why do we have to live by this system when we have so many other good people that don’t live by it,” in one way or another, even if you are absolutely sensitive to others, your answer will contain a certain measure of “us being better then them.”

This is all good and fine by the normal standards of society, but not by the high standards of the Torah that expects a human being to be not just human but Divine. The human was created in the “Divine Image,” and Judaism behooves each person to live up to his or her “Divine Image” and higher calling.

As such, any form of elitism, superiority, condescension or arrogance is unequivocally and categorically unacceptable.

How do we then distinguish between “feeling special” and being condescending to others? How can one have healthy self-esteem (which is a vital force in our lives) without a degree of (at least potential) elitism? It seems that the only alternative – the only way to avoid any potential condescension is to have no self-esteem!

Indeed, we find these two schools of thought regarding human ego. Some thinkers argue that ego may be the root of all evil, yet it happens to be a necessary evil, because it also motivates people to achieve great heights. Discipline is needed to temper the ego so that it doesn’t get carried away to the point of destructiveness. This is the essential thinking behind capitalism: Personal gain and profit – even at the risk of greed and corruption – is the prime motivator to efficient production. The other school of thought argues that we must do everything possible to eradicate the ego, being that it ultimately leads to divisiveness and all human vice.

The Torah offers a third option (Tiferet). In explaining the verse that Moses was the humblest man that ever existed on the face of the planet, the question is asked: Was Moses not aware of all his qualities and strengths? After all, he was chosen by G-d to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt, to receive the Torah at Sinai, to be the greatest leader of all time – a true man of G-d.

In Hebrew a humble person is called an “anav.” There is another type of person called a “shafal.” A “shafal” is a demoralized person who deludes himself and feels that he has no virtues; a self-loathing individual. An “anav” on the other hand is someone who is fully self aware of his own qualities; yet at the same he feels completely humble. Why? Because he knows that all his qualities are not his own but a blessing from G-d. And he feels that if someone else were blessed with his gift that person would have done better.

Thus the “anav” – of which Moses is the epitome – has healthy self-esteem, but his self-respect is not due to his own arrogance, feeling that he is a “self-made” person. Rather, he feels at all times that his “self” with all its virtues are not his own; they are a channel of Divine blessings.

The true “anav” therefore has no condescension or superiority complex, because he recognizes that his qualities are not his own. In his humility he also recognizes that by virtue of being created in the “Divine Image” every person has an indispensable mission to fulfill in this world. Every person is indispensable to the big picture and we all need each other to be complete.

All this is only possible when a person is aware of his or her soul, and does not see himself merely as a material creature in a material world.

Material creatures are subject to the “laws” of human nature, which inevitably results in class distinctions, discrimination in all its forms.

I would also add, that living in an insecure world compels people to develop a “club mentality” that my club is better than yours. This gives people a sense of security and confidence, compensating for their fear of insignificance in a large world.

However, all this applies to the rules of the material world. When you see yourself as a soul sent by G-d to fulfill a Divine mission in this world, this awareness is the greatest source for security. You do not need to feel superior to others to feel important. Your value is self-generated by virtue of you being created in the “Divine Image” with an indispensable calling.

This is the great challenge facing people at all times, and especially today. Without special effort, all people, even observant Jews can unwillingly succumb to the “way of all flesh” and feel superior in their choices and life styles. They may even be attempting to find security and comfort in a hostile world.

However, the Torah demands of us to transcend our own nature and our fears and insecurities. The Torah expects us to recognize that the fact that you are observant is a gift from G-d who blessed you with the opportunities and environments that allowed you to be who you are. But simultaneously you must know that this does not give you the right to feel superior. Because it’s not about you; it’s about G-d and the mission He gave you. And just as you have your unique opportunities, other people as well have their unique opportunities that allow them to fulfill their indispensable mission.

If you were blessed with more knowledge – or another gift – this does not make you a better person; it means that you have the responsibility to share and teach that which you know. And as much as you have to give to another you also have to receive from the other. Especially considering that our different opportunities were not determined by our choices but by G-d. Who decided that one soul should be born into a healthy family that gave him a decent education and another soul should not have these opportunities?

This fact is also true the other way around. A BT (baal teshuvah) has virtues that even a tzaddik cannot reach. Let alone a regular FFB. Yet, this does not mean that the BT should be condescending to a tzaddik, because each of us must humbly recognize that each of us has both gifts and challenges given to us from Above, and we all are part of one large mosaic, with each piece absolutely necessary to complete the entire picture.

And each of us has to help the other overcome the temptation to separate ourselves into a “special club.” Think of it this way: If your own child or family member did not live up to your religious standards would you see him/her as a “tzugekumener?” If your left arm did something wrong would you dismiss it as “unnecessary” or “inferior”?!

We are all one people, part of one family and one organism.

With all this being said, I should add for the record, that there are also legitimate reasons for observant Jews to choose matches for their children amongst people with similar backgrounds for compatibility reasons. Observant Jews also take great care in wanting their children to marry individuals who were born and brought up in the sanctity of Torah laws. This does not justify any condescension or arrogance; yet there is legitimacy in diversity as well and the respect of individual needs.

To conclude: The condescension you experience should be seen as a challenge to us all today. It compels us to look at ourselves – at our insecurities and our ability to love another who may not be like us.

As far as yichus goes, all of us have the great yichus to have been created in the Divine Image. In addition to all being children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all of our souls being at Sinai and receiving the Torah. Additionally, every child, with no exception, has been taught the entire Torah in its mother’s womb. Even if that was the end of the child’s Torah education, I would submit that those nine months of learning are far superior to any teacher we had in Yeshiva…

So none of us is really a “tzugekumener,” especially from the perspective of our souls. On the other hand, we are all “tzugekumene” from the perspective of our bodies – which on its own does not feel its connection to G-d.

Obviously, there may also be virtue in carrying additional yichus genes that go back to immediate generations. But as I wrote last week: Yichus is like a bunch of zeroes.  If they follow a number then each 0 multiplies the number by ten. If no number precedes them, a bunch of 0’s add up to one big zero.

