Our greatest of Sages, with Maimonides (1135-1204) at the forefront, taught that the path to a truly healthy life - not surprisingly - is to live a balanced life. This truism pervades all of reality. Physically, balance is essential: Too much sugar, and a person can G-d forbid develop diabetes. Low blood sugar can lead to hypoglycemia. Too many bacteria-fighting white blood cells is Neutrophilia, too few - Neutropenia. We breathe in, we breathe out. Our muscles contract & relax. Just like for our bodies to work healthily, there must be balance, so too in our personal lives. It's important to work and accomplish, but also to hang out with friends and enjoy free time - to set a balanced schedule. When raising children, it is important to have a certain balance, with discipline together with kindness and free flowing love. Unfortunately, the culture around us often creates a difficult environment for us to live balanced lives. What was once an intimate family dinner, is now an I-phone/laptop/TV dinner. What was once a private home and life filled with good values, is now heavily influenced by the shallow pop culture of the trendy and famous that we see everywhere that we turn. How to dress, look, act and think. Whats "cool." How can we cure this ailment, this affront to a balanced - and therefore healthy - life? By creating borders. Deciding what enters our bodies, minds, homes, and families - of course in a balanced way.
On a spiritual level, internally, balance is also key. We are told that the angels in heaven "run" toward the light of G-d in a state of extreme love, only to pull back in awe. So too, we work to feel closer to G-d and a spiritual reality, only to bring an inspiration to our daily lives in this world in order to do good in a practical manner here. Indeed, next Friday night is the 1st "Pesach (Passover) Seder." Literally translated, Pesach means "leaping" (as G-d did when he "passed over" the homes of the Jewish people during the plague of the male first-born), while seder means "order." The seder is a 15-step, orderly method, given to help us leap to greater spiritual heights than we have ever before. Every line, every nuance of the seder, is replete with layers upon layers of amazing meaning and depth, that we unfortunately do not have room to discuss now. This theme of "ordered leaping," is one of the fundamental themes of the Torah & Judaism. Torah & its Mitzvot are in essence orderly methods of connecting to the infinite, of leaping to places that we can't dream of leaping to on our own, no matter how hard we try, for we are finite, while G-d is infinite.
And isn't that seen throughout the holiday of Passover? What makes Matzah so great in the eyes of Judaism? Is it really so different to Chametz (leaven)? What separates the two, technically, is only a few extra minutes, even seconds, of flour spent in an oven baking! But that's the point. Matzah is simply disciplined chametz. We have to know when to draw the line. In life, we mess up constantly. And we aren't expected to eliminate our animalistic and materialistic drives, but rather to work on channeling them, to tame them. And this balance is amazingly sweet, for the "upright path is the middle path" (Maimonides). We shouldn't be extreme, but we shouldn't give in on our principles and moral values either. There are only 2 areas of the human psyche that Maimonides says must be avoided to the extreme, no middle path necessary: One's anger and ego. Humility is symbolized by the matzah which is flat, while chametz is bloated and puffed up, symbolizing one who is full of himself. On Passover, one doesn't just lessen his chametz intake - he eradicates it completely!
May we all have a meaningful and joyous Passover holiday! And may we each take upon ourselves one area in our lives, where we will work to balance out in a healthy way.
Shabbat Shalom!
-Daniel
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