Behind the Scenes of the Heavenly Drama | Rabbi Yosef Y. Jacobson

in with that famous verse in deuteronomy hero israel moses says the lord is our god the lord is one what does it mean that the lord is one so the classic translation of jewish and other philosophers has been god as one basically negates polytheism unlike the pagan myths where there were many gods there's one god one ruler one planner one designer one plan behind the universe the source of ethical monotheism another view discussed among my by maimonides is god as one is god is not a physical corporal being composite of many parts say like the limbs of a unified body but rather it's a transcendental oneness that is not a composite of parts that's the traditional philosophical interpretation of god being one however the mystics especially the baal shem tov the founder of the hasidic movement and his successors explained it in a different fashion god is one doesn't only mean there is one god or god himself is completely unified and not made up of diverse pieces and fragments god is one means god is the only one god is one means there is one reality and that is god and it excludes all other reality which is somewhat of a strange interpretation and difficult to comprehend because if i'm not mistaken i am now standing at the podium and speaking to you believe it or not and i see you sitting in front of me so how can mature thoughtful mystics jews scholars hasidic masters make this what seems like a bizarre claim that hashem god god is one means there is only one reality and god is that only exclusive reality excluding all other reality does that mean that we believe that the world is a dream and that life is a myth and an optical illusion but the same torah begins with the words god created heaven and earth all of judaism is based on the fact that there is an existence called existence called the universe humanity you and i our players are actors or players in that existence what does this mean that god has won excluding all other reality this will open a portal into understanding the quite fascinating kabbalistic and hasidic approach to understanding some of the drama of creation some of what we mean when we talk of god our relationship with god the essence of torah and of judaism and if i wish to put it in some words i would say there have been throughout history many many approaches to life developed among various religions philosophers movements they all share a common denominator it is interesting that most of them have seen judaism either as an enemy or as something very strange and foreign is there a common denominator between all of the religions and the philosophies including the philosophy of secularism based on darwin's evolution and fundamental christianity in contrast to the jewish religion the answer is yes they all share a commonality even if they seem so different from each other in contrast to judaism and we'll put it in very simple terms it's a question of something from something or something from nothing in hebrew something from something is yes yes yes in hebrew means something yes means something from something in judaism we have a concept called something from nothing which we define in hebrew as yesh me i in something from nothing or if you want to use the latin term it's ex nihilo or ex nihilo something from nothing now this may seem as a completely abstract conceptualization of themes that should interest philosophers or speculators that will not have much relevant to our lives especially not after such a heavy lunch in august of 2013 here at the national jewish retreat but in judaism as you know the most abstract concepts are linked and interconnected with our concrete day-to-day reality challenges blessings and issues and the same is true with this concept of something from something versus something from nothing something from something is basically the model the rational model that we all use in order to live life we all use it i say all from the scientists and physicists to the businessman and housewife from the greatest scholar delving into text on astronomy or philosophy and geology to a simple laborer fixing a toilet bowl or a plumber all of us employ the same rational model of something from something which you can define as cause and effect every reality in our world is an effect that has an antecedent which is a cause that cause is an effect of yet a previous cause which is the outcome of yet a previous cause and so we trace back every effect to a cause and then to another causing another cause so when you look at a tree we all know that that tree has an antecedent that tree is not something from nothing that apple tree came about from the seed of the apple tree that has been planted which in turn is the effect of a previous tree which is in turn the effect of a previous seed when i look at a goldfish i know that that goldfish did not emerge from nowhere that goldfish was hatched from an egg the egg also has an antecedent which itself has a cause when i look at a wooden home i know there's an antecedent and it's called lumber and the lumber itself has a cause which is the forest etc etc i look at myself or i look at another human being we did not emerge from nothingness we each have a cause and antecedent it's called the seed in the egg of our mother and our father which in turn have their cause and their cause all the way back to the beginning now you know you know uh the story right okay if you don't know i'll tell it to you there was a bar mitzvah boy there was a bar mitzvah boy who uh it's one of my top ten so listen carefully comes to his mother and says mom i'm preparing my bar mitzvah speech and at this speech i want to talk about the family lineage where do we come from can you tell me about our origins and mom says of course