Manufacturer’s Instructions

Sometimes I let my ego get the best of me. I fall into the trap of our collective human mindset, which says, “We are human. We are the pinnacle of God’s creation. We are light years above the animal kingdom. Let us marvel at our own genius, let us amaze ourselves with our mental prowess…blah, blah, blah.”
 
Yes, all of us fall into this inflated way of thinking. However, that all quickly changes when I find myself in the unfortunate situation of assembling my children’s toys! Before I realize what hit me, I find myself surrounded by a ridiculous amount of microscopic toy parts strewn about the floor, while I sit in the middle, wondering how on earth I’m going to figure this one out! Is this some sick practical joke that the toy manufacturers are playing on us? Maybe they have some secret live stream camera inside the instruction manual so they can laugh hysterically at us victimized parents. Not only are we victimized by the manufacturers by having to pay such ridiculous prices and then suffer through actually getting the toy to work, but we’re also victimized by our children, who many times bully us into a corner until we actually agree to buy the worthless toy!
 
Back to my point. Oh yes- so as I find myself sitting in the middle of this mess, I start to experience an amazing phenomenon in which I feel like most of the brain cells in my head have gone AWOL, and now I am reduced to a Homer Simpson-like state as I scratch my head and say “duh” while I’m trying to read the instructions upside down. Some crowning glory of creation I am. Pathetic!
 
Now that I’ve begun to enter the more enlightened phase of my life (finally!), I can see where us brilliant homo sapiens fall short of our potential. If, for example, I try to assemble a toy or a piece of furniture without looking at the instructions, would you not say I was foolish for doing so? (Although I am guilty of this many times- it’s an ego thing.) Of course I am! Why would I want to waste my time and create unnecessary stress by trying to do something my own way instead of reading the instructions? Who am I going to impress (besides myself)? Seriously, what do I have to gain from assembling the toy my own way? Chances are it will take me much longer to get it done, and I will probably end up making mistakes and have to redo things a few times. Is this logical, I ask? No! It’s ridiculous!
 
So why do most of us insist on living our lives this way? Where did we get the idea from that we would function better with our own set of rules, instead of heeding the rules that were given to us? That darned ego again! Are we too proud to listen to our Manufacturer’s Instructions? We didn’t create Creation! Why do we think we can control it? God made us with a set of instructions included. Those instructions are The Torah. When we adhere to those instructions, we are able to create a life without all of the unnecessary headaches, stress, worry, and anxiety that we inevitably create when we try to do things our own way. Sorry, Mr. Sinatra, but doing it your own way is way overrated! This is one of the sneakiest tricks of the Evil Inclination. It whispers in our ear, “You’re smart…you can figure out how to get through life on your own. You don’t need anyone’s advice! You’re better than them!” What a load of nonsense! First of all, how many times do we end up making the same mistakes as our parents, even though we “know better”? Or how many times do we regret not having taken someone’s advice when we should have?
 
If you want my advice (ha, ha), here’s what you need to do: a great starting point is a combination of the Rambam’s 13 Principles of Faith and Rebbe Nachman’s foundations of emuna.
 

1. God did, does, and will do everything. There is no other power in command, especially not us. Whenever we are encountered with a situation that is challenging for us, we should try to remember this one principle. This will help strengthen our emuna because we will realize that every situation comes from God.

2. Everything God does has a purpose. Do we lift a finger without thinking about how we are going to benefit from our actions? No! So why do so many of us think that this universe was created without any specific purpose? Is there really any way that such balance and perfection among nature, the ecosystems, the motion of the planets, the infinite galaxies not colliding and working in their own perfect ways- could be random? If you still find yourself thinking like this, it’s time to read The Garden of Emuna right away!

3. Everything God does is for our benefit. This is a concept that we need to work hard on internalizing. It is meant to help us understand that our challenges not only serve a purpose, they are meant to benefit us as well. When all of our senses tell us we are suffering, we need to cling to this vital principle of emuna in order to get through our challenging time in a way that our suffering will not have been in vain. We must learn to look for the subtle and not so subtle lessons within each tribulation, because there are always lessons to be learned.

These are three basic levels of our Manufacturer’s Instructions. We can use these as the foundation to progress to the more advanced levels, which encompass a lifetime of learning Torah and the way Creation works. There is no reason we need to sit in the middle of the carpet with our lives scattered in pieces all around us. Enough of the times we have looked at these pieces with despair, not knowing how to put them together. By using these three wonderful points in our lives, we will see how quickly our lives can be re-assembled and back on track!