Seeking the One

October 3, 2008
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

For a child to learn to walk, it must fall down and not lose faith. Each time it falls, the child must rise. Otherwise it will never learn to walk. In the same way, the parent teaching the child to walk must first support the child and stand it upright, but then must remove the support, and must allow the child to fall. And when the child takes a couple of steps, the parent must move farther away to enable the child to practice walking.

Of course, the child does not know that the parent's purpose is to teach it to walk. No. Every tentative step the child takes expresses only one desire: to bring the child to the parent. Walking is not the goal. The goal is to be reunited, to be at-one with the parent.

This is the gist of the Baal Shem Tov's famous parable. God is like a parent trying to teach us to walk. God supports us at first as we learn to take one or two steps. But, in the end, if we are ever to walk on our own, God must remove that support. So God moves back a way and entreats us to come closer. We totter and fall, then we get up and walk. When we come very close, God moves back a little farther. The farther back God is as we continue to struggle to reach God, the stronger we grow in the skill of walking. God is always with us, but God wants us to walk on our own.

The meaning of life is in this process: learning to walk in God's path, the path that God creates as we take steps to come closer and God withdraws from us to make us stronger. Our life's purpose is to walk toward God, even when we cannot feel God holding us up, even when we must rely on faith to know that God is with us, before us, so long as we remain on God's chosen path.

The cynic would say, It seems like any path you walk in life would be okay. If you turn away from God, you are still walking. If you only do evil, you are still walking. Where is God when people hurt one another? Where is God when we are ill and infirm and cannot walk?

And we would reply, your ability to ask that question, your ability to doubt, your ability to criticize and condemn -- these too are ways which God gives you to learn to walk. But those of little faith say, How can it be? Can the evil person walk in evil ways and still find God?

There is a story that teaches that, too. In his memoirs, Reb Aryeh Levin wrote:

I recall the early days ... when it was granted me by [God's] grace to go up to the holy land [where I visited] our great master Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.... After an early [afternoon prayer-service] he [followed his custom] and went out ... to stroll a bit in the fields and gather his thoughts; and I went along. On the way I plucked some branch or flower. Our great master was taken aback; and then he told me gently, "Believe me: In all my days I have taken care never to pluck a blade of grass or a flower needlessly, when it had the ability to grow or blossom. You know the teaching of the Sages that there is not a single blade of grass below, here on earth, which does not have a heavenly force ... above telling it, ‘Grow!' Every sprout and leaf of grass says something, conveys some meaning. Every stone whispers some inner hidden message in the silence. Every creation utters its song (in praise of the Creator)" [A Tzadik in Our Time, pp. 108-109].

So it is written in the Talmud and has been taught by Jewish mystics through the ages. "Above every blade of grass, an angel is assigned to stand and whisper, ‘Grow, grow.'"

Follow me, now: If this is true of every blade of grass, every grain of sand, every planet in the heavens, every beast, so it is true for every human being. Yet, each angel must take a slightly different form and use a slightly different language to be effective. To each blade of grass or grain of sand or beast or bird or human, each angel must speak in a way that they and we can understand. So the speaking is not literal, it is intuitive.

In human beings, the angel above each of us teaches us to grow by showing us the difference between the right path -- the way God wants us to go in order to draw nearer to God -- and the wrong path. The angel is not in our conscious minds, but in our conscience.

The evil person may do evil and still know the difference between right and wrong. As Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "Every inmate on death row knows that ‘Thou shalt not murder' is one of the Ten Commandments." And because we know right from wrong, our sages taught that at every moment it is possible to turn, to change directions, to repent, and return to the right path.

Once Alfred Nobel passed by two people talking and he heard one say to the other, "That is the famous Nobel who perfected the dynamite we use to defeat our enemies." Nobel was shocked to think that this would be the way he would be remembered in this world, as a person who brought death and destruction to millions. From that moment, he turned and devoted his attention to creating the famous prizes for which he is now remembered, and every one of those prizes rewards only those who bring good into this world!

Loving and caring, sharing and praying together, seeking out times to be with family and friends, being a good neighbor, reaching out to those in need -- all these are steps along the path that God shows us -- and throughout our lives each of those steps is a way of growing. When we fall, there is still that angel above us, whispering, "Grow, grow," which means "Walk toward God, make atonement so that you can be at-one with God." So that, in the end, you will not be remembered for the mistakes you made, but for the good you brought into the world. Do this and, in the end, family and friends will remember you and wish to walk in the path that God showed you and you showed them. And you will make that final fall, gently and happily, into the hands of Your Creator, ultimately finding the unity you have sought throughout your life. And let us say: Amen.