One of the reasons that I chose to reply to your letter at length is because we stand now in the Three Weeks, when we commemorate the destruction of the Holy Temple, which happened because of baseless divisiveness. The way we repair this break is by intensifying in baseless love.

May we help each other get out of our own “comfort zones” and get beyond our stereotypes and discriminations, and finally create a surge of unprecedented love that will counter any adversary.

May each one of us, FFB’s, BT’s, “tzugekumene,” “gezah,” nurtured or natured, inherent or acquired – whatever name you give someone – play our unique musical note and together create music that will ripple across the world.

The Changing World

I began my writing career the year Ronald Reagan was first elected President.

The year was 1980. Before fax machines, internet, e-mails, palm pilots, cell phones and many of the other amenities that have since changed our daily lives.

That year I became the chief writer and publisher of the Rebbe’s talks. It was difficult but rewarding work. Particularly on Shabbat and holidays, when notes and recordings are prohibited, our small team had to absorb hours – often five or more hours – of dense dissertations delivered by the Rebbe. We then had to recreate, research, annotate and document these teachings for posterity.

The grueling work, the pressure, the intensity required to reproduce profound ideas from memory is impossible to describe. But as challenging as it was, the reward was equally exhilarating. My work during those years literally transformed me as a human being, and defined my life until this day.

Try remembering hours of deep conversation on diverse topics – from philosophy to law, from Biblical interpretation to psychological application, from the nuances of mysticism to the intricacies of Talmud. Add to the equation a human and historical dimension. This and more is what we had to capture on paper on a weekly basis.

One of the critical things I learned, quite unexpectedly, during the years of my work was the intimate relationship between Torah thought and world events; the absolute necessity to integrate spiritual and secular developments.

In the evening prayer we say that Torah is “our life and sustenance.” It is therefore inconceivable to divorce spiritual life from our daily experiences, both on a personal and global level.

So, during my work in those years, as immersed as our staff would be in the inner workings of Torah scholarship, I always kept my eyes open at national and global events of the time.

In retrospect the 80’s were pioneering years.

Information technology – the processing and distribution of information – was literally revolutionized. I can personally attest to the far-reaching implications of the transition from the typewriter to the word processor. No longer would we need to retype text. Once typed, all you needed to do was edit the same file. This literally cut out two days of work in producing our publications.

With the advent of the fax machine and then broadcast fax, immediate distribution of material became possible.

Then, of course, in the 90’s, the Internet and the worldwide web made distribution literally seamless. – Some of you may be surprised to know that preceding the web we were using, for a short time, a thing called a BBS (bulletin board system), where data was posted and could be retrieved via telephone line.

But beyond technology there was perhaps an even more important revolution in the making: The bloodless fall of Communism. This fall, which finally happened in 1990, would bring freedom to hundreds of millions of people in Eastern Europe, Russia and all the former Soviet satellites.

While all this was incubating, I was preparing for publication week after week, visionary teachings that were addressing, amongst many things, the very issues that were evolving and emerging in the world around us. A true visionary, the Rebbe had that keen perspective that recognizes the underlying historical patterns and spiritual trends of local, national and global events.

At the time, the work was so consuming, I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of this wisdom nor recognize its relevance to current events. Like it is with all things close up, you can’t appreciate them until you step back and look at them from a bird’s eye view.

Now, in retrospect, and with a few more maturing years and experience under my belt, I marvel at the foresight of those teachings. Today, they resonate more than ever.

Among the major themes we explored back then in the Reagan years were issues like America’s role, the meaning of prosperity, the significance of technology – and how all these contemporary forces need to be harnessed to serve a spiritual objective. Another major issue was of course the role of Israel and the Jewish people in this increasingly emancipated world.

I’ll never forget one of the talks we were working on in 1980. It addressed the issue of America’s role in the world today. Clearly recognizing the acceleration of American prosperity, the Rebbe discussed the necessity for America to reaffirm – and reclaim – its essential roots. Those roots being the belief in the fundamental principles of freedom: that all people are created equal, and by their Divine virtue have inalienable rights.

American currency – the symbol of all things material – carries this message etched in the very fabric of our coins and bills: In God We Trust, E Pluribus Unum (from many, one).

The only preemptive antidote to the inevitable indulgence and greed resulting from prosperity and material comforts is to passionately embrace the principles of accountability to a Higher authority, and to commit with total dedication to our higher calling and mission in life. This is the only measure that has the power to counteract the seductive appeal of material success, which left on its own can feed narcissism and lead to corruption and self-destruction.

And then of course, mention must be made of the many talks in the 80’s regarding the state of Soviet Jewry – millions of people who suffered most severely under some seven decades of Soviet oppression. There was barely a farbrengen (gathering) that did not make mention of the plight of Soviet Jewry. As the 80’s wore on, the Rebbe specifically stated that Communism would crumble, and the Jews would finally be freed.

As the nation and the world now look back at the Reagan presidency, and people pour out their hearts in mourning, many are wondering what exactly was it about President Reagan that enamors so many.

Based on the teachings that I was working on in the Reagan years, allow me to submit several major points that stand out from those days:

President Reagan’s steadfast commitment to his principles – to the principles upon which this country was founded. Reagan was an authentic man of faith. He may not have been committed to formal religion, but he believed in G-d and was not ashamed to state his belief.

He was a man of vision, of dreams. And he never compromised them. Not a small achievement for a man of age – to not give up on the idealism of his youth. How many people do you know like that?

Even those that passionately disagreed with his politics admired his personality. Time and again you hear that he was simply a mentsch.

Reagan was a major cause responsible for the fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War. I know that debates rage whether this is true. But let’s face it. We always give credit to the President or leader in place for events (both successes and failures) that occur under his tenure. Obviously there are many factors that contribute to any major event, but one important factor has to include the leader of the time. You can always say that the successes during World War II would have happened under any President, even if it weren’t FDR. Yet, historically we always credit the leader in each respective time.

The fact is that Reagan stood strong for his principles, did not cower, and Communism did fall, without a shot being fired.

Finally, we hear about Reagan’s ability to inspire people. His communication skills were formidable. “The great communicator” he was called. His wit, humor and just plain decency came through and touched people. He gave people hope. He made you feel confident. As one mourner said: “He made me feel proud to be an American.”