and she begins waxing eloquent about her bubba and zeda about her grandmother and and grandfather and great grandparents and the prominent prestigious lineage of this family no he says mom all the way back where did we begin oh all the way back mom says well don't you know god created the world in six days on the sixth day he created adam and eve adam and eve decided to have children and the rest is history or her story so he comes to his father his father is an enlightened graduate of ivy league universities and he says dad where do we come from i want to talk at my bar mitzvah about our origin and that again speaks about his family lineage no no dad all the way back the origin of our existence oh that says let me introduce you to the concept of evolution we have evolved evolved from what we have evolved from apes his father explains them it took hundreds of millions of years but we are evolution in the making and the apes and that's as the apes have evolved from other primates all the way back that but how did it all begin that says it all began with an explosion of bacteria the boy comes back to his mom and says you know mom i'm very confused i want to give this bar mitzvah speech about where we come from and you tell me we come from god and adam and eve but that tells me we come from apes monkeys and bacteria who got it right and his mother says son there's really no contradiction your father was talking about his side of the family [Applause] where i am talking about my side of the family now we we live our lives based on the idea of cause and effect there's no way you can try to heal a disease you can try to invest in a stock market you can try to plan a vocation you try to create a company you try to organize your life or your home you try to work with a psychoanalyst to figure yourself out if there's no cause and effect if we don't trace back realities to the antecedents and try to predict the future so all of our life for it to be cohesive organized for it to have some sense and logic is based on the idea that one something always comes from a precedent from another something which comes from another something and the last something is always linked to the first something even if the chain is very distant and complex so when i look at an apple tree in its full splendor it in no way looks like the seed rotten in the earth but we all know that that tree as different from its source is ultimately an evolutionary product of that seed even if they seem so different or to put it differently i can identify the properties of the apple tree within its antecedent i do not look today like i looked when i was in my mother's womb unfortunately i'm a little larger but we all know that when you examine microscopically the sperm and the egg that contains within itself the properties that will later be fleshed out and fully developed in the embryo the fetus and ultimately the child so yes the link may be very distant maybe very complex maybe very multi-layered and multi-dimensional but ultimately there is a link and every something can be traced back to a source which is traced back to another source and another source and another source what is the original source here almost all philosophies and religions agree although the secular evolutionary scholar may completely speak of the original source in terms of natural phenomena and the christian theologian may call that source god it's really a difference of semantics they both agree that there is a something a something that can be identified in one form or another that gave birth to the next something which gave birth to the next something but they both agree that there is a something and that's something we figure out by going backwards by extrapolating and saying here is the product now let's see and examine its antecedent let's examine its antecedent back back back back back the man believes in random evolution may say it began with the big bang the religious theologian may say there is intelligent design there's some mind who created it we have a mind and this being had a mind that they call god but there's ultimately a something that is the cause of all the some things that we encounter judaism has a very different perspective on existence and it's fascinating that we jews often are completely unaware of it and this is what i want to address with you today and examine it what is judaism's perspective on existence and see its ramifications and then you will see that all the antagonism of all religions and philosophies to judaism even if they're extreme within themselves from paganism from greek paganism or myth to christianity from secular evolutionary biology to buddhist or hindu theology there is a commonality among all of them and judaism is set apart something from nothing versus something from something the way the baal shem tov and rabbi schneider zalman of lyadi introduced this concept is by introducing the idea of perpetual creation the capitalists write that creation is not a one-time event creation is a perpetual phenomenon which means every single moment god the creator is recreating the world something from nothing so creation is not an event that occurred 5 73 years ago but creation is occurring right now as i speak and as i continue to speak and as i pause perpetually why what is the meaning of this what is the significance of this what are the ramifications of this so we still have to address god as one and there's no other reality something from nothing versus something from something and now the phenomenon of per perpetual creation and for this i'm going to employ a metaphor and i want you to try to pay attention to this metaphor because it's an incomplete metaphor i don't have a complete metaphor but it's the best we can come up with i think one of the better ones we