Something Missing?
As life passes, some feel a constant lack or deficiency. This is so even when one is studying and praying, even when while accumulating experience and spiritual maturity.
Part 3 of “The Journey,” by Erez Moshe Doron: an elaboration of Rebbe Nachman’s famous tale of “The Rabbi and the Only Son”
He studied and prayed with perseverance….
Even if a person awakens every once in a while to try to understand where his life is headed and what is its goal, it is not sufficient. In order to take control of his life and to direct it towards a true goal he needs to persevere in this study. He has to critically examine every situation and not take anything for granted. Only in this way can he clarify for himself the difference between truth and falsehood, between reality and fantasy, between good and bad.
Furthermore, Rabbi Nachman’s intention here by adding the information that the son also …prayed with perseverance is not necessarily a person opening his mouth and uttering a prayer to the Creator in a clear and conscious manner. The questions which a person asks, the dreams which he weaves, or any desire which he looks forward to fulfilling… these are his prayers. If a person says, ‘”Were it so…” this is a prayer, an expression of his soul’s request.
Study for the sake of study, to merely accumulate knowledge is sterile and cannot produce anything. A person must join to his study and search a commitment to actualize the conclusions which he draws from the study of his life. He must live according to the values and truths to which he has arrived. He cannot live by merely talking about them.
Is there someone among us who would trust a professor of humanities, for example, who knows how to speak eloquently about great ethical principles while his own personal life is corrupt and immoral? Could someone believe that learning from such a person could produce fruits in the actual world or in the life of the student? If a person does not live according to what he understands to be right, then his understanding must be defective and his ability to explain is also deficient.
The main thing is not only to understand, but to apply our knowledge to life. The desire and hope to do this is what is intimated in our story by the concept of “prayer.”
The hero of our story, then, is the person who wants to pursue true study, who is open to the questions about life; and who wants to live by what he has learned from his spiritual search.
He felt within himself some sort of deficiency, but he was not able to define it or to successfully understand what it was. Since he did not feel any taste for study and prayer….
As life passes a person more and more feels a constant lack or deficiency. This is so even when one is “studying” and “praying,” even when one is accumulating experience and spiritual maturity. Even when a person has set up goals for himself and he is dreaming of their fulfillment or working towards their achievement, as life goes on he will more and more persistently feel this sense of deficiency.
But what is missing?
In this story Rabbi Nachman calls this missing element “taste”. What is the ingredient that gives taste in a person’s life? When we examine this question we find that it is, first of all, spiritual meaning. However, it must also be spiritual meaning of an everlasting and permanent nature, one which does not cease or wane.
When a person recalls a fine meal which he once ate, this memory does not retrieve the feeling of pleasure which he enjoyed at the time. On the contrary, his memory might well arouse discomfort and sorrow for the pleasure which has passed and gone.
On the other hand, remembering an act which has actual spiritual content always gives satisfaction. For example, if a person did an important favor or saved someone else’s life, the memory provides satisfaction and joy every time that it is recalled and this pleasurable feeling never ceases.
In contrast to material pleasures and physical experiences, these acts contain spiritual content which enhances them.
There is something within the human soul which knows this. What is encompassed within this material world is certainly not everything. The corporeal passes, and it is impossible to depend or rely upon it as if there is nothing else besides it. Consequently, there is a part of every person which constantly strives for “the taste of the everlasting,” for the taste which never fades.
The taste for the most amazing experience is spoiled when a person knows that it will not endure. This is the nature of all physical experiences, beginning with the satisfaction of the various bodily needs and including the more sublime pleasures of viewing beautiful scenery or hearing sweet music.
In the same instant that a person dreams of building a house for himself, of starting a family, of establishing a career, of accumulating adventures or money, the realization that death must ultimately bring an end and annihilation of these things spoils their significance and “taste” until they become meaningless. (Therefore, there exists a psychological barrier to the thought of death. This psychic defense is so successful that five minutes after he has attended a funeral a person can go back to his routine behavior as if he will live forever.)
Only an experience which is bound to spiritual values leaves an everlasting impression upon a person’s soul. Consequently, it is a type of satisfaction of another kind than routine corporeal experiences. It is a “taste of the eternal.” It is a taste which a person’s soul constantly seeks. It is a taste which can be achieved only through those actions which have spiritual content, and which consequently connect a person to eternity.
Those actions which can fulfill the “taste of the eternal” and which connect a person to the spiritual realm are the mitzvot. This Hebrew word literally means “commandments,” but it is actually a derivative of the cognate (צוות-tzevet) which means “team” or “jointed connection.” The commandment serves the function of joining the human being to the realm of eternal, spiritual reality.
Every person seeks satisfaction from those things that he does, and the ultimate satisfaction are those pleasures which never cease. However, this aspiration is always doomed to failure if it is limited to the physical realm. Material things are always transient, and so are the pleasures which can be derived from them.
Consequently, what is the solution for the soul for whom the pleasures of the physical world constantly leave a feeling of lack and deficiency? It is a stubborn search for the source of ceaseless, eternal satisfaction. By virtue of a deeply imprinted, inner knowledge the soul knows that it must find such a source. Once the feeling of deficiency is aroused, and it is joined by the inner knowledge or belief that there is some way to satisfy this sense of lacking, then the motivation for the spiritual journey begins to work.
It is an interesting phenomenon that for many people it is considered proper to just get rid of this feeling of deficiency. Indeed, the entire entertainment industry is intended for this purpose: to fill empty time, or to kill it. Consciously or otherwise, its intention is to diminish the anxiety or to make us forget it altogether. Some people would rather turn themselves into something like a sponge, absorbing the experiences projected on the television screen rather than experience the feeling of spiritual emptiness and isolation which is within them. Even while the old, “traditional” addictions to alcohol, drugs and the like are on the increase, all sorts of new diversions arise to grab people’s attention.
It is not difficult to understand why. They are all perverse solutions to the social disease of boredom and irrelevancy — life without “taste.”
In contrast, Rabbi Nachman presents in this story the feeling of deficiency in another light. Rather than a fault, it is considered the true motivation for a person to achieve meaningfulness.
Whereas it is certainly not pleasant to feel that something is missing, awareness of the void makes it possible to fill it. Similar ironies are revealed everywhere in nature. For example, a seed buried in the ground must decay and degenerate into nearly nothing before it can begin to grow into plants, trees, flowers and fruits. Thus, if a person recognizes that he is missing something and he goes to look for it, in the end he will be rewarded with spiritual growth and flowering although the beginning was full of uncomfortable anxiety.
The feeling of deficiency is known to everyone. Some people, if they are very materialistic, may feel it no more than once in twenty years. Some people may feel it in special circumstances such as when they behold a breathtaking scene or when they hear certain music which plays upon the strings of their souls. An especially powerful experience, such as when a person encounters the death of a close relative may bring on this feeling. At such times a person is not embarrassed to ask himself, “What is the meaning of life? Where can a person find true happiness?” Powerful experiences like these can dwarf everyday events and suddenly thrust a person into an encounter with the ancient, basic questions of life.
On the other hand, physical necessities and our constant preoccupation with the material world force us to rebury our heads in the mundane sand and to forget.
The hero of our story feels that he is missing something, but he gives legitimacy to the internal voice calling him to go to seek eternity, to search for the taste which never ends.
However, the voice of the soul is very low, even though it never desists. It is very easy to hide from it or to mistakenly take some other experience in its place. If a person does not pay attention to it, it might even hurt him. Nevertheless, the voice perforce returns and makes itself heard again and again.
To be continued.
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With sincere gratitude to www.levhadvarim.com
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