Some have written that a great leader is not necessarily one who does great things, but one who inspires others to do great things.

Even historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who is not a Reagan fan, writes that President Reagan had “the vision thing in abundance.” He quotes a foreign visitor as commenting: “Maybe he didn’t know how to run a government, but he knew how to lead a people.”

Quite a compliment.  If Reagan had no other quality than his ability to lead and infuse people with confidence this alone would make him one of the greatest leaders in history.

Frankly, I don’t fully understand the antagonism of some of those that disagree with Reaganomics or other of his policies. Even if you disapprove of his policies, and even if you’re right, isn’t it possible that he was a good man, with homey values, with conviction and beliefs that changed the world in which we live?

My objective is not to defend or represent the late president. Rather it is to glean lessons from current events that we can apply to our lives today. Based on the principle of Hashgacha Protis (Divine Providence), much can be learned from the popularity of Ronald Reagan – lessons that I personally was blessed to be privy to as my appreciation grows, in retrospect, for the teachings that we wrote and published back in the Reagan years.

If it can be summed up in a few words, the underlying message we were developing in the Reagan era included the following points:

• The power of the human spirit: Everything is possible if you set your mind to it.
• The critical need to counter the material tentacles of prosperity with a deep sense of spiritual vision and purpose.
• The need for America to live up to its founding principles. Namely, in G-d we Trust, and G-d endowed all human beings with inherent rights and freedoms.
• These are not American, but Divine principles. Principles given to all nations of the world. We must do everything possible to encourage – with compassion and resolve – that all nations embrace the Divine principles.
• To prepare ourselves and the world, including the former Soviet Union, to live up to our Divine responsibility by committing to the universal Divine laws of civilization.

Of all the lessons for our times perhaps the most powerful one is the relentless confidence that we can overcome our challenges, and never waiver in our conviction to transform the often heartless material world into a spiritual habitat.

This message calls out to us from this week’s Torah portion. Moses sends scouts to check out the Promised Land. They return with a terrible report: We cannot enter the Land of Israel, for it is a “land that consumes its inhabitants.” On that tragic day (Tisha B’Av) they incited the Jewish nation to reject the land promised to them and their ancestors by G-d.

Their grave sin stemmed, ironically, from their deep piety and spirituality. They could not fathom how they would be able to overcome the challenges of material existence. And they were unwilling to risk it. Instead they preferred to live in the spiritual oasis in the Sinai wilderness, protected by the Divine clouds, provided for by G-d with all their needs.

What then was their transgression? They challenged the very essence of the purpose of existence: The need to enter a hostile material world and transform it into a sacred place. We humans have no right to question whether this is possible; our job is to figure out how to fulfill this mission, never to wonder whether it was possible. The scouts were charged with exploring methods how to conquer the land. They in turn challenged the entire premise of possibility. That is tantamount to challenging G-d Himself, saying that G-d cannot empower us with the ability to face a powerful material world. G-d said “I give you life and tell you that you can overcome any challenge,” but the scouts defied that by declaring “No, we cannot overcome a land that consumes it’s inhabitants”!

The lesson is clear: One of the great possible curses in life is self-doubt. Fear and insecurity affect every one of our choices. It demoralizes you with a sense of resignation and fatalism.

The scouts (with all their good intentions) opened up the accursed door of self doubt. Therein lies their grave sin.

We must do everything to learn from their mistake, and never allow ourselves to succumb to fear and unsurety whether we can accomplish our mission in life.

Conversely, perhaps the greatest gift one can give another is: HOPE. Belief in yourself and in your ability to overcome any challenge.

Once you feel empowered everything else follows.

Ask yourself: do the people around me bolster my self-confidence or feed my insecurities? Do they make me feel strong or weak; empowered or disempowered?

While you are already asking the question, you might as well also consider whether you are a person who give others hope?

It’s a mirror image: Confidence breeds confidence; security feeds security. You usually make others feel as you are; you project what you are and you are what you project. Confident and secure people make others feel the same. Insecure people make others feel insecure.

Test it.

Find people that give you hope. People that feed your confidence.

The fall of the powerful Soviet Union is one contemporary example of what resolve can accomplish.

Everything is possible. Everything.

So where does this power of confidence come from? Read next week’s article.

Bizarre Revelations

Want to hear a good detective story? Listen to this.

Several years ago we consulted an intellectual property attorney about a certain issue. She asked us to send her some documents. Before getting off the phone, she said “I’ll look at what you send me … tomorrow and I’ll get back to you.” Before the word “tomorrow” she muttered some phrase that I couldn’t quite make out, and at the time I paid no attention to it.

But then a few days later we followed up our discussion, and again she said, “Next week I am … – she threw in the word again – going on vacation, and we’ll speak when I return.”

This time I could make out a word that began with the letter “m” and it sounded something like “mitch.” Next week I am ‘mitch’ going on vacation, and we’ll speak when I return.”

Again I paid no serious heed and went on with my life.

However when the same thing happened a third time, it began to intrigue me. After our attorney returned from vacation, we scheduled a meeting, and as we confirmed the time she said yet again, “ok, see you mitch… on Wednesday.”

Was it “mitch” that she said? She knows my name isn’t Mitch, so why would she use that word.

But again I dismissed it. After all, there are more important things to think about. I said to myself, “people have their speaking mannerisms. Some pepper their conversations with  ‘you know,’ others use ‘whatever,’ and this attorney punctuates her conversations with this “mitch” word.”

As we concluded our meeting on Wednesday, the attorney said to me, “I now understand the situation clearly, and – there she goes again – mitchum tomorrow I will review it with colleagues and then advise you.”

This time we were speaking not on the phone but in person so I could make out the word distinctly.  “Mitchum” not “mitch” was the word she was using.

What the heck is “mitchum”? I didn’t feel comfortable or professional asking her, so I just swallowed it.

But now, I no longer could just ignore it. In every subsequent conversation I had with the attorney, I waited for the moment when she would use the “mitchum” word. And without fail, whenever she spoke about some future commitment the “mitchum” word was prominently planted in mid-sentence.

