Present Perfect
Just as G-d’s plan for the world involves the fall into darkness followed by the genesis of a greater light, so too His plan for your life.
As Chassidus explains, there is nothing that happens, even to the falling of a leaf from a tree, that is not deliberately, intentionally orchestrated by G-d. Your life, too, is being custom-created at each moment exactly the way it needs to be in order for you to realize your full potential and purpose on this earth. When you know that, live with it, life becomes illuminated with the realization that nothing is ever wrong. Yes, there may be things –even big things – that need to be improved, changed, corrected, achieved. But it is infinitely empowering to approach those changes from a place of peace, secure in the knowledge that you, and every part of your life, is exactly as it is supposed to be as a starting point for your growth and transformation.
Consciousness: the Journey Back
This knowledge is the key, the first step in the journey back to consciousness. And it is a step you can begin to take, if you choose, right now. By practicing the awareness that your life is being created with loving intention at each moment, just as it is supposed to be, the choices you make will automatically be more expansive, illuminated, G-dly. G-d is the director of the show of your life, and you are its star. And as the star, the choices you make will help determine, each and every time, how the next scene unfolds.
Evil, and freedom of choice, existed before Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge. But then evil was something external from the person, and the two domains were completely separate. Man’s mission in life was to “work and keep the Garden”–to cultivate the good and keep out the bad. By eating from the Tree, man gained intimate knowledge (daat) of evil, ingesting it into himself and–man being a microcosm of creation–into his world. From that point on the two realms were confused, there being no evil without good and no good without evil. The task of man became the “work of refinement” (avodat habirrurim)–to distinguish and separate good from evil and evil from good. (Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi)
There is a story told of three blind men who were asked describe an elephant based on touch alone. The first one grabbed the trunk, and exclaimed: “Ahh… an elephant is just like a snake!” Another felt the leg and disagreed, “No,” he argued, “it’s clear that an elephant is exactly like a tree!” The third blind man grasped the end of the pachyderm tail and insisted: “Ridiculous! Why can’t you both see that an elephant is just like a broom!”
When Adam and Eve ate from the Eitz HaDaat, the self-consciousness that they introduced to the human experience was not merely painful. It was blinding as well.
Our world is vast and infinitely complex. However, our perceptions of it – and even more important, the interpretations we make of them – are as limited and contradictory as that of the three blind men. And like they, most of us live our lives in the firm conviction that the way we see it is the