daily consciousness tune-up 07.22.07

Photo: Courtesy of Paris Parfait

More than just noticing the pain that people experience in the world, we must actively search for it and teach ourselves to experience it as our own. But this is not an exercise in sadness or guilt.

The true purpose of feeling another’s pain is to inspire us to attend to our spiritual work, which includes taking physical action in the world to alleviate human suffering.

In discussing this with Kabbalah students, I’ve sometimes seen them shake their heads sadly. “It sounds very inspiring,” they tell me, “but what’s the use? The magnitude of suffering in the world is just too great.

There’s just too much pain for anyone to really make a difference.” This line of thinking is one of the most potent weapons of our negative inclination. Kabbalah empathically counsels us not to measure righteousness “by volume.” Just as the reverberations of a butterfly’s wings can eventually create a tornado, every positive act, however small, brings Light into the world which opens a channel for more Light.

In this way the transformation of humanity will eventually become a reality.Suppose your house were on fire and you had time to save some of your possessions but not all of them. Would you throw your hands up and say, “Forget it, if I can’t save it all, I’ll just let it all burn,” or would you run into the house and grab what you could?

Most of us would do the latter, and the same principle applies to the situation of the world in general.Alone, we cannot possibly alleviate all the pain and suffering that exists, but this is not a reason to stop trying. Kabbalah tells us that if we can help even one person, it is as though we’ve saved the entire world.

Today, let us all reflect on the essence of why we are alive:

"We have come here for only one reason, to see how we are going to deal with our fellow man.It's not about how righteous we will be - throw that out. It is about where our consciousness lies with our fellow man. This is the most critical task of humanity."- The Rav

Today - and every day - no matter how justified you are in judging or striking back, I beg of you to heed the spiritual battlecry of The Rav.The future of humanity depends on it.

(excerpt from the Kabbalah Centre’s monthly consciousness tune-up e-mail)