“Mitchum,” “mitchum” – I muttered to myself. What does “michum” mean? Maybe the attorney’s husband’s name is “Mitchell” and she lovingly calls him “Mitchum.” But why would she be mentioning her husband’s name in unrelated conversations?

This small mystery began to haunt me. Nothing very consequential – like one of the many insignificant things we obsess about in the shower and when we daydream, and we carry in the back of our minds the hope that some day we will discover the meaning of our particular puzzle.

As my office continued to work closely with our attorney, I got to know her better. Perhaps the answer to the “mitchum” riddle lies in her personal life experiences. But to no avail. She was a very intelligent and highly competent attorney. Jewish and unaffiliated, she was somewhat proud of her heritage, though she admittedly did not have a Jewish education, and was thoroughly secular in her lifestyle. I could not find any hint as to why she would use this word.

Time passed. Throughout all our interactions, the “mitchum” word would always crop up. I would smile to myself as the word would emerge. Whenever I expected the word to come out of her lips, I was never disappointed. – May all our wishes be as easily fulfilled…

I even began to silently mumble the word, as I anticipated its utterance.

Several years passed. Obviously, my life was not disrupted because of this conundrum. As I said, it’s one of many trivial details that we carry with us as we move along in life.

Then a thought struck me. I was reading an article about Hollywood star worship, and I said to myself, “Mitchum. Where did I hear that word before? Ahh! Robert Mitchum the actor. Perhaps our good attorney is a Robert Mitchum fan. And has therefore incorporated in her daily conversations the ‘mitchum’ factor.”

I was so proud of my theory, thinking of ways how to prove my case, until I was rudely disappointed. In a casual conversation, I somehow maneuvered our discussion to the subject of films and actors. And I asked her, nonchalantly, “so, who are your favorite actors and actresses.” I added “actresses” just to cover my tracks. You see, our small little obsessions become a source of fascinating intrigue that breaks the monotony that often paralyzes our lives.

Which may explain why I didn’t just ask her outright the meaning of her “mitchum” expression. At this point, I was practically regaling in the mystery and in its solution; I didn’t want to spoil it with merely asking her directly. It’s the strange “if you can climb in through the window or the roof, why use the front door” syndrome. It makes no sense, but it makes life a little more exciting.

I’m probably overanalyzing myself – which is one of my vices. The obvious reason I didn’t ask her was because I didn’t want to intrude or embarrass her. “Mitchum” may be a private matter or just a habit (like “you know”). Would you go ask someone why they keep using the “you know” word or what they say “aks” instead of “ask”?!

Well, among all her favorite actors the name Robert Mitchum never came up. “Maybe she just forgot to mention him,” I thought to myself in my obstinate pride. So I mentioned his name. “Robert Mitchum. Please, give me a break. I hate him as an actor!” she replied without the slightest hesitation.

So there went my theory down the drain. Back to square one.

More time elapsed, and the “mitchum” mystery continued.

One day, in a completely unrelated experience, a woman who worked at William Morrow (publisher of my book Toward A Meaningful Life), asked me a peculiar question. Her devout grandmother, she told me, had a strange custom. Whenever she discussed her plans, her grandmother would always preface it by saying… (you guessed it): “mitchum.” “Now what did grandma mean by that?” she inquired of me, “is it some old Yiddish expression?” (her grandmother’s native tongue was Yiddish).

I began to laugh. The woman had no idea why.

“Thank you,” I said to her. “You just solved a riddle that has been dogging me for years.”

“Mitchum” is sort of a ridiculous run-on abbreviation of the expression “im yirtzeh Hashem,” if G-d so wills. This is a traditional phrase that goes back many years, a tradition which continues to this very day. When you discuss any planned activity “(“next month I plan to travel,” “next week I plan to buy a new home”, “tomorrow I have a planned meeting”), Jews traditionally add “im yirtzeh Hashem,” acknowledging that beyond all our plans we need and want to have G-d’s cooperation and blessing that our plans come to fruition.

Though it may not be a mitzvah, this “im yirtzah Hashem” declaration – or when said quickly, the abbreviated “mitchum.” – carries a most eloquent message:

Despite all our logical plans, beyond all our strategies and tactics, we recognize that we need G-d’s cooperation, that G-d’s will be aligned with our plans (or our plans aligned with G-d’s will). Because after all is said and done, even when you have devised the best strategy you always know that things don’t always work as planned. True faith dictates that you do everything possible with the faculties that you have been Divinely blessed with, your mind, heart and intuition. Simultaneously, you invite G-d in as partner to your activities, by declaring “im yirtzeh Hashem.”

This is similar to another expression “boruch Hashem,” blessed be G-d. When you ask a Jew “how are you,” he often will answer “good, Boruch Hashem,” “good, thank G-d.”

Indeed, the Baal Shem Tov made it his custom to inspire Jews to say “Boruch Hashem” at every possible opportunity – to consciously, verbally and actively acknowledge G-d’s presence in their lives.

Why? Because we live in a dark world, a universe that on its own is consciously disconnected from its source. One of the most powerful things we humans can do to counteract the debilitating forces of a narcissistic and self-absorbed world (caused by the great tzimzum) is to actively introduce G-d wherever and whenever we can. To connect our consciousness to the Divine consciousness.

“Shem Shomayim shogur be’fi kol,” the name of Heaven [G-d] is on the lips of all. This is the ultimate expression of the all-pervasive Divine unity that permeates and imbues every fiber of existence.

I find it most amazing that our attorney, unknowingly, was revealing G-d into a secular world each time she said “mitchum.” Indeed, her “mitchums” had enormous power. I have heard the expression “im yirtzeh Hashem,” many times in my life, to the point that it has become so common that I don’t even notice it any more. But never did I appreciate it as much as when I heard the attorney’s repeated “mitchum” abbreviation.

Is this not contemporary revelation? Bizarre, yet still revelation.

So, next time you plan an activity – as we make our summer plans, or any other activities – remember that the pilot flame of your soul is always burning. It is our job to make it part of our consciousness and awareness, to the point that our soul-flame is rising on its own. [There’s your connection to this week’s Torah portion, Behaalotcho, which discusses the kindling of the menorah to the point that the flames had to rise on their own].