can come up with okay one of the greatest gifts nature or god has bestowed upon humanity especially the jewish people that have allowed them to survive through endless sermons of rabbis lectures by professors retreats by chabad hebrew school courses is something we call daydreaming daydreaming is a wonderful phenomenon in fact probably 15 of the people sitting here right now are engaged in a daydream as i speak i'm sorry for disturbing it at the moment you will be able to go back to it momentarily what is the concept of a daydream those of you who had the great fortune to sit in yeshiva for many years or other schools and many years and the teacher was so boring and instinctively subconsciously our daydream begins to work and in our daydream we travel the world for free and we conjure lovely images and then when the teacher says class is over dismissed we come back to reality and we go we take on the world wow what a brilliant gift i have the great misfortune to attend many jewish dinners i don't know how many of you share that privilege but i go to many many dinners usually not because i like the smorgasbord i like that too but usually i must i speak at these dinners and they usually put me at the end you know what i mean i always say put me up five o'clock let me do my spill and go home i'll have my wife's dinner it's healthier however they put me at the end and you know when jewish dinners end they usually end at dawn because everyone has to talk right in fact in fact the other day i was at a dinner in montreal now the only ones who are more late than hasidim are syrian spider-jews they're notoriously late notoriously six o'clock means 10 o'clock they told me i'm going up 10 o'clock to speak it was midnight and i didn't speak yet and i was supposed to give a 45 minute keynote and there was already a seven course meal and nine honorees and every hour he was supposed to speak for a minute and a half and they ended up speaking as good jews for 20 25 minutes plus video presentations plus a choir plus rewards plus books it's 12 o'clock i turned to the rabbi and i said have compassion on god's creatures don't put up a speaker of 45 minutes he said you should go for an hour i said for what foo for when make believe i'm not here i'm happy not to give the speech i'm happy to go back to my hotel room make believe i'm not here the dinner was nice you made your money yeah you know what they say whenever you go to a pharmacist you could never read the prescription right of your doctor because what does it say the doctor says i made my money you made you you make your money and and so be it you made your money let's call it a night no no no they came to hear you i get up it's 12 o'clock you know the look on the crowd you know the look you know what i mean i get up i felt bad for myself even more i felt bad for them you know because they have to listen and they were being polite so i told them i told them i said you know there was once a dinner actually there was once a dinner and people spoke people spoke and they went on and on and on and on and then there was a speaker who really went on for an hour so everybody left the room there was one man who stayed there was one man who stayed and the speaker saw him he said ah finally somebody appreciates my genius so he went for another hour it was now one o'clock in the morning and the man was still there he says you know i think i have found my ultimate pupil so he goes for another hour he finishes two o'clock in the morning he comes over to that man and he says you know socrates had a plato i have been looking for my plato all my life i have found him you you will now become my beloved disciple who will transcribe all my wisdom for eternity what do you say about my genius the man says to be very honest with you i wasn't really listening he says you mean i spoke three hours to the walls i thought i was speaking to you he says no i wasn't listening he says so what are you doing here he says i'm the next speaker so i told the crowd i told the crowd in montreal i told the crowd i said i have i have bad news and i have good news the bad news is i'm the next speaker the good news is i'm the last speaker so when i'm done you get to go home not before you take second portions of the viennese table and then i did my spill he wanted 45 minutes i gave him 45 minutes he actually wanted an hour i gave him an hour and it worked they survived i survived and so forth what do jews do it's called daydreaming all of you have been daydreaming i don't mean today by my lecture but generally generally especially when you come to business meetings board meetings consultation meetings you sit in waiting rooms you sit in shul soon going to be rosh hashanah kipper what would we do without the gift of daydreaming now i want to perfect your skill of daydreaming since i've done it over many many years during all these dinners for many hours i'm a little bit of an expert in the process with daydreaming is a wonderful thing because it allows you to do anything you can travel from here to australia first class for free the food is delicious unlike plain food it's like national jewish retreats catering the movies are wonderful you have the whole first class for yourself it's really an amazing in your daydream you can go shopping and window shopping and actual shopping you could buy everything and you could return it and make all your money back right you know when our wives tell us i made you a lot of money because i returned my clothes and uh we all look forward and we pray you know when we give the credit card may god help that she returns everything and and it's wonderful you can buy it you could return it you can keep it in your daydream it always fits you perfectly it always looks perfectly in the daydream i also daydream