Keep Searching!
Rabbi Nachman teaches us that even a crooked intellect cannot resist or stand in the way of a determined commitment to get to the truth if a person stubbornly insists.
Part 6 of “The Journey,” by Erez Moshe Doron: an elaboration of Rebbe Nachman’s famous tale of “The Rabbi and the Only Son”
His father spoke to him in this way until he prevented the son from making the journey. The son returned to his routine of study.
Actually, not everyone returns to his studies.
At some point everyone experiences some sort of spiritual arousal. For some it is sooner; for some it is later. Some people experience it strongly, and others much more weakly. However, after their first disappointing attempts and the onset of those confusing thoughts which prevent a person from going onward with the spiritual search, most people do not return to study and seek life’s real meaning.
Very often we can hear a person saying, “Yes, I also searched for the truth once.” The first attempt was enough, and he doesn’t want to try again.
Young people usually cultivate a picture of the way the world ought to be. When that harmonious picture is shattered by the hard knocks of sorrowful reality, then the older, more experienced person files away the youthful vision of a just and ordered world into the draw marked “youthful dreams.” There he is able to forget about them. “Be realistic,” he will say to himself when conversation or his private musings turn to the topic of values and perfection.
However, the hero of our story does go back to his studies. Despite his misgivings he returns and tries again. He does not compromise with the iniquity and evil in the world, or its deficiencies. Then the feeling that something is missing comes back to trouble him as before.
Once again he sought advice from his friends, and a second time they advised him to travel to the holy man.
By this point in the story his advisers are no longer called “young,” but just “friends.” The reason is that people mature and get stuck into a fixed way of life. As a person becomes set in his way of life, the vitality of youth more and more wanes. His inner potential for change, for rebellion, “to take off” dissipates.
Dreams about a better world and a more beautiful life are exchanged for the necessities of life. A person may imagine that his aspirations are unique. He likes to think that he is original. However, the usual pattern … school, career, family, house, mortgage, debts and children … impresses itself upon most of us. It is like a trap waiting for the wild bird to fall into it. This is not to say that these steady patterns are bad. It is just a fact of life that as a person is drawn into responsibilities for others and financial obligations, then the flow of life is limited.
If a person has not clarified “Why I am alive” and what are the true values of life by the time he begins to be drawn into a set way of life, when he is older it is very difficult to start to search.
…A second time they advised him to travel to the holy man.
The solution is really quite simple. Go! Detach yourself from your conceptions, and start to look for something that will give you satisfactory solutions and answers to your questions.
He went back to his father, but as on the previous occasion his father once again turned his heart and blocked his intention to journey…. All the while the son felt that he was lacking something. Although he did not know what it was, he yearned to fill the emptiness that he was feeling.
Little by little the inner feeling that something is missing becomes more and more piercing for our hero. Now it is not merely a feeling that he is lacking something, but a yearning and longing. As time passes and a person becomes ever more sunk in his everyday habits without any true spiritual depth, then the soul screams louder and his pain is greater.
There are several psychological schools which endeavor to solve the problem of the feeling of emptiness by putting various labels on it. It has been called the crisis of youth, the silly teens, the thirty crisis, the forty crisis, the crisis of the golden years, etc. In any case, the agony of the soul cannot be quieted by labels.
Once the son returned to his father to insist until the father was forced to agree.
Here is a very important rule which Rabbi Nachman is teaching us. Even a crooked intellect cannot resist or stand in the way of a determined commitment to get to the truth if a person stubbornly insists. In the end, it is the soul which gives life to a person, and the intellect is forced to accept its role as a tool.
“I will travel with you,” the father said, “but I will show you that this holy man whom you want to seek advice from is not for real, and he is not even a holy man at all.”
This is a completely ridiculous statement. Finally, the intellect is “permitting” the search for truth to go on. However, it has no intention of finding the truth. It is looking for the “untruth.”
Any scientist or academic who approached a research subject in this manner would never be able to derive legitimate results and his conclusions would be entirely unreliable. Here is not an example of a person going to seek the truth. He is not going to examine this subject in order to discover whether it is true or false. He already has a pre-determined conclusion. He is only going to salve his conscience by claiming afterwards, “I have already searched, and I know,” or “I have already heard what these religious people have to say.”
At this point the intellect is still subservient to the physical body which opposes any attempt on the part of the person’s soul to escape from its hold. If that would happen the soul would make a revolution and become the master. The physical body has no desire for such a turn of events. It therefore girds its loins with all its powers for battle and employs the assistance of its dedicated servant, the intellect, in order to upset the plan.
To be continued.
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With sincere gratitude to www.levhadvarim.com
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