One powerful way of doing this is by introducing “im yirtzeh Hashem” into our daily activities.

Or if you insist… “mitchum.”

Have a good Shabbat, and see you “mitchum” next week.

Achieving Personal and Global Harmony

One of the most eloquent concepts in mystical thought is the microcosm/macrocosm phenomenon. The human being is a “miniature universe,” reflecting every aspect of the world at large, and the universe is a giant organism.

The reason for this intrinsic connection between humans and the universe is because the universe was created for the purpose that we humans refine and elevate it. Thus, a copy of every detail of the universe exists inside of each human being. By refining different aspects of our personal lives we also refine each respective corresponding dimension in the universe.

In a way this introduces an entirely new dimension to the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle states that we live in a fine-tuned universe to allow the existence of life as we know it. The universe seems to have been custom made for human life. If any of the basic physical constants were different, then life as we know it would not be possible. The microcosm concept explains that the human being and the universe are interwoven and interdependent copies of each other.

Knowing that we are a microcosm of the universe also empowers us in dealing with world events happening around us. Though subtle, harmony in our personal lives helps bring harmony to the world. We may not be able to sense the “butterfly effect” of our behavior on the universe, and its effect is not always direct and overt. Nevertheless, we’re told with absolute certainty that our actions do have a ripple effect on the world. We therefore are not victims of circumstances of world events; we have the power to change the world. As we refine ourselves we in some way also refine the universe.

This message is powerfully relevant today as we struggle to understand the complexities of the world we have suddenly been thrust in. The answer to the biggest question of all: “What can I do about the conflicts of our time?” is that our personal choices help us affect global events. Obviously, we must first understand the soul root of the current upheavals so that we can recognize their parallels mirrored in our own personal lives. We then can, in turn, repair or refine that particular area in our lives.

This will be the focus of today’s column.

In last week’s article (How Far Are We From Sinai?) I discussed the current battles in the Middle East in context of the nations rejecting the the foundations of civilization given to us at Sinai over 3000 years ago, specifically the absolute prohibition against murder.

To clearly understand today’s events we need to go back to their roots. As Churchill said “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.”

Sinai is called Tiferet. It empowered us with the ability to fuse the sacred and the secular, and achieve the proper balance between spirit and matter. By rejecting Sinai, the nations demonstrated that they were not yet ready to accept the formula for complete integration of heaven and earth. But as time would pass, they would embrace Sinai, albeit with many reservations and distortions.

Therein lies the spiritual roots of today’s conflicts. The nations of the world have to once and for all embrace the Sinai legacy – the Divine blueprint how to live our lives, and how to coexist with others, even when they are of different persuasions. Specifically the Sinai message must be embraced in regard to the proper method of integrating spiritual/religious beliefs with a material and secular world, without one destroying the other, which has so often been the case in history.

By no means is this lesson limited to the children of Ishmael (the Arab/Muslim nations). It also includes the Christian West and other nations of the world. Indeed, as long as we have not yet ushered in a world where the “swords will be turned into plowshares,” all peoples, including the Jewish nation, are responsible to teach and disseminate the Sinai mandate, until it becomes the defining factor how to live our lives.

Balance, harmony – Tiferet – is the key point.

How does this translate into our personal lives?

I will use a personal example.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article (Are You Loved) in which I shared the story of a man who was never loved as a child. Sadly, this has become a common phenomenon of our times. Many people never received the healthy nurturing that every child is entitled to. And then the rest of their lives they are in desperate search of that lost love. The profound loneliness, the self-loathing that this causes, is impossible to describe. In the article, I made the point that one of the critical elements of intervention has to include the fact that our true value comes from within – from our souls, not from our parents or other people.

When I described how this lonely man’s painful words broke my heart, I mentioned that I put on a “steely demeanor” to prevent myself from crying.

I received quite a few e-mails challenging why the “steely demeanor?” “Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to show him love and sensitivity, rather than detaching and protecting yourself?” was the question I received. One writer put it this way:

“I feel that man would have got more from your broken heart than your steely demeanor. People like us have already had enough steely demeanors and with all due respect the need for a steely demeanor is for you, not us. We know feelings already and we’ve been dealing with the pain of them for years and trying to live a semblance of a life despite them.”

Legitimate, very legitimate point.

However, I didn’t share the entire story, which is why it came across as insensitive as it did. I hoped that no one would have accused me of being crass, but I see that if you do not write all the details your intentions can be misconstrued.

So allow me to say this. Every time someone consults with me about a personal, emotional issue, I am faced with a dilemma.

On one hand, you must show profound empathy. On the other hand, if you are a sensitive soul, in your empathy you can sometimes be overwhelmed with emotion as you place yourself in the shoes of the person who has been hurt and you relive his/her experiences. When you are so overwhelmed, it becomes difficult to maintain your composure in a way that allows you to offer your objective support.

I must confess that I have yet to master this balance. There are times when I am so moved by another’s pain and loss, that I cannot step back and provide the appropriate insight.

Hence the need for a “steely demeanor,” not just to protect myself, but primarily to allow me the relative distance necessary to introduce a fresh perspective and be helpful.

The balance necessary between empathy (chesed) and distance (gevurah) is an example of Tiferet. There are those who get so emotionally close and intimate with a client that they no longer can give good advice. There are those professionals that are so distant and detached that their clients cannot identify with them.

Virtually every area of life has in one way or another the struggle between these two poles. Take relationships. For a relationship to be healthy you need to balance between two extremes. 1/ Closeness and Intimacy. 2/ Boundaries.

A relationship is driven by the closeness between two people. Yet, we often see that people can destroy each other with love. You may love another person and not know how to offer it in a way that the other can contain it. Love can also blur boundaries. For love to be complete the individuality of each person cannot be compromised.

How do you balance between intimacy and boundaries? Tiferet is the answer. Tiferet blends and harmonizes the free outpouring love of Chesed with the discipline of Gevurah. Tiferet possesses this power by introducing a third dimension – the dimension of truth, which is neither love nor discipline and therefore can integrate the two. Tiferet is about looking at what is right and true rather than what is in it for you.

