Peering Beyond the Surface

B"H

~Since I'm heading to Northern Israel tomorrow for the weekend festivities of ''Lag B'omer,''
this week's email is coming a bit earlier than usual. Have a happy Lag B'omer this Sunday!~
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In Montreal there lives a distinguished kabbalist & author named Rabbi Zev Wolf Greenglass.
He once recounted a personal event which helped change his life:

"Many years ago, in the early 1940's, I was traveling through a certain town in Russia.
Needing a place to stay over for the night, I found a Chabad Yeshiva (school of Torah learning) and asked a student there if there
was perhaps a room available to sleep in. "No problem," a student told me. "My roommate is away at a wedding. You can take his bed."
Thankfully I was led to his room and proceeded straight to bed.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to use the restroom. As I arose from bed, I saw an amazing sight.
There on the floor was sleeping the boy who had offered me his "roommate's" bed!
I was a complete stranger to him. But knowing I was a fellow Jew who needed a place to sleep, the boy had simply given his bed to me.
When I woke up early the next morning, the boy was gone. He knew I'd have felt bad to have known I'd taken his bed."
"This selfless love," Rabbi Greenglass concluded, "is what drew me to Chassidism."

~~~~~~

Truly caring for a stranger is no easy feat. It is perhaps the hardest character trait to integrate into one's life.
Why? Because of our natural egos, our self centered outlooks. Each of us naturally feels ourselves and our life situation & feelings.
Only after getting to know someone, can one hope to say: "Wow, he has feelings too. There's actually something behind those facial muscles. There's another human being."
There's a soul in that body.

The same holds true in our relationship with G-d.
We don't see the true Him. All we see is His world and the events and creations in it, his outer garments, His "Facial expressions."
The Real Him is Hidden.
But just as one has to work on sensitizing oneself to perceive the inner workings, the soul, of another human being,
one must also work to sensitize oneself to connect to the inner soul of the universe - G-d. And it ain't easy.
Oftentimes we tend to speak at one another, rather than to another. The focus is on me. It's quite an unpleasant feeling for the listener.
How often in prayer, or when performing a mitzvah, am I actually connecting/speaking to G-d? Connecting to the real Him behind it all?
"Baruch atoh Hashem..." Blessed are You Hashem.

The next time we say these words, let's try and say them to G-d, to create that One-on-one bond that's there to be strengthened.
And may we be successful in sensitizing our perspectives; to be able to look beyond the masks of our fellow beings,
and beyond the mask of G-d.

Have a great rest of your week & Shabbat Shalom!

-Daniel
Jerusalem