sometimes i remember many years ago and i started to speak publicly i had an event coming up 3 000 people would attend i was a little anxious and i remember a few weeks before i was walking in the street and you know when you start daydreaming you don't realize you're daydreaming and suddenly i realized after a few minutes i was daydreaming what was i daydreaming i daydreamed of me delivering the speech and in my daydream i saw the people of course these were not real people but i conjured up in my daydream the people i saw the pulpit i heard me being called up i spoke to them i even heard the standing ovations afterwards i heard it in the daydream i even saw the person in the back who didn't like me and i managed to get upset at them in my daydream and to negate to to harbor negative emotions towards them and then i came to my destination i awoke for my daydream and all was gone in my daydream in my daydream i can go to a giants game if i like football i can go to a yankees game if i like baseball i could join 30 000 spectators buy kosher hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut a twig of beer and coca-cola together with some french fries and barbecue sauce sitting at the game cheering yay eating the hot dog and watching 30 000 people ecstatic at the game all in my daydream think about any daydream that you have think about the daydream you just had a few moments ago and you'll see you went somewhere you spoke to somebody you experienced an emotion daydreams are almost alive in our own imagination until we sober up and now i want to ask you a foolish question forgive me okay in yiddish they used to call it a klutzkasa a klutzkasa means a question of a clots which is simple questions but they're sometimes good questions i was daydreaming and in my daydream i saw 3000 people i heard my speech i heard the applause i was at the giants game and i saw 30 000 bodies and then and then when i awoke from my daydream they were all gone there was not a single person there was no nothing left of the event and my question to you is what happened to all of them why when i stopped daydreaming are none of these realities in existence any longer the answer of course is smart rabbi these realities never existed outside of your mind the definition of their existence was you were thinking of them that is the very stuff of their existence what does it mean that these 3 000 people exist in my daydream they don't have an existence independent of my daydream what it means is that in my conscious or unconscious mind in the waves within my brain i created an image of these 3 000 people the definition of their existence is me thinking about them when i stop thinking about them they are gone why because they had no existence outside of the fact that i was thinking about them that is the very definition of their existence what does it mean that they exist i was thinking about them when i stopped thinking about them they have no existence but let's say i'm thinking about you sitting right here in front of me when i stop thinking about you will you cease to exist of course not why because the definition of your existence is not that i am thinking of you the definition of your existence is that you exist outside of me so i may be thinking of you i may not be thinking of you but regardless you exist independent of me however the character in my dream has no existence outside of me thinking of them they have no independent existence outside of my reality the definition the very material the very stuff of their existence is what is my brain chemicals is my thought so when i stop thinking there is no reality outside of my thought that is the meaning of their existence and therefore they cease to exist and now i ask you this question our world our entire universe was created something from nothing so it's like the character in the daydream meaning here we come to the crux of the issue that divides something from something to something from nothing something from something means that the last something has an existence because its existence can be identified within the first something and therefore after the first something produces the second something even if it goes away the second something continues to exist for example if you're a carpenter and you take a piece of wood and you develop it into a lovely table into a pulpit into a stender you're a goldsmith and you make a candelabra you're a silversmith and you divine a beautiful goblet of silver will the goblet revert back to its original form when the silversmith begins his work when the artist finishes his or her painting and they hang it on the wall do they perpetually have to create it obviously not they create the painting they hang it on the wall and they're gone i create a vessel a piece of furniture a home a design a piece of clothing even when i finish my work it still exists why because what did i do i didn't create something new something from nothing i created something from something i developed one something from another something because i just developed and actualized something that was there in potential even after i am gone the second something still exists because it has a reality outside of me i just developed what is i took the tree and i took the lumber and i developed it into a bookcase but i didn't create something new something from nothing it was something from something the bookcase existed in potential within the lumber within the forest i just had to actualize and develop its potential so once i developed that potential even if the carpenter is gone the builder is gone the product still remains intact because the product exists independently but what about the characters in my daydream i have to perpetually create them what do i have to do for the characters in the daydream