The Source of Blessing

"A person plans, for example, to purchase a table, chairs or the like.  Preferably, before leaving the house, he should think to himself and say, "I am going to buy a table and chairs.  I cannot really choose at all.  Only HaShem will determine which table I will purchase.  What I do and the choice I make will not make any difference at all, but nevertheless according to the level of hishtadlut (required effort) expected of me, I need to go about making a choice, as the book Mesillat Yesharim says that even though one extends an effort, he must know that his effort does not really accomplish the result."

~Building a Sanctuary in the Heart, Section 4: Belief in Divine Providence

I was puzzled by this statement at first - I mean, how can/could one really live this way?  And what does it mean?  Does it mean that if I make a bad or immoral choice, that G-d also already determined that immoral result, too?  To take it to a very harsh extreme, if a person commits adultery, is this saying (as if such a thing were possible) that G-d determined the adulterous act, and the participants simply determined the engagement and steps leading up to it?


On the other hand, there was something that rang true to me in this concept, as it reminded me of a passage from the Tao Te Ching, wherein Lao Tse teaches that "The master does her work, and then let's go.  The people around her look at the results and say 'look what we've done!'"


There is an idea in Taoism that espouses a detachment from results, with a focus on the service of working towards noble results.  Succeed or fail, the master stays even-keeled emotionally.


There is also a principle taught in the Jewish Oral Tradition from Sinai, Pirkei Avot, which informs us that the Spiritual reward of life is tied to our efforts and struggle in our endeavors, and not to the results.


And doesn't this make sense?  After all, haven't we all witnessed the terrible failures of people despite their sincere and hard-working efforts to reach a successful outcome?  And haven't we seen people 'get lucky', experiencing incredible success and results with almost zero effort?


So how can we imagine that results are within our control -- we all know that this is not true.  But we also know that our efforts regarding a matter are absolutely within our hands.




So how, I wondered, does this tie in with the teaching that "everything is in the hands of G-d, except for our own personal awe of G-d."  This is a core tenet in Jewish philosophy.  But if all effort is within my hands, how does choosing furniture for my home or picking an unbruised apple from the fridge tie in to my own personal awe of G-d?  If only the personal awe of G-d is within my control, and all other things are pre-determined, then how does effort play in?  




It occurred to me that an awe of G-d implies a sensitivity to the values G-d has shared with us, like creating peace in my home, honoring my wife, caring for and providing an education to my children, engaging in acts of charity, creating a just society and a just world, and an overall concern and dedication to the well-being of my fellow human beings (and the natural world around us!).  Peace in the home and an ability to provide for my wife and children certainly further ties in with striving towards financial stability, which entails developing myself professionally and seeking secure and successful employment.


In other words, an awe of G-d is most sincerely manifest in an effort to live according to the values G-d has taught me, and to meet the day to day responsibilities and duties inherent to fulfilling those values.


And its ironic, because personally, I have always been a results-oriented person, even somewhat obsessed with the goals I want to get to, and seeking the shortest and cleverest path to get there.  My own focus has always de-emphasized the world of effort and pre-occupied with the goals themselves.


But when one realizes that no matter how hard he or she works, the goals are never within our control, it shifts the focus of our lives in a very meaningful, and even positive way.


The results will be what they will be.  We can not control them, because no matter how carefully we plan, there is always a profound element of unpredictability (translate: pre-determination).  But our efforts to reach that goal are squarely within our control, as are the motivations behind our efforts.


And it is impossible to speak of a focus on effort without also committing to living within a structured daily schedule, as unstructured effort is like an open firehose with no fire-fighter holding it -- time dispersed at random with its full value unrealized.


If we work for the sake of Heaven, then we work with focus and discipline for those around us - our spouses, our children, our community, and our world.  If we are working for our own self-gratification and egos, then we are essentially idol-worshipers wherein the idol is our own selves.  For G-d has challenged us to devote our energy to the world around us, and only to ourselves in as much as our own self-care is necessary to serve the world.  Selfishness, arrogance, and hedonism place my own physical self before G-d, and are therefore is no less corrupt than idol-worship itself.


