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Expansion Of Spirit By Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein
A reminder and challenge to those who consider themselves of this world, while yet eying the Next
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Beginning this week, Jews the world over start the public reading of the book of Exodus, which as we know deals, among other things, with one of the major events of Jewish history: the liberation from Egypt. The central character in the story of the Exodus is Moses, the greatest leader the Jewish people ever had. This week's reading deals with the earlier years of Moses's life, beginning in Pharaoh's palace and leading up to his role as the leader of the Jewish people.
MOSES' LIFE: INCREASING RESPONSIBILITY
The pattern in Moses' life is one of increasing responsibilities. He starts off as a prince, with no responsibilities. A prince is different from a king; a king has privileges but responsibilities as well – he has to govern the country. But a prince has only privileges and no responsibilities. Then he goes out, sees his brothers' suffering and takes on responsibilities: he helps one person, then another. He helps the daughters of Jethro, then he gets married, then he has children. He then comes back to fight and lobby on behalf of the Jewish people to get them out of Egypt. Then he serves as the conduit through which G-d gives the Torah to the Jewish people and he becomes the teacher – Moses Rabbeinu – and he leads the people in the desert. He goes through all of these different phases but the common thread is a progression from very limited responsibility to greater responsibility, with each stage in his life.
GREATNESS OF SOUL NECESSITATES AN EXPANSION OF SELF
Of course a person has to develop him or herself as a human being and become a good person, through the commandments – our moral obligations – and through doing our duty in this world; but, says conventional wisdom, every extra responsibility that we take on actually drains our resources. Thus, we are constantly in a struggle between self-preservation and taking responsibility for others. Rabbi Wolbe says that this conventional wisdom is in fact not true. G-d places a soul in every person for the purpose of developing that soul. The soul, and the human being as the bearer of that soul, has tremendous potential which is actualized throughout a person's life by doing good in the world, with the goal being that after death the soul returns to G-d in a state of maximum actualization of the potential that was placed within it. A soul that remains up in the heavens with G-d cannot actualize its potential; it is in a place of perfection, of pure goodness. That is why the soul descends into the physical world, so that it has the opportunity to develop itself.
ACTUALIZING OUR POTENTIAL BY EXPANDING OUR SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
SHOULDERING ANOTHER'S BURDEN
We can only truly be with the other if we can get outside of ourselves and be aware of the people around us. This is the process of maturing from a self-absorbed child to an adult who is aware of others. And this is the process Moses went through: going out and seeing his brothers' suffering, helping his brothers, defending the defenseless against oppression, getting married, having children, and coming back to redeem the Jewish people.
SPIRITUAL GROWING PAINS
Marriage is about constant expansion of responsibility, thereby actualizing the potential within and developing it even further. Marriage requires us to take into account another human being and a whole different set of needs. This is an expansion of soul, an actualization of potential.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes "must-reading". Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here. Similarly with raising children – every parent knows the self-sacrifice that is required in order to raise a child properly, as well as the great rewards that come with it. The pain of self-sacrifice is really about the expansion of self to include the child who is now in the parents' realm of influence. A person goes on a lifelong journey of expansion and fulfilling more and more of their potential, from marriage to children to community, to helping the underprivileged. Thus, expanding responsibility is not about diminishing the individual. It is about fulfillment in the actualization of the soul's potential. It was for this purpose that we were brought into the world. This is the life process that Moses goes through: constant expansion of self. He starts off as a prince who only has to worry about himself, living a life of privilege with everyone looking after him. Then his responsibilities expand and he starts to look at the suffering of his brothers. He is nosei b'ol im chaveiro, as the Talmud describes; he shouldered the burden of his brothers, literally and figuratively. Then he gets married and has children, and then he comes back to get the people out of Egypt. He leads the people, teaches them Torah, looks after them in the desert, constantly expanding his responsibilities. This is the making of a great person.
THE ULTIMATE EXPANSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Rav Wolbe quotes from Rabbeinu Tam, one of our great philosophers from the Middle Ages, who contrasts this world with the next and says that a person living in this world is like someone living in a cave underground who has all his needs taken care of but does not know that there is a world outside the cave. Then one day he comes out and sees a whole big world of blue skies, seas, and trees. The magnificence and the sheer freedom of being in the "real" world, the expanded consciousness that comes with it, is something which could never have been conceived of inside the dark cave. Rabbeinu Tam says that this world is like a dark, constricted cave. When we make the transition out of the body the soul becomes even more of a klal mentsh, even more inclusive; the soul has finished the process of actualizing its potential. It now has a sense of transcendence above self, transcendence above the world, and an appreciation for the ultimate truth. If a person has lived a good life, then death becomes part of that growth process. Any growth process of a person becoming more expanded is associated with growing pains of the soul being stretched into greater consciousness. Each stage of life becomes more difficult and that is associated with pain. One of the great achievements of life, says Rabbi Wolbe, is to die well. The pain of death is the ultimate growth process, where the soul has finished its development and is now going back to G-d. As it leaves the physical body it becomes the ultimate klal mentsch; it sees the broader perspective, having transcended beyond self.
MATURITY MEANS MOVING BEYOND SELF
The more responsibility we take on and the more we reach out to those around us, the more we are developing the soul within us. As such there isn't tension between "my" interests and "your" needs, between self and others. We expand and develop ourselves by getting involved with others and putting their needs before ours.
GROWING INSIDE, EXPANDING OUTWARD
This is the lesson gleaned from Moses' life story. Greatness is the expansion of self, when we are filled inside with a direct connection to G-d and then expand outward to include others, increasing our responsibilities and becoming klal mentschen. JewishWorldReview.com regularly publishes uplifting articles. Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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Comment by clicking here. The author is the Chief Rabbi of South Africa and the author of "Defending the Human Spirit: Jewish Law's Vision for a Moral Society," which explores the Torah's legal system compared to Western law. In using real court cases he demonstrate the similarities and differences between Judaism's view of defending the vulnerable and Western legal practice.
© 2012, Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein
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