Something came up in my life recently that caused me to ask the following: Have I ever done anything in my life that was done for someone else without any ulterior motives on my part, without even a trace of self-interest? After searching and searching, I found nothing. I couldn’t recall a single instance when I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I had behaved toward another person from a completely pure heart. Maybe I was being a bit more neurotic than usual, but that’s where I ended up in the early morning hours as I sat outside on the balcony talking with Hashem in the still of the night.
We know the story of when Daniel’s three friends, Chananiah, Mishael and Azariah refused to bow down before the golden statue that Nebuchadnezzar set up, willing to suffer the consequences of being thrown into a burning fiery furnace if that’s what it came to (Daniel 3). Not only did they resist the peer pressure of practically everyone in the kingdom but they also resisted the pressure of the king himself when they stood before him. The obvious question is: “What character trait did they possess which gave them such strength, inner courage and fortitude?”
A number of weeks ago we wrote an article entitled Daat, Daat Everywhere and Not a Drop of Truth in which we discussed the root cause of the proliferation of fakeness in our world today. There was one element of fakeness which we omitted from that discussion, and in some regards, it may be the most important. Utilizing the principle of middah k’neged middah, if we witness a great deal of fakeness in our world, it must be that we ourselves our inherently fake. Yes, we are. We interact with almost everyone by projecting an image of ourselves to others. No doubt, man has been doing this for centuries, and perhaps in its more benign forms there may have been some valid reasons for doing so. However nowadays, with the rapid growth of social media, so-called “reality” shows, and the media-promoted opinions and lifestyles of celebrities and others of influence, we have taken this practice to unprecedented heights. We don’t really want others to know who we really are; rather we want them to know the image of ourselves that we set up for them. Not only that, but as we become more accustomed to setting up an image of ourselves on a regular basis, we become more and more disconnected from reality, and start identifying with and believing in the very image of ourselves that we set up for others. To put it bluntly, this is a form of idol worship (עבודה זרה, avodah zarah).
Idols have mouths that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, noses that cannot smell, hands that cannot touch, and feet that cannot walk (Tehillim 115:5-7). But most importantly, it is written in the next verse (115:8): כְּמוֹהֶם יִהְיוּ עֹשֵׂיהֶם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר־בֹּטֵחַ בָּהֶם (Those who make them will become just like them, all those who trust in them). And this is the great plague of our age. We have eyes but have become blind to another’s distress, pain or suffering. Or perhaps more accurately, we see another’s distress, but it just doesn’t matter to us. We have ears to hear of other’s pain but then we go on as if we never heard. Yes, we give lots of tzedekah [charity], but that’s not what we are referring to here. We are referring to something deeper, more subtle and more pernicious. It takes place in our own families, amongst our loved ones. And how come we have become blind and deaf, i.e. so insensitive? Because we have other things to do that are more interesting to us. We have our lives, our friends, our music, our hobbies, our career—our fun—and we’re just not as interested in the notion of self-sacrifice for the benefit of others [מסירות נפש, mesirut nefesh] as perhaps we once were. Mesirut nefesh for our own benefit, sure. But that’s not really mesirut nefesh, is it? It’s just dedication to a personal cause or goal, but true mesirut nefesh, i.e., to do something for someone else or for Hashem without any ulterior motive, without even a hint of desiring something in return, is rare.
When Avraham was just a little boy, he took a hammer and smashed the idols in his father’s shop. He left one standing, however, and placed the hammer in its hands. Upon returning to his shop, Terach was horrified. “How could you have done such a thing? You’ve ruined my business! Don’t you know what kind of disgrace this will bring upon our family? We’ll be financially ruined and ostracized!”
But Avraham responded, “Daddy, you’re wrong. I didn’t do anything. That big statue over there must have done it, the one with the hammer in its hands.”
Avraham’s father responded, “That’s just a statue. It can’t do anything!”
As the saying goes, “The jig was up.” Terach articulated the lie that everyone knew but no one wanted to say out loud. And it’s the same for us today. Society is built on gigantic lies that most intelligent people know about but play along with anyway. Our idols are all over the place, but they are just idols. So if you want to work on smashing your image, take up the hammer as did Avraham and get to work, as it is written (Yirmeyah 23:29): הֲלוֹא כֹה דְבָרִי כָּאֵשׁ נְאֻם־יְיָ וּכְפַטִּישׁ יְפֹצֵץ סָלַע (Isn’t My word like the fire, says Hashem, and like a hammer that smashes rock?).
So now we can understand the inner strength of Daniel’s three friends. How could they resist bowing down to the image? But that’s not the right question. The question is: “How could they bow down?” They weren’t in the habit of erecting images of themselves and bowing down to those images, so how could they possibly bow down to any image? They were real and that’s why it was so easy for them to tell the king (Daniel 3:16): נְבוּכַדְנֶצַּר לָא־חַשְׁחִין אֲנַחְנָא עַל־דְּנָה פִּתְגָם לַהֲתָבוּתָךְ (Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter). There was really nothing to say, nothing to discuss, and nothing to explain. It was a non-issue to them.
