This world can be a confusing place. At times it can be difficult to know what’s truly worth pursuing, and what is just a superficial distraction—or worse, destructive.
Jewish wisdom describes our universe as a simulated reality in which G‑d imbues us with free choice in order to give us the opportunity to choose between the path of life and growth and that of death and decay. As the verse1 states, G‑d says: I have placed before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—so that you and your offspring will live.
To truly live, it is not enough to just exist. The Talmud2 teaches: “The wicked are considered dead even during their lifetime,” whereas, “the righteous are considered alive even in death.” To live means to lead a meaningful life in which we utilize every opportunity to learn, grow, and refine ourselves and the world around us.
As part of the game of life, G‑d planted decoys and obstacles along the way. Some of these are intensely personal to each of us, while others are applicable to the larger communities, species, or phylums of which we are a part.
The “game” was intentionally designed this way in order to challenge our resolve and test our ability to resist fleeting temptation and create a life of eternal value.
Alongside the game, G‑d also provided a map to help us identify where blessings can be found and alert us to the shadowlands and liminal spaces where danger often lurks.
This map is the Torah, the blueprint of creation,3 which illuminates the various routes through the labyrinth, revealing which pursuits are meaningful and nourishing and which are ultimately empty and vain.
Accordingly, the Torah functions like a spiritual GPS device, indicating where to turn and which roadblocks to avoid. These “directions” are communicated to us in a series of prohibited actions and permitted behaviors. The Hebrew terms for prohibited and permitted are asur and mutar, which literally mean tied and untied. But what does this dialectical image imply?
This is best explained by Lurianic Kabbalah,4 which views everything in this world as being composed of a mixture of good and evil—or, more accurately—of holy sparks that transparently reflect their Divine origin, and of klipot, or shells, which conceal and confine the holy sparks in this world.5
Our purpose on this earth is to purify and elevate the world by extracting the good from the bad, the blessing from the curse, the sparks from the shells, through mindfulness, sensitivity, and intentionality, and, in so doing, to return the sparks to their former luster in the light of the Divine. Kabbalistically speaking, this gathering of the sparks is our contribution to the culmination of creation; it is how we collaborate with G‑d in the art of redemption.
However, left to our own devices, we are not reliably capable of discerning the subtle contours and boundaries of such spiritual energies and properties. Furthermore, it is not always clear if and when we have the capability to successfully execute such a spiritually sensitive extraction of spark from shell. Such miscalculation can result in our soul’s entrapment in trivial distractions or spiritually dangerous situations, leading us, like the sparks, to lose some of our own soul’s transparent luminescence.
How then do we identify the presence of such redeemable sparks in order to know where true holiness might be found and elevated? Additionally, how do we determine when something might simply be irredeemable in general, or at least in relation to us?
This, according to the Kabbalists,6 is the function of Jewish law: By delineating for us between what is forbidden and permitted, the Torah reveals which sparks are “tied-up” and irredeemable, and which opportunities are “untied” and energetically available for us to engage and integrate into holiness. Indeed, the Hebrew word for transgression, aveirah, literally means to cross over (a line).
Like a treasure map, Jewish law helps us traverse the complex landscape of life by identifying where spiritual bounty is to be found.
It does this in three fundamental ways: 1) It tells us what is a mitzvah to do, providing us with clear paths to connect with G‑d through positive action (what to do); 2) it alerts us to which pursuits or behaviors will prove harmful to our soul and should therefore be avoided (what not to do); and 3) it demarcates the “neutral” or “permissible mundane” areas of life that have the potential to be incorporated into the realm of the holy through Divine consciousness and intentionality.
It is in this third realm, the realm of the permissible mundane, that we can do our most creative, challenging, and important work.
Creative, because that is where we have the freedom to proactively determine the spiritual context of our actions through the application of our clarified intention.
Challenging, because when something is either clearly forbidden or obligated, we know exactly what we need to abstain from or engage with, and its status is thus clearly delineated. When something is in the neutral zone, however, we need to employ our own powers of discernment to determine how it might best be elevated and transformed into something sacred.
And important, because these areas of the permissible mundane are precisely the neutral realms in which we might deepen and expand the spiritual presence within the world, beyond even what is explicitly outlined in the Torah. This is the Jewish alchemy of gradually Divinizing the world, revealing and releasing the fallen sparks hidden within every nook and cranny of creation.7
Ultimately, in the Divine scheme,8 there are only three possible responses to any given situation. Either it is a mitzvah to do, a prohibition to avoid, or an opportunity to take initiative and create meaning from within the realm of the permissible mundane by transforming something ordinary or even hedonistic into something extraordinary and holy.
The halachic lifestyle, filled as it is with permissions and prohibitions, is not meant to be experienced as one of purely technical rigidity and mechanistic behavior, as unfortunately some see it. Instead, it is a vital way of life in which every moment of every day is an exciting opportunity to utilize our temporal lives to discover and unlock treasures of eternal value. The Torah—our guide, our map, our blueprint, our compass—points the way for us to reach the Promised Land of perfected, redeemed reality. It is up to us to take the necessary steps to achieve that goal.
The Torah is not merely a legal code but a cosmic map whose instructions help attune us to the spiritual frequency of the universe.
The Baal Shem Tov once sent one of his young disciples, R. Moshe Meshel, with a letter to his disciple, the great scholar R. Chaim Rapaport.
The letter instructed R. Rapaport to travel to a designated place in the forest outside the city and study Torah there in depth, recite Minchah, then return home. Despite not knowing the purpose of this mission, R. Rapaport implicitly followed his teacher’s instructions.
After traveling to the designated location and studying there for a few hours, R. Rapaport became very thirsty. While he continued studying, his companions went to search for some water. In the midst of the thick forest undergrowth, they discovered a fountain and brought back fresh water for him to drink. He also used the water to wash his hands before praying Minchah, after which they returned home.
Soon after, R. Rapaport visited the Baal Shem Tov and told him that ever since going on the mission, his eyes and heart were opened in Torah study and the service of G‑d, and he had made more spiritual progress in that brief period than ever before. He thanked the Baal Shem Tov for sending him there.
The Baal Shem Tov replied: “Without even knowing it, you accomplished a great task there. It is written in the holy Zohar that ever since G‑d separated the lower waters from the upper waters on the second day of creation, the lower waters have been weeping and begging to appear before the Holy King, that they be used for holy purposes, such as hand washing before prayer, Torah study, and eating bread, and immersion in a mikveh.
“Near the place where I sent you, there was a fountain that had been weeping for five thousand, five hundred nineteen years—since the creation of the world: Why should it be less than all the other fountains in the world? Why should its waters be denied their elevation? Since the Holy One, blessed be He, had created it, no one had ever made a blessing over its waters, and they had never been used for holy purposes. That day, when you drank its water and used it to wash your hands for prayer, you elevated that fountain. This was all the working of Divine Providence. Every creature and creation has a time for its elevation, and it is preordained when it will occur and by whom. And that is true for each and every soul; it too has its time for elevation.”9
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