Join Dovid Mark on a journey we can all relate to – a journey we all share and yet is unique to each one of us. In our modern world, where money drives our lives and the products we are shown grab at our senses, we yearn for something more. In this episode, which is a continuation of Rebbe Nachman’s famous story the Lost Princess, we learn the secrets of our Created space and its Divine root embedded within. Why are we here? And what is our mission?
Originally published on BRI Breslov.org
Galus is more than a physical separation between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel – it is a state of mind; a loss of conscious awareness of the Creator’s providence. To be in Galus is to be in a spiritual slumber.
This is our reality.
This was and has been the Jewish people’s predicament since the destruction of the first Temple and it is the paradigm in which the Purim story unfolds.
We are in a continuous state of Purim – an unfolding drama woven within the tapestry of politics and the mundane and yet when we stir from our slumber for just a moment we see the lost princess, Esther, the Shechina that was hidden from us. We are reminded in those moments that it is possible to awaken from our perpetual sleep.
As the Kingdom of Haman-Amalek grows, we remain asleep. It strengthens, inundating us with ambient information, uncontrolled desires, and false yearnings. However, we can awaken, we can reclaim our lives and authentic selves, but we have to cling to the Tzaddik – only he has the key to the story we need to hear.
Which story is that? Our story – special to each one of us. When we hear it – we awaken.
The Jews clung to Mordechai and were saved. They recognized that Esther was theirs and freed the “lost princess” from the confines of the palace of the “no good” – ruled by Achashverosh – destroying Haman descendent of Amalek.
We too, must hold fast to the teachings and stories of the Tzaddik. His stories and advice are specific to our generation – the generation meant to awaken and destroy the Kingdom of Haman-Amalek forever.
(Based on the Lost Princess; Likutey Halachot Purim Halacha Alef)
“When the Lord returned the captives of Zion, we were like people in a dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with exultation: then said they among the nations, The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us; so we rejoiced! Bring back our captives, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Though he goes on his way weeping, bearing the store of seed, he shall come back with joy, bearing his sheaves. ” – Psalm 126
We have come home.
After 70 years since the British left the Land of Israel (which they sinisterly called Palestine) with their tails between their legs, the State of Israel has risen from the dreams and hopes of the Jewish people around the world to become a global leader in so many areas.
Against all odds and in a miraculous fashion the State of Israel has become a beacon to so many around the world. The number 70 is a transitional number. It represents the end of one era and an entry to another. After all the first exile of the Jewish people lasted 70 years exactly as prophesied. King David lived 70 years, which is seen as a paradigm for the concept of the years of kingship. 70 is also the number of root nations in the world as well as being the numerical value of Gog uMagog. The sages taught that there are 70 faces of Torah.
So What’s Next?
The Nation of Israel is meant to lead the world to a new era. We of course are not quite there yet, but the feeling that we are heading to something incredible is all around us. The challenge for Israel is that transitioning from a country at siege yet extremely successful to one which takes its success and transforms the world may result in altering Israel as we know it.
Anyone with eyes wide open can see that the world as we know it is collapsing. The paradox of new advances that are literally changing how people live to the chaos across the globe with super powers preparing to destroy each other can be overwhelming.
Despite the potential carnage, there is light and hope.
It is at this juncture that Israel is meant to lead. The broken world we live in is only broken because we have yet to fix it.
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov said the following: “If you believe that you can destroy, believe that you can build.”
Israel has all the ingredients to lead the world from its darkness to a state of light, yet something is holding us back, keeping us from transforming the chaotic storm winds into a new order. For 70 years the State of Israel and the Zionist movement has been rooted in classic Western nationalism. But that in its core can only take the Jewish people in Israel so far. Our job is to bring a new, rectified order to the world. One that merges the physical and spiritual together.
Achievements in technology cannot be divorced from the traditions of the Torah. These advances are part of a holistic redemptive process that sees an Israeli experience as one that blends multiple forces together. If we think of advances in technology as only a “tikkun olam” (rectification of the world) in a physical sense then we are lacking a wider perspective. Technology is a tool or vessel for the spirit or will of the Creator.