Now let’s return to my story. Normally, the early morning sky is free of clouds and very black, so even in the city it’s possible to see the largest stars. But this morning was unusual because the entire sky was covered in clouds. I couldn’t see a single star. And so after feeling pretty devastated with just how pathetic of an individual I really am (not the image of myself I set up for myself and for others, but the real me), in the midst of tears for being so distant from fulfilling the purpose of my existence, I looked up into that cloud-ridden sky toward the east, above the hills in the direction of Yerushalayim, and I saw a patch where the clouds had dissipated, and in the center of that patch hung a single bright star. It was Aldebaran, the brightest star in the constellation Taurus—a point of beauty in the night. And I knew that I was wrong. Aldebaran represented my soul, and my soul is pure. It’s pristine and lofty. It is beyond my comprehension, but it is the real me. It’s not an image; it’s a gift from Hashem. And although it appears only as a point of light in the midst of the darkness and clouds of my life, in reality it is 44 times as large and 400 times as bright as our sun! Then I was reminded of the prayer that we recite each morning: אֱלֹקַי נְשָׁמָה שֶׁנָּתַתָּ בִּי טְהוֹרָה הִיא אַתָּה בְרָאתָהּ אַתָּה יְצַרְתָּהּ אַתָּה נְפַחְתָּהּ בִּי וְאַתָּה מְשַׁמְּרָהּ בְּקִרְבִּי וְאַתָּה עָתִיד לִטְּלָהּ מִמֶּנִּי וּלְהַחֲזִירָהּ בִּי לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא כָּל זְמַן שֶׁהַנְּשָׁמָה בְקִרְבִּי מוֹדֶה אֲנִי לְפָנֶיךָ יְיָ אֱלֹקַי וֵאלֹקֵי אֲבוֹתַי רִבּוֹן כָּל הַמַּעֲשִׂים אֲדוֹן כָּל הַנְּשָׁמוֹת… (My G-d, the soul that you put in me is pure. You created it, You formed it, You breathed it into me, and You guard it within me, and You will eventually take it from me and return it to me in the future. As long as the soul is within me, I will give thanks to You Hashem, my God and the God of my fathers, Master of the all things, Master of all souls…)
So I dried my eyes and stood on my feet, and then I started to dance and to sing to Hashem for the next 15 or 20 minutes. And when I was done, I was filled with tremendous simchah. It wasn’t a fake simchah that comes by chasing what this world has to offer. Rather, it was the real simchah that comes from having received a gift from Hashem, a gift which He places into all broken hearts. And this is an aspect of what Rebbe Nachman taught (Likutei Moharan 282): כִּי צָרִיךְ הָאָדָם לְחַפֵּשׂ וּלְבַקֵּשׁ לִמְצֹא בְּעַצְמוֹ אֵיזֶה מְעַט טוֹב כְּדֵי לְהַחֲיוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ וְלָבוֹא לִידֵי שִׂמְחָה (For everyone must search and seek to find in himself some little bit of good in order to revive himself and to attain simchah). We are obligated not only to find the point of goodness in others, but also in ourselves, and when we do, we are brought to teshuvah as R’ Nachman teaches there: וְזֶה בְּחִינַת אֲזַמְּרָה לֵאלֹקַי בְּעוֹדִי–בְּעוֹדִי דַּיְקָא הַיְנוּ עַל יְדֵי בְּחִינַת הָעוֹד שֶׁלִּי שֶׁאֲנִי מוֹצֵא בְּעַצְמִי…עַל יְדֵי אוֹתָהּ הַנְּקֻדָּה עַל־יְדֵי־זֶה אוּכַל לְזַמֵּר וּלְהוֹדוֹת לַשֵם (And this is an aspect of [Tehillim 146:2]: ‘I will sing to my G-d with my essence [b’odi]’—b’odi specifically, i.e. through the still [od] little bit of good that I find in myself…through that point [of good] I will be able to sing and to offer thanks to Hashem).
And that star represents you too! Don’t ever forget it. Focus on it. As Rebbe Nachman said, it keeps you alive. It’s the holy spark inside you, and if you do that which is right, you will merit to see yourself in all of your brightest, as it is written (Daniel 12:3): וְהַמַּשְׂכִּלִים יַזְהִרוּ כְּזֹהַר הָרָקִיעַ וּמַצְדִּיקֵי הָרַבִּים כַּכּוֹכָבִים לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד (And the enlightened ones will shine as the brightest of the expanse of the sky and the ones who make others righteous will be like the stars, forever and ever).
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