Truth is accessed through selflessness (bittul): rising above your ego and your predispositions, enabling you to realize truth. Truth gives you a clear and objective picture of yours and others’ needs. This quality gives Tiferet its name, which means beauty: it blends the differing colors of love and discipline, and this harmony makes it beautiful.

This balance definitely carries weight when it comes to religious issues. Often (we wish it wouldn’t be so common) people get so uptight about their religious principles that they compromise the respect for other people. True, religious principles are absolute and they include the responsibility to rebuke another. Yet, there are very specific laws how this rebuke must take place, and it is never about invalidating another human being and their autonomy, and never about judging another person (“Always look at people with merit.” “Do not judge another until you stand in his place”).

It always must come with respect, and above all, great care must be taken not to allow your personality to get in the way. Before you address another’s shortcomings, you must ensure that your intentions are absolutely pure – not coming from your own weaknesses, insecurities, your need to criticize, your mean streak or any other human flaw.

Finally, this Tiferet balance originates from our relationship with G-d, which also needs a balance between love and awe (Ahavat Hashem and Yirat Hashem). A relationship with G-d needs to feel a sense of closeness and love (ahava, chesed) and sense of awe and distance (yirah, gevurah), recognizing that G-d is beyond us.

All our struggles come down to a balance between these two poles. Including our ultimate struggle between the material and the spiritual, between the sacred and the secular.

It’s easier to opt for one pole or the other. To either choose ascetic spirituality or material immersion. Yet, a healthy life is only possible when we balance and integrate the two worlds.

This is the challenge of our times – both personally and globally. Especially in light of all our technological achievements, a great schism has emerged between our material prosperity and easy life and our personal and psychological issues, between unprecedented technological unity and unparalleled personal disunity.

We all have, in microcosm, the struggle between soul and body. Between religion and sensitivity. Between G-d and the universe.

Next time, before you judge another person think of the ripple effect it has on the world. True, you may not be a terrorist or be committing another atrocity. Yet, even speaking badly about others is called a subtle form of “murder.”

The Baal Shem Tov tells us that we are like mirrors. Every event that we experience is actually a reflection of our own lives. It comes to teach us a lesson that we need to learn and repair.

When we see global events shaking the world, they must also shake our internal world. Though we cannot compare our own iniquities with the terrible events in the Middle East, we still must learn lessons from these events that help us develop our own sensitivity. Lessons that teach us how to face our own battles – in our search for balance and harmony.

And then we are told that our individual effort changes the world. When we change the microcosm the macrocosm is directly affected.

Maimonides writes:

A person must see himself and the world as equally balanced on two ends of the scale; by doing one good deed, he tips the scale and brings for himself and the entire world redemption and salvation

(Laws of Repentance, 3:4).

If each of us would improve our own tiferet balance, we would change the landscape of the universe. After all, the world is simply 6+ billion individuals like you and me.

Something is terribly wrong.

When media headlines are consumed with analyzing Donald Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib, with not even an attempt at analyzing the roots of the barbaric beheading of Nicholas Berg, or Palestinians playing soccer with the head of an Israeli soldier, you know that something is seriously wrong.

And this is by no means an anomaly. This has become a tragic constant in our times: Muslims are committing atrocities against civilians on a sustained and ongoing basis, with very little global uproar. There is virtually no demand that the Muslim countries protest and once and for all eradicate this campaign of terror.

With all the news streaming from the Middle East, this fact is so glaring, that no one has yet to mention it (at least to my knowledge).

Of course, the beheading was mentioned the day it occurred, but since then you don’t read analysis, investigations, probes, endless commentary, as you do about far smaller matters. You don’t hear any journalists trying to understand what type of environment is breeding citizens that brutalize innocent people, and do so in the name of G-d.

Do beheadings and other atrocities against innocent civilians “defy” the Geneva Conventions or does that only cover cruel treatment of suspected terrorists and prisoners of war?!

That’s a rhetorical question if you ever heard one. We don’t need “Geneva Conventions” [which seems, quite ironic coming from Switzerland, the not so “neutral” country during WW II] to tell us that brutalizing civilians is not acceptable…

What exactly is going on?

I asked a media friend precisely this question: Why is no one calling on Saudi Arabia, and all the other Muslim countries and nations in the Middle East to come out with the loudest protests and make every possible effort to wipe out this cancer once and for all?!

If a group of Jews would have beheaded a Muslim, and publicized a videotape of the event, would the world be quiet?! If a group of Americans would do that would everyone be silent?!

Every Tom, Dick and Harry—in Europe and beyond—would be clamoring for denials and protests from the Jewish community, to disavow any connection, any endorsement of such a horrendous act, and to investigate the atrocity and punish those responsible.

My media friend answered me with all the conventional rubbish. (I would use a harsher word, but my censors wouldn’t allow it).

Top of the list is of course, the favorite scapegoat, Israel.

“If Israel did this and that… we wouldn’t have all these problems. The Arab world however sees that America leans unfairly toward Israel. If America wasn’t so supportive of Israel and its occupation, the Arab world would respond…”

I wonder which PR firm came up with the “occupation” line? I commend them. “Occupation” sounds so offensive, so anti-American, so anti-freedom. Who could support an “Israeli occupation”? — Little does anyone remember that the point has been made that legally the territory is considered “disputed” not “occupied.” No different than Kashmir and other disputed territories in the world.

But the PR machine rolls on, and we buy into it. As so-called “militants” kill more innocent people, the more we accept it as reality – what else can you expect of people “under occupation.”

[“Militants” is another distorted word that tends to obfuscate and distort the reality. It gets worse: “Freedom fighters,” “Religious leaders,” even “terrorists” has become a term that has somewhat of a muting effect].

Were the murderers of Nicholas Berg also “under occupation.” And what about those mass executioners that hijacked and flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon – were they also torn away from their “olive trees” and “gardens” in the Holy Land?!

Perhaps the true reason that we don’t hear outrage against the onslaught on innocent civilians in the Middle East, is precisely due to the success of the power of terrorism: It so lowers the ante, that we begin to find it acceptable. Like an abused wife who becomes so desensitized and detached that she denies (or minimizes) her husband’s beatings. The carnage has tragically become so routine, so common, that we just dismiss it. Instead of outrage and anger, we chalk it up to just “another day” in the Middle East.