to cease to exist what do i have to do stop thinking i don't have to kill them i don't have to shoot them i don't have to burn them i just have to stop thinking because the only way they can exist is if i perpetually conjure them up in my brain why because it's something from nothing they don't have a substance independent of me their entire substance is nothing but me thinking of their reality so if i perpetually create them they're there if i cease to create them they go back to what they always were and are nothingness where the piece of lumber exists independent of the carpenter the carpenter merely developed the lumber into a bookcase he created something from something but the something was there independent so even when he or she takes their hands off the product it remains the daydreamer on the other hand created something from nothing something that has no substance outside of me creating it something whose entire existence is the fact that i am thinking of it it's something from nothing and therefore as long as i think them they are the moment i seize they're gone now i ask you this question our entire universe is it something from something or something from nothing comes the torah and says bereshit bara the word bara in the beginning god created heaven and earth creation nahmanides ramban writes when it says the word create it's not like formation in hebrew there are two words briya and yitzira briya is creation etira is formation everything in our world is formation something from something the seed is formed into a fetus the egg is hatched into the chicken the dollar morphs into hopefully a hundred dollars etc creation of the universe is something from nothing what do i mean is something from nothing there was no something that god worked with there was no pre-existing material which god used like a carpenter or an artist who has a canvas and pigment and a quill and uses these materials to create a painting the entire universe is something from nothing god willed there to be a world and as a result of that there is a universe which brings me to this question what does god have to do in order for our world to cease to exist what does god have to do if he wants our world to cease to exist one word nothing he has to do nothing just like the character in the daydream what do you have to do so that that character in your daydream should not exist nothing stop thinking about it because that character has no identity outside of you thinking about it so what does god have to do for the world to cease to exist stop thinking stop creating it he has to basically do nothing because when he does nothing the world reverts to what it is what is it nothingness it's just god creates it every moment and that's why there is perpetual creation just like with your daydream if you stop for a moment daydreaming they're gone you have to continuously create it because it has no substance outside of you the universe has no existence outside of its creator it's something from nothing not something from something so therefore god has to perpetually create existence moment after moment after moment after moment so descartes said i think therefore i am the torah says god thinks therefore i am god thinks therefore i am in fact the definition of my eye is what god actively thinking however there is a big difference between the metaphor of the daydream and the idea of creation what's the difference two differences one is the characters in the daydream don't have a tangible reality i can't really punch them in the face i mean i can punch my brain which won't be too wise our existence has a tangible reality what we call physicality there's also another difference the characters in the daydream don't have free choice they are complete products of my imagination they don't have the delusion of independence where we can walk around our entire lives and it should never even occur to us that everything is nothing but godly energy and that is why the bible doesn't say god thought and there was light god thought and there were animals god thought and there was man what does the bible say god spoke what's the difference between thought and speech thought is intimate speech is projective you don't know my thoughts my thoughts can never be distorted in your mind because you don't know what i'm thinking thought is always within me thought remains within my space like my daydreams i don't know what you're daydreaming i just know that you are daydreaming over there in the back but what you're daydreaming beats me i hope it's something interesting when i speak you hear what i'm saying you can interpret my words in fact and let me tell this to you it's something good to know what most speakers say and what people hear is not the same thing i have often asked people what did you hear me say i'm happy if it's something new and not opposite usually it's opposite of what i wanted to say especially when you tell a story especially with jewish crowds because i told you earlier they don't listen they right away develop opinions so it's very hard for them to retain it so speaking can be distorted in fact you can take my words and use them against me you can distort my words misinterpret them misunderstand them misconstrue them it happens constantly you remember the telephone game we used to play that's exactly what happens that's why creation is not god's thought that's why creation is god's speech because it would be god's thought there would be no room for distortion i would look at me and i would look at you and what would i see when i see you i would see what would i see in you godliness god's thoughts that's what i am that's what you are which would make us one but now i look at myself i look at you i have an ego you have an ego at least i have an ego some of you may