The master does his or her work, and then lets go.  And the people around marvel and say: "look what we've done".




The world turns because G-d turns it.  And the table I sit at in the home I live in is a blessing from G-d, and not the result of my actions.  More accurately, the blessings are possibly a result of the spirit in which I engaged in those and other action; for if that spirit of effort is pure and G-dly, it is the actual source of blessing in all of our lives.

Nighttime in My Succah: Feeling safe while feeling vulnerable

Is there anything more wonderful than the experience of feeling safe while feeling vulnerable?  I think it may be one of the most rare feelings we experience in our lives.

I believe that most of us experience it with our mothers when we are young.

And some of us are blessed to fall in love with and marry spouses who give us the same sheltering feeling.

You know, it is that feeling that you can open up about some part of you that you are terribly afraid to show to most people.  It is showing your unprotected tummy, the part of you without any armor.

You know you are safe with the person you are exposing your inner-self to, and you feel so comforted to be able to open up to them without any guards up.  But yet, even in a case of perfect trust, you can not help but feel a visceral current of fear as you open up.  You know that you have allowed yourself to become unnaturally vulnerable.  And in doing so, you feel safer than anywhere else in the world.

I felt that tonight in my Succah.  It was after 10pm, and I want back in to say my Grace after Meals.  My two little boys (8 and 10 years old) had gone to sleep in the Succah tonight, quite excited to be camping out there.  The Succah was illuminated only by a night-light, and as I said my thank-you prayer for the meal I had eaten, I took in the feeling of seeing them in ther serenity sleeping under the 'Schach'.

The Schach, of course, is the simple covering of branches that provides a limited amount of shelter for the seven days we dwell in the Succah.  Some make it out of bamboo, some out of pine, and here we make ours out of fresh-cut palm branches.  It actually feels a bit like Gilligan's Island, but with a Jewish touch!

Sitting there in the gentle glow of my boys' night-light, with the green palm-fronds softly illuminated, hearing a cricket singing outside, the power of the Succah suddenly touched me in a way I have never felt.

I felt so safe.

I felt safe, like I suddenly recognized my boys felt going to sleep in the Succah that night.

I remembered what it felt like when my father used to build our Succah out of wood and boards and hammer and nails when I was little (as I do, today), even though most of our friends built theirs out of quick-assemble canvas-and-metal-frame kits.

It felt so great.  And the Succah we built felt strong and eternal and magical.

And then I looked up at the Schach tonight.  It was so thin.  Just as Jewish law counsels, I could see the stars through the branches.  And I felt so safe.  I felt exposed and unprotected, but in the most wonderful and natural way.  I realized, for a very, very brief second, that my life and all of our lives are always this exposed and thinly protected, but we are safe because God keeps us safe.

I wished I could sit there for eight days without leaving.  I wished I could imagine what it was like to live in such a shelter and with such sustained faith for 40 years, as our ancestors did.

And I wondered about how much we are meant to take care of ourselves - to do for ourselves - and at what point we are meant to let go and fully rely on God?

If God is protecting us, why build a Succah or make any effort to provide for ourselves?

And if God-forbid, God were not protecting us, what good does a Succah or any of our efforts do?


And so I thought that perhaps the answer is in the guidance of Jewish law regarding how we build the Schach.  The Schach must provide more shade than sunlight, but yet must remain thin enough to see the stars through it at night.

And it occured to me:  It is right that we should do our best to protect ourselves from the elements of life - to succeed and to earn a living and to live comfortably.  But we should never do so to an extreme where we forget that these things are not the source of our blessing, but a result of being blessed by God.  We need to see the stars through the lattice of our efforts. 

If the work of our hands becomes so grand that we forget that it is not our own hands that protect us, than we have surely lost our way.

We are each so very delicate and vulnerable.  And we are each so very safe.

A loving God is watching over us, always.