Masters of our Fate

One of my favorite teachers was Rabbi Levi Yitshak of Berditchev.  Why? Perhaps because he was so full of life and vitality.  Every subject he spoke of, or examined, was infused with a special urgency.  Rabbi Levi Yitshak was aflame with Torah.  It is true that some could not stand his brilliance so they instead retreated to the safety of their minds.  Most however simply stood in his light and absorbed the radiance.  It changed them forever.

Some of the Master’s sayings were:

“You can get a hoarse throat davvening before the lectern.  But not before the Almighty.”

“Life can be so painful.  Know this: God Himself is in exile.”

“Lord, Master of the Universe”, prayed Levi Yitshak, “I saw a simple Jew bend down to pick up his tefillin when they fell.  He kissed them so sweetly.  Dear Lord, pick me up, your child.  Kiss me.”

“You can see whether a person really loves God by the way she treats people.”

“Your mind is the Holy of Holies”

We are a people in search of life.  To that extent pharmaceuticals are a reasonably safe investment.  They are about the only stock that has not done too poorly in the market downturn.  One reason for the popularity of drugs is that people are looking for some relief to take the edge off living and at the same time make life’s experiences more meaningful.  The best control over a random life, modernity thinks, is to be insulated from pain.

The Master thinks otherwise.  In fact, most of what he is quoted as saying revolves around sensation.  Levi Yitshak’s insistence is that we access joy within.  “Mitzvah g’dola l’hiyot b’simha,” It is a great Mitzvah to celebrate life, to be full of exuberance.  While the advice is simple enough it is not easily done.

There is an ancient tale about the powerful Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great.  He was sitting in judgment.  A man had come before him to plead for his life.  Alexander the Great, after hearing the defendant, pronounced his verdict, “guilty.”

“Your majesty,” he cried. “I appeal.”

“To whom do you appeal?” sneered the ruler.  “There is no one higher in authority than myself.”

“I appeal from Alexander the Small to Alexander the Great.”

There is much more in us.  We know this.  Becoming God’s vision of us would be consummate achievement-- for then we would know that we have become as “Great” as deep inside we know ourselves capable of being.

             Earlier this year we read about Avram who was called up by Gd to leave everything familiar and travel to unknown parts; “to a land that I will show you.”  Yet, no sooner had Avram arrived in the Land when a famine urged him south to Egypt.  So Levi Yitshak asks, ‘Why did God lie to him?’  Why was Avram told that he could live in the new land when famine expelled him from it soon after his arrival?’

             ‘No,’ say s Levi Yitshak.  The Torah says, “that I will show you,” not that will be forever yours.   God was giving Avram a vision of the future, a glimpse of the deep beauty that would sustain him in the darkest times when faith might otherwise abandon him.  So when Avram sought refuge in Egypt from the land’s destitution, he remembered the promise and the vision of the Holy Land.  In the dark nights of terror when Avram feared for his life, he would later recall what he was shown and this was enough for him to survive.

In a seminal work by survivor Viktor Frankl, he questions how survival was possible where every attempt was made to dehumanize the victims of the Shoah.  The camps were to become a mirror of what the Nazis tried to impose upon their victims.  How then to remain human where all vestiges of humanity were absent?  How can a person survive when riven of all hope?  The brutality of the Nazis was matched by their continual treatment of Jews as certainly less-than-human and less-than-animal.  How did those who were able to survive find both the will to live as well as maintain an image of their own humanity in the midst of such depravity?

Those who were able to focus on small acts of courage and keep mental images of hope had the best chance for survival.  Frankl tells tales of heroism like sharing a crust of bread or aiding the sick in the midst of a hell that only promised punishment for acts of goodness.  In this place words of hope could be exchanged provided a glimpse of a possible future.  “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future - his future – was doomed.”  In other words, Frankl, like Avram, saw a picture of how life once was and could become once more… and this was enough to sustain him.

“Life is a journey”, said the rebbe.  “And how we you traverse the road?”  He answered, “We begin with a single step.” 

Our teachers, Masters, and rabbis never indicated to us that life would be unencumbered or simple.  What they did teach us, however, was that with a vision how life can be, we can at least be masters of our own fate.