also have an ego ego as i told you is easing god out and hence there is you anders me why is shabbat holy i want you to understand this so next shabbat will be different what do we say in the bible god worked for six days and what happened on the seventh day he rested really god worked really really hard but he lifted weights he lifted 350 pounds for six days isn't god god isn't god good at what he does was god really exhausted it's like whoa i have to turn off myself when it was a hard week i mean god rested what type of god is he if he has to rest my dear friends it means something much more deep much more sophisticated for six days god speaks the world on shabbat god thinks the world the world is elevated from a product of speech to a product of thought and because the world is godliness so when god thinks the world the world is now absorbed in his presence so the whole world becomes a holier place so even the food that we eat and the nap that we take and the conversations we have have a quality of holiness to them so when you light the candles friday afternoon what i want you to meditate and imagine is for the feminine souls among us namely at this moment you're welcoming the world from a product of speech into a product of thought now the world is not anymore god speaking it the world is god thinking it so he ceases to work meaning it's not a thing of speech it's a thing of thought so you remember in camp you ever had a counselor who would tell you these scary good night stories right okay so i was a counselor for quite a few years and i had to entertain my kids right so 9 30 at night and i don't have a story to tell them so what do i do 300 years ago there lived a man in a forest and i make up the story as i'm going right but imagine my words can actually create those realities that's what creation is every moment god thinks therefore i am god speaks therefore i am so what is the eye of i who am i if you can unravel me if you can remove all my layers what is the eye of i if you can get to the core of the character in the daydream what will you find me my thought my energy my mind the eye of the eye is divine energy so now when we say hero israel the lord is our god the lord is one and the bolshem says god is the only reality what does that mean the answer is very simple if you're daydreaming that you are by a giants game okay come back to the giants now and there's 30 000 people in the whoops 30 000 people in the stadium right i want to ask you do you feel less lonely because there's 30 000 people with you are you now 30 000 people instead of one why not because all these 30 000 people are what it's your thought it's your energy it's you they say what's the definition of chutzpah you go to the therapist because you have a split personality and you want a group discount so when you say there's god and there's me no no no no we have to get rid of that the balshemptav got rid of that there's no god and me the eye of i is god the reality of reality is god now come back to torah and this is an important paradigm shift and i want you to understand this was probably the essence of the hasidic revolution of the balsamic teachings okay open up a bible anywhere it's not a fun book to read trust me i've been reading it all my life i've been teaching it all my life especially when you come to these portions okay god commands you to do so and so if you follow the commandment you'll be blessed if you disobey his commandment you'll be cursed god wants you to obey his commandments all he asks of you is obey obey obey his will and then he'll be good and if not you're going to suffer let me give you the translation okay this word god is a very problematic word listen to this that i'm doing the same verses okay the essence of your reality dictates that if you live a life in accordance with your own core it will be blessed if you live a life of dissonance in which you're alienated from your own core it could never feel good it could never work if i'm eating foods i have a diabetic history in my family so that's why these retreats are lethal for me so i stay away from the cheesecake right but i love cheesecake that's a fact so i say i love cheesecake i'll eat it yes but 30 minutes later i'm in a bad mood because i ate something that was at odds with the composition of my physiological self but just like i have a physiological self i have on a deeper level the core of myself that is divine energy so when the torah says do this don't do this what the torah is really saying is by doing this you will be in touch with your reality which is god because god is you and you are god the eye of i is god in fact god is is not a great term god is not god is sounds like there's god and god is great god is smart god is kind god is tough god no business is god you got that isn't this i s hyphen n e s s reality is god we exist in reality we are reality we are part of god the term god is a very confusing term it sounds like an existence outside of ourselves which is why monotheism often breeds atheism nietzsche said if god exists i would like to be god why does he have all the power the answer is god doesn't exist god is existence there is no existence outside of god even if there is god outside of existence so when there's a mitzvah it's not a commandment a mitzvah is not a commandment that's a very primitive translation even if a very popular one and on some level true definition of a mitzvah is what is a way to create alignment between you and you a mitzvah is the ability to relieve ourselves of the burden of spiritual schizophrenia a mitzvah torah life means the opportunity to relieve ourselves of the burden of making believe we exist that's a terrible burden which is why to live a jewish life always means to relax and to live in the moment because to live with