We all have a Nefesh Elokit (part of God) in us, we just need to transcend the layers of doubt and unlock the powerful truth and redemption that awaits. It’s written in a Mishnah, “Every human being is unique, and every human being is a copy of the prototype human being (Adam)…therefore, every human being must say, ‘For my sake the world was created.’” The same Mishnah teaches, “that every life is like an entire universe.”
It’s when our soul enters our body that this becomes true. A body without a soul is similar to any other, but when the awareness of the soul as part of the body is recognized by an individual, we can begin to live out our purpose – our potential to be an entire universe becomes apparent. To use the body, the finite, to spiritualize reality and to fulfill the Light of the Infinite, that is when the body is a vessel for the soul. That realization can take a person from a physical and spiritual desert (midbar) to a spiritual and physical promised land (Israel).
We're described as ish echad b’lev echad (1 person, 1 heart). We can’t view ourselves as separate entities. We are all essential in the wholeness of ourselves as a people viewed as 1 body. When 1 of us is hurting, we’re all hurting, just as when 1 part of our own body hurts, the entire body is affected. We can only be shalem (whole/complete) when we’re all redeemed, when none of us is hurting.
My dad was a Rabbi in the Navy, and traveled all over, and on occasion would bump into Carlebach - who would tell him about the word “Shalom” saying, “How can you say Shalom when you first meet someone and the same word when you say goodbye? Shalom comes from shalem — completeness. I was incomplete until I met you, but now that I met you, I am more complete than before. But, now that you are leaving, you are taking something away from me, and I say ‘shalom’ in the hope that someday you will come back & make me more complete again.” We're all made in the image of Hashem, and with each positive interaction, we see another piece of Hashem, and we feel more complete.
Thanks for reading!
Much love & Shabbat Shalom!🤍🕊
- Erez // @erezsafar
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