This is far beyond double standard. It’s chillingly reminiscent of Hitler, who deliberately convinced the world that the only way to deal with his madness was to appease him. Hitler kept pushing the envelope, betrayal after betrayal of his promises, until the world caught on. Even the equally cruel Stalin was fooled. Let alone Chamberlain, who infamously declared “Peace in our times. The great Hitler has been humbled.” As he was deplaning and waving the paper in his hand relinquishing the Sudetenland to Germany, the Nazis were brazenly marching into Poland. Churchill then said: “Appeasement is feeding the sharks in the hope that you will be eaten last.”

Let’s put it bluntly, as politically incorrect as it may sound: The Arab/Muslim world has produced and continues to produce murderers, who in the name of religion, have no compunctions to brutalize innocent people.

Don’t get me wrong. No doubt that the majority of Muslims and Arabs could, and may want to, be peace-loving. But one could argue the same for the majority of Germans during World War II. Yet, we hold them collectively responsible for allowing the Nazis to come to power. In face of the genocide and atrocities taking place under their eyes even their silence was a crime. In addition to the fact, that the Nazis were not some foreign import; they were the children and products of German society.

The Middle East is a breeding ground—a platform—for terrorism, for genocide (I don’t even have the right word for it). The schools are educating the children with certain ideas that are allowing for mass terror as a viable option to be exercised—or tolerated—in order to advance a cause. That simply is unacceptable.

The time has come to finally call them on it.

And this may be the ultimate reason why we don’t hear outrage: It’s just simply too unsettling to realize that we are dealing with a confrontation with 1 billion Muslims. A clash of civilizations is the last thing that people want to hear about.

However there may be no choice. Just as over a billion Christians were tamed, the same goes for the Muslims. Humanity must live in a civilized way. Especially people claiming religious beliefs must comply with G-d’s universal laws.

As we stand in proximity of Shavuot, when we relive the revelation at Sinai, this may be the best time to demand accountability of the Arab/Muslim world for their actions, and to call the rest of the world to demand a response.

* * *

The single most important event in history took place 3316 years ago.

Sinai set in motion a series of events that would change the world forever, and continues to impact our lives today.

At Sinai the human race received a Divine blueprint how to live our lives. This great gift was given for all of mankind, however at the time the nations of the world rejected it. As our sages tell us that the children of Esau and the children of Ishmael both were offered the Torah and they rejected it after seeing that they could not live up to its laws, namely the prohibition on murder, theft and sexual transgressions.

It would take over 1000 years for the children of Esau—the Roman/Western/Christian world—to begin embracing the Sinai principles. It would take another 700 years for the children of Ishmael—the Muslim/Arab world—to do the same.

Yet, even after the birth of Christianity and Islam both would struggle with these principles and wreak global havoc in the process. For centuries Christians terrorized the world in the name of their religion. The Crusades, the Inquisitions, the pogroms are a few examples of the awful horror the Christians inflicted in their search to eradicate so-called heresy. Only in the last few hundred years has Christianity been tamed.

Islam too has had periods of aggression, now rearing its ugly head and terrorizing the world.

The bottom line is that the children of Ishmael are still struggling with the message given at Sinai.

What was it at Sinai that the children of Esau and Ishmael rejected, and what is its message today that they need to embrace?

At Sinai the world changed. For the first time the human race was given the opportunity to bridge heaven and earth—to fuse spirit and matter. Until that point there existed an invisible wall between the transcendental and the material. A decree, a schism separated between above and below. “That which was above could not descend below, and that which was below could not ascend above.”

Sinai opened a door, never again to be closed, that allows mortals in a material world to become Divine. It gave us the power to spiritualize the material, and to make our lives sacred, not just ethical.

This was no small event.

Philosophers, thinkers, theologians and lay people have all always asked the eternal question: How high can a human being reach? Are we humans just sophisticated beasts, with limited potential? Can we ever reach heaven and beyond or bring heaven down to earth? Can we integrate spirituality into our material lives? Can we fuse the finite and the infinite?

The fact is that matter and spirit are in a perpetual struggle. Narcissism, greed, corruption are staples of life. When we look at ourselves each of us knows that we often feel that “I exist and nothing else” (“ani v’afsi oid”), to the detriment of others. When this feeling becomes extreme it can destroy lives of those around us.

On the other hand, we also have a spirit inside of us. We have the power to live noble lives, filled with dignity and selflessness.

So we have an inevitable clash. Matter by its very nature is selfish. Spirit is selfless. No wonder that people have always speculated whether these two worlds can meet, let alone merge.

In general we find two approaches evolving in history: Asceticism and immersion. One states that in order to experience spirit we must separate ourselves from the material tentacles of life, and “climb the mountain” to meditate and become absorbed in a higher reality. Basically, one must deny the material life. An extreme version of this would be the ascetic life. To achieve the sacred the material life must be compromised. The infinite may be reached, but only by denying the finite.

The other extreme is that we cannot really reach heaven. We must live ethically, build healthy homes and workplaces, and find spirit in limited ways within our limited lives. Because we are essentially mortal creatures, with inherent selfishness or even evil, we cannot expect anything more than the best an earthy creature can achieve. A variation of this includes the ability of achieving salvation but not through our own efforts but by embracing something beyond us. The infinite is not integrated into our own personal lives.

Sinai opened the door of a third option. Sinai created an interface that bridged heaven and earth, giving us the power to integrate matter and spirit, utterly and completely, without compromising one or the other. The finite can become one with the infinite; matter one with spirit; the sacred one with the secular. Briefly, because G-d is neither spirit nor matter, He gave us the power to completely integrate the two.

This third option, however, does not come easily. As limiting as the first two options may be, they seem simpler, while the Sinai option requires a continual straddling of the thin line between matter and spirit.

That is why Sinai did not come easily. The nations of the world could not accept—nor understand—how one can bridge the two worlds. They therefore rejected the Torah at the time. Even the Jewish people did not reach Sinai effortlessly. Twenty-six generations of hard work, culminating with the terrible Egyptian slavery, was necessary before the people would be ready for Sinai.

This struggle between heaven and earth has many manifestations, including the battle that we so often have witnessed between religion and secularism. If you are a firm believer how do you deal with the secular world? According to the two-abovementioned options you either have to wage a holy war against the secular, or your basically embrace the secular with limited sanctity.

Therein lies the essential root of the religious wars waged throughout history. Recognizing secular heresy as an enemy, the Christians and later the Muslims, engaged in aggressive battles with the forces they perceive as threatening.

These battles actually began in the home of Abraham. Abraham, father of all nations, was the one that began the process, which was consummated at Sinai, of discovering and embracing the method of integrating the Divine and the mundane. Yet this effort encountered many challenges, including the difficulties with his son Ishmael. “He [Ishmael] will be a wild man. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him” (Genesis 16:12). It came to a point that Ishmael had to be banished from Abraham’s home.

This battle only intensified in the home of Isaac, son of Abraham, in the struggle between the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob. “Two nations are in your womb. Two governments will separate from inside you. The upper hand will go from one nation to the other. The greater one will serve the younger.” The brothers are diametrically different characters. Esau is a “skilled hunter, a man of the field.” “Jacob was a wholesome man, who sat in the tents” – a scholar who dwelled in the tents of study.

The battle between Esau and Jacob represents the battle between the material and the spiritual, a struggle that would only be resolved at the end of times.

What was the core of Ishmael and Esau’s difficulties, one that would later cause their children to reject the Torah, while the children of Jacob were embracing it?

Chassidic texts explain that the problem was rooted in balance. Ishmael (son of Abraham) was an archetype of abundant chesed (love) without the discipline of gevurah (judgment and discretion). Esau (son of Isaac) was an extreme of gevurah without the sensitivity of chesed.

Jacob, by contrast, was tiferet. Tiferet is beauty—harmony within diversity. Tiferet has the power to fuse love and discipline into one symmetrical unit. Tiferet possesses this power by introducing a third dimension—the dimension of truth, which is neither love nor discipline and therefore can integrate the two. Truth is accessed through selflessness: rising above your ego and your predispositions, enabling you to realize truth. Truth gives you a clear and objective picture of yours and others’ needs.

Jacobs’ children were educated with this Tiferet balance. They thus were ready for Mattan Torah, to receive the Torah at Sinai, which is called Tiferet. This is why we don’t find the Jewish people embarking on any religious war against heretics, or converting the nations of the world to Judaism. Conversion is actually dissuaded in Jewish law. When you are a person of Tiferet—secure in your own beliefs; aware that all humans were created in the Divine image, and one need not be Jewish to serve G-d; maintain a perfect equilibrium between love and discipline; absolutely confident that the sacred and the secular can be integrated with the Divine, and that this integration will come to fruition; lacking any fear that evil may be more powerful than good—then you can maintain the highest standard of spiritual integrity without resorting to killing or terrorizing others to conform to your beliefs.

Ishmael and Esau lacked this balance. Unbridled love and untempered discipline, even if they are driven for a good cause, ultimately become aggressive forces of destruction. Too much undisciplined love spoils a child and can create a monster, like too much rain that floods and destroys the fields. Unlimited judgment and severity, without underlying love, becomes tyrannical.

Thus, at Sinai the children of Ishmael and Esau were not yet prepared to receive the Torah. But their time would come, and come it did. Maimonides writes that by the mysterious ways of Divine Providence, Christianity and Islam helped pave the way for the Messianic age by acquainting the world with the principle of Messiah, the Torah and mitzvot. As time would pass their beliefs would continue to refine and mature.

In the centuries that followed Esau and Ishmael’s descendants would go through their growing pains in learning how to balance religious beliefs and daily life. This would not be an easy process; history is witness to the devastation and bloodshed wreaked by this journey. But slowly, slowly, Sinai would seep into the fibers of all people. The process concludes with the refinement of the last two powers, Edom (Esau) and Ishmael, which leads to the Messianic age—a world where there is no more destruction and terror and all children of Abraham serve the One G-d of Abraham in peace and harmony.

After years of tyranny the Western/Christian world has finally bred countries like America that champion the fundamental principles of Sinai: All people are created equal with inalienable rights and freedoms. The children of Esau have come to embrace the teachings of Abraham, formalized at Sinai.

The time has come for the children of Ishmael to do the same. We need to look at the education system, the curricula that Muslim children are being taught, and analyze it with the same rigor that we do in the media with far more superficial issues.

I understand the risk of interfering in the sovereignty of another country’s education system. Yet, we must approach this with pure intentions, infused with humility, demanding of ourselves the same standards we expect of others. Then we have a right to demand of ourselves and others to live up to the standards that Abraham taught all his children and all of civilization.

America today plays a special role in this work. The foundations of this country are built on absolute principles of faith and trust in G-d. This is not just a country of economic opportunity. The success of corporate America and unprecedented prosperity is a result of an unwavering mission statement: All equal, in G-d we trust, diversity and individual, e pluribus unum — under one G-d.

This country must align itself with its mission – the business of this nation must reconnect to its higher calling. Then and only then does this country earn the right to hold itself up as an example to the world. Simply being a nation of great wealth and power does not by any means give it the moral high ground. Other nations, religions and peoples have much longer traditions and histories than the relatively new world of America. But America can demonstrate something unique to the world. As a country, it can rise above our own national issues and serve as a beacon of light teaching the world the universal principles of all humankind – the principle upon which this nation was founded – how to live in peace with G-d.

3316 years ago the children of Esau and Ishmael rejected the Torah. Perhaps G-d could not impose it on them. But we can.

Today we must call on them, and insist, that they finally accept what they rejected then – that they finally accept the Torah in its entirety.

After all we have endured in the last three millennia, and with the current state of atrocity in the Middle East, we can appreciate the need for all nations to embrace the mandate given to us at Sinai.

So, 3316 years later how far are we from Sinai? On one hand it seems quite far, but on the other Sinai may be just around the corner. It’s up to us to determine which one it will be.

Is there a more powerful challenge to us as we approach Sinai?

This is the call of the hour. The call of Sinai. The call that sounded 3316 years ago and resonated around the globe and throughout history. This call is still reverberating today, waiting for our response.