Torah and Us

The problem is us. Not them. Us.

We get in the way of ourselves. We become hopelessly tangled up in the mess we have created. Lives become shattered as wrong words pierce the soul. Feelings are hurt and forever bruised with an offhand remark that was never intended to wound.

We later wonder, “How did it happen?”  “What was the catalyst for such pain?”

”Before you can find God, you must lose yourself,”said the Baal Shem Tov.

How do we find ourselves if we do not know that were lost in the first place? 

For the Jew the beginning and the end can be found in Torah. Genesis details the deliberate actions of the Lord and crafting the universe. Generation after generation wrestles with identity, truth and looks for peace.  We see in their faces the sorrow and the burdens that they carry as we retell and relive the Text year after year. The disappointments run deep. And still God hopes in us.

“Being full of ourselves leaves little room for the Divine Presence to dwell. Egotism is inherently anti-spiritual. Arrogance can be seen as a form of self worship that comes dangerously close to idolatry,”wrote Aaron Z. 

And so we move into the book of Exodus where God reveals himself, His will and His faith in us. God never abandons hope in what we can become.  That is why He shared His most precious possession, Torah, with us.  It is our guidebook to be less prideful, more humble, more inwardly loving and outwardly caring.  With clearer vision from its sacred words we see life for what it can be, not just what it is.

Moving forward into the book of Leviticus we learn how to talk to God and listen more intently to one another.  It teaches us how to reach into our inner core of being and be open, vulnerable and honest.  We learn the value of sacrifice.

In the fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, we learn about our worth. This book teaches the incalculable value of our people. Every person is holy and our nation is holy. You will find idea this stated in our prayers over and again. One Hasidic Sage commented, “Man is the language of God.”   

In the final book of the Torah, Deuteronomy we learn the power of loss and love.   A wise person once said, “If everyone of us was told we had only five minutes to live, the telephone lines would be hopelessly jammed because all of us would be rushing to tell someone how much we really loved them.”   Deuteronomy is Moses’ love song to his nation as he is about to die.  The book is filled with deep wisdom reminding us of the precious knowledge contained in these books.

With Torah we are rich.  We are one.