god means to live in the moment because right now you and i are being created so when i live in the past or i live in the future i'm not living with reality to live with reality means to leave in the moment it also means stop worrying so much don't be so anxious don't figure out everything in your life forever because it's being created every single moment something from nothing imagine somebody gives you a lift and you're holding a suitcase and you hold on to the suitcase and they say why don't you put down your suitcase they say no it's enough that you're taking me i don't want to bother you to take my suitcase too and you tell them you you're in a car it doesn't make a difference to me if i carry you and i carry your suitcase we sometimes live life and we say oh you have all these burdens what's going to be what's going to be what's going to be and we carry these burdens on our shoulders like a washing machine on our shoulders and god turns to i don't understand you i am creating you right now every single moment how do you think you're breathing how do you think you're walking how do you think you're inhaling and exhaling how do you think your heart is beating i am right now thinking and speaking that you should exist so you think i can deal with your suitcase just let go give me a suitcase i'm creating your whole entity something from nothing from nothing literally from nothing which means that there is another very powerful consequence to this idea namely how significance how significant is the food i eat how significant is a word i say compare one word that you say or one piece of food that you eat to the largest galaxy in our universe and you say this is insignificant remember when ilan ramon went out of space and they asked him what earth looks like they interviewed him i remember i heard the interview unfortunately he never made it back and he said such a little little planet what's all this fighting our planet our earth is like a marble we are like specks of dusts how can you give that significance relative to the galaxies hence the greeks and the same is true many philosophers today human existence can't be that meaningful but from a jewish perspective one second the galaxy doesn't really exist and i don't really exist we're nothing we both exist why because god wants me to exist and he wants the galaxy to exist so from his perspective we both have the same value and the same significance and that's why in judaism we give equal value to a single act thought speech of a person like we give to the largest planet but how can you compare i'm a little mortal nothing today i'm here i don't know what's going to be tomorrow the answer is if i'm looking from my own perspective then everything is nothing then the largest galaxy is there's nothing in life the whole universe is nothing it's all something from nothing if i'm looking from god's perspective the fact that anything exists is because god wanted you to exist at this moment right now and that means it has infinite value and infinite significance and it means i'm never a victim of the past i can always recreate myself because creation is happening right now so you have to tune into the beat you gotta dance to the music live in the present when you live in the present you recreate yourself every moment every moment has infinite value every moment has insignificance so finally in conclusion how many of you have read kurt vonnegut breakfast of champions he has one scene there and this scene i want to close with and i want you to think about kurt vonnegut was a jew and a strange fellow okay like many of us in the breakfast of champions he has a novel but it's not a regular novel it's a novel about a novel right he came up with an idea he doesn't tell a story he tells a story about a story about a novel so there's this guy in the novel about the novel who's sitting in a bar drinking minding his own business very relaxed suddenly he hears footsteps and he starts sweating as the footsteps increase his sweat increases look at me and then this person whose footsteps he heard makes an entrance into the bar and the man sitting minding his own businesses vanishes into nothingness he ceases to exist and kurt vonnegut asks the question who walked into the bar anybody the author the author walked into the bar in other words remember this is a novel about a novel so the character in the novel is minding his own business and enjoying himself and feeling good about himself then he hears footsteps he starts sweating when the author walks in he realizes that he has no reality outside of the stroke of the pen of the author so imagine you're writing a novel and with the stroke of the pen you're creating characters you're giving them imagination you're giving them emotion you're giving them physical features but they have no existence outside of your stroke of the pen but they don't have a consciousness imagine you would be able to give your characters in your novel consciousness and they would actually think they are independent and then one day you show up well my dear holy friends this happens to each and every one of us at some point in our life sometimes when we're 10 sometimes when we're 20. sometimes when we're 30 sometimes it happens a few moments before the end the author of the novel walks into our consciousness and we realize that we constitute a stroke of the pen of the author when i make peace with that i become both nothing and infinite at the same time thank you very much if you like that video hit the subscribe button and notification bell below for hours of the best jewish content online

Channel: Jewish Learning Institute

Views: 37,509

Keywords: jli, Jewish Learning Institute

Id: ChdkfMJWAWU

Length: 54min 52sec (3292 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2021