While waiting and hoping for things to “get back to normal” may not work, we CAN create a different reality!
It would be so nice to get back to regularly scheduled programming wouldn’t it? No pandemic looming over us, no worldwide anti-Semitism growing by the day, no freak accidents where dozens of Torah observant Jews are killed. Yet, Hashem is sending us these events one after the other.
Our sages tell us that “in the merit of the righteous women our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt” (Sotah 11b). Because the women did not despair. Let’s not despair now as well. While waiting and hoping for things to “get back to normal” may not work, we CAN create a different reality.
Together, let’s please attempt to forego any more “wake-up calls”, shall we?
When calamities strike, Jewish tradition calls on us to undertake a “cheshbon hanefesh,” or “accounting of the soul.” I therefore think that in order to activate the Geulah, we actually need to take a step back and consider where it is that we are going wrong in the basics.
Because it’s just as important if not more important, to stop the wrongdoing as it is to improve in our observance of the mitzvos, wouldn’t you say?
For example, if someone is guarding their health by eating right and exercising yet they do not honor the law of gravity and jump down from a very high place, their health will suffer. If someone sends their child to the best school around and pays top dollar to boot, yet sets a dismal example at home for refined speech and giving others the benefit of the doubt, their child will graduate school with blatant inadequacies, especially in the character and middos development area. If someone stringently follows the mitzvos between man and God but flies off the handle when things don’t go his way, or treats others disrespectfully, the blessing that he is expecting for his strict mitzva observance may be held back.
Our sages tell us that “in the merit of the righteous women our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt” (Sotah 11b). Because the women did not despair. Let’s not despair now as well.
So, what happens next?
It seems that we are being called on to deal with some serious issues. Going back and fixing the basics is an insight I got during 2020 as the Corona virus fallout was unfolding. So first, we need to take an honest look at our fulfillment of the basics in the areas of lifestyle, child rearing, physical health, harmony in the home, empathy for others, seeking out the truth and looking at personal and world events with eyes of emuna. (I’ll share more on this in future articles.)
Second, the wakeup calls have been coming fast and furious – to wake us up to the fact that we can and must – take responsibility. There exists a revelation in these times – something new to learn, thanks to the fact that tough times help subdue the ego and expand the soul. We need our souls to expand and intervene because only in this way will we expand our vessel to contain the great light that is coming.
Until we understand via our awakened souls that WE play a role in the unfolding negative chain of events, and that we play a role in getting OUT of them, then we are living in an illusion.
However, once we realize the above, we also realize that our life can change in an instant!
Our sages tell us that “in the merit of the righteous women our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt”
We know there’s something wrong – with the world and with us. And the solution has to be bottom up – it’s got to come from WITHIN. I’d love for there to be a prince charming to come to our rescue but at this point in time I think it’s obvious that it’s going to be more of a collaborative effort.
When we finally awaken from the illusion (that we have no role to play both in the unfolding of negative events as well as in turning them around), that is when we start creating a new reality. And it is up to each and every one of us to figure out our individual role in creating this new reality.
In what area can you help out specifically? Is your expertise in nutrition, wellness, marketing, mathematics? How can you personally contribute to pulling yourself, your family and all of us out of the adversity that we have fallen into, including blaming outside circumstances for it?
Can you offer your children fruit and vegetable platters for snacks? Can you respect their individuality, including their particular areas of strength and weakness? Can you influence your family and others to stop losing opportunities to become better by being more honest in your business or in your marriage? Can you use your mathematical abilities or scientific mind in order seek out and share truths that are harder for more right-brained people to figure out?
These are exciting times! Let’s get excited about the fact that we all have a grassroots role to play here. Stop, quiet down the chattery mind, get clarity on how you can contribute to Geula activation and start doing it. It’s going to feel like swimming upstream but that is where we start. We can have meaning right now! We can wake up excited every morning knowing that OUR influence counts vis-à-vis the Geulah.
This IS the Geulah medicine, the lead, and the sustenance we’ve been looking for. Geulah activation begins right here, right now, with each and every one of us!
