The Russian Doll

“For the Jew must always focus on the inner intelligence of every matter…” [Likutei Moharan 1:1.2]

I had a babushka, a Russian doll when I was a child.  I could never quite work out what the purpose of it was.  It was quite fun opening it up and taking out the “family” of smaller dolls but afterwards, well, there just wasn’t anything left to do with them other than put them back.

I’m not sure why the concept of the Russian doll popped into my mind. I was thinking about how we evaluate the true purpose in our lives and I suddenly had this vision of the dolls, opening one to reveal another, and so on.  It seemed somehow to be relevant because we quite often don’t get past the externality of our lives and, more importantly, our own selves – maybe because we don’t want to or maybe because we don’t know how to.

Rebbe Nachman says we should look for the inner wisdom in everything as this will lead us to Hashem but in order to do this we need the Torah and, if this inner wisdom is beyond our capabilities, we should just rely on simple faith.

Our times are momentous but also contradictory. On the one hand, cosmologists, physicists, mathematicians, scientists, etc are making mind blowing discoveries, the roots of which are to be found in the Torah; this is as it should be, because Torah informs reality, it’s the spiritual DNA of creation.  I’ve watched documentaries in which the scientific presenters have used words like awesome, miraculous, wondrous, complex etc and, yet, with all the evidence available are unable – or unwilling – to entertain the possibility of a Creator behind it [well, at least in public].

On the other hand, we see mankind has developed an insatiable appetite for materiality, acquisition and the superficiality which comes with it.  Again, we still have not worked out that it can’t create an enduring satisfaction; all it creates is a need for more of the same because it’s detached from the divine.

I’ve always been interested in fashion, not fashion for fashion’s sake, but rather as an objective creativity; I enjoy putting colours together and I’ve always been drawn to a classic, timeless look.  I’ve noticed over, say, the last 10 years that fashion styles have become increasingly broken down; anything goes, mismatched clothes, clashing colours, torn jeans, you name it.  I thought maybe it’s me, my age, a different generation, and until recently I’ve not been able to put my finger on why I find it so painful to see. And then it hit me one day: it’s the lack of harmony and dignity.

And there’s another related issue: a desperate yearning for originality, newness, youth, in different areas of society.  In politics here it was New Labour, over the pond the slogan was “change”. In the arts we see ever increasing bizarreness; it will be called art nonetheless – but in reality everyone is running out of ideas. In fashion and the media there’s an obsession with youth and so on.

The above examples all seem to have a common theme: a search for purpose, for meaning.  There’s a deep desire in every human being to be able to create, to aspire, to feel valued, to be unique, to want to leave one’s mark, and to live eternally.  Of course, since these are all spiritual values it makes more sense to start with the inner dimension, our souls.

The Ramchal states that the purpose of creation is to achieve deveikus, “attachment”, to Hashem.  How do we do this?  Hashem created us and our world defective and gave the Jewish People the Torah to perfect it and to the non-Jews the 7 Noahide laws to prevent breakdown; doing mitzvot rectifies the defects and connects us to higher worlds and the Divine. In other words, the finite world in which we live is the means to a transcendent end, not the end in itself.

The Ramchal also tells us that Hashem created overriding principles and details: overriding principles are emunah, bitachon, free will etc and the details, the mitzvot themselves. And so without an understanding of how emunah operates, a person may be left with lots of details but no direction.  I think it’s a bit like technically knowing how to drive a car but without the Highway Code.  You won’t get very far.

And so really there isn’t a valid reason to feel there’s no purpose to one’s life, whatever the age or situation.  Every soul is put into the body for a specific purpose; our work is to evaluate our inner spiritual gifts and use them to bring perfection to creation.  Every moment of the day, therefore, has an opportunity built into it to achieve closeness to Hashem – and just as our souls are eternal, so too does trying to make our lives more connected to Hashem imbue us with a feeling of everlasting contentedness, richness and fulfilment. The work of the inner life requires as much, if not more, dedication and patience as the outer life but with the added reward of it being eternal.

As we open our own personal Russian dolls, to reveal the different layers of our selves, maybe we will be able to discover the smallest doll – our essence, our holiness.