The State of Israel as an entity is a tool for a global redemption. It is at one hand the vessel which was formed to allow the reconstitution of the people of Israel in their ancient ancestral land as prophesied more than 2,500 years ago. This has happened in miraculous fashion, but the State of Israel is far more than that. It is now transitioning into the activated tool for the will of “Knesset Yisrael” the mystical concept which expresses the rectified Israeli Collective, whose mission it is to ultimately repair the broken world, which still awaits its full rectification and direction.
Rebbe Nachman teaches in Likutey Moharan that the Jewish people’s role is to repair the “supernal altar” of the nations. This means that we are to turn them away from worshipping a false notion of spiritual connection and recalibrate their yearning for a divine relationship to one which is an authentic personal relationship to the one above or better expressed, the one within. We can only do this by example.
The vessels to spread the light of the Creator have been built in the first 70 years of the State of Israel. It is now time for Israel to rise to the occasion and steer the world out of the darkness and chaos it finds itself in.
Whether or not the attack in Douma, Syria by Assad’s forces was really a chemical weapon may never be fully proven, but the attack itself appears to have finally pushed the proverbial trigger of war that has been building up for the past few years.
Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018
From Russia to the USA, China to Taiwan, Pakistan to India, and Iran to Israel, the global structure we have grown accustom to is breaking apart.
This may be the final war. A war so terrible that it resets our reality and opens the possibility of giving us a new beginning.
Afterall, the war we are about to witness on the outside is merely a projection of the inner chaos which rules our individual and family lives. We have grown disconnected from one another and from the Creator and in doing so created a cultural and spiritual vortex of emptiness. It is this emptiness which is now becoming manifest in the world around us and it is this emptiness which is leading the world as we know it to become shattered like our own personal lives.
Our sages teach us that in the year the Moshiach will be revealed, the nations of the world will agitate one another leading to a final destructive war where a majority of the world is destroyed. About this time it says that the Nation of Israel will run from side to side in fear and G-D will say: “Do not fear for everything that I have done is for your benefit… your time of redemption is now.” (Yalkut Shemoni)
We cannot imagine the depths of spiritual decay we have all fallen to and yet no matter how far down we fall, we can rise to unbelievable heights. That is if we are unbound from the world around us. We must want and be willing to rise and reconnect to who and what we are meant to be.
It is true, the world is about to enter moment of extreme shaking. Yet, this shaking is necessary if we are to be prepared for the next stage of the redemption process. Chaos leads to order. If this is to be the last war, then the reordering after the chaos must begin within each of us. We must choose good over evil, the will of G-D over our own wants and desires.
“Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tsar m’od v’haikar lo l’fached klal: The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but the essence, is not to be afraid at all.”
(Rebbe Nachman of Breslov)
From threats of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula to a Syrian crisis that appears to be spiralling out of control, the world as we know seems to collapsing and with it the sense of security. Not since World War Two has the world experienced such turbulence. All of us who remember the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the post Cold War global regime felt that we were finally moving past the grievances of old. We believed that hi-tech would usher a new and more perfect world.
2017 has proven the above assumptions wrong.
Lurking within us and within society is a beautiful Divine potential to do good. We feel it and we want it. However, another force is there waiting in the shadows and whispering in our ears to do evil.
Each one of us can bring a new light into the world. We can ignore the daily bombardment of negativity and allow events to unfold the way Almighty wants them to.
The world as we know it, is collapsing. Chaos is reigning supreme. But this will not last forever. Another world is coming and it is our responsibility to make sure it is a world where our capacity for good outweighs the lust to do evil.
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov makes it clear that before the Messiah comes there will be a great flood of non-blief throughout the world. It will seem as if there is no hope, the forces of anti-G-dliness will win and yet, there will be a great yearning for the true and simple faith. “The Redemption rests on the faith of the simple believer,” he told his followers.
Yes the world is out of control and no one can put the breaks on it. We of simple faith know that there will be a far better world after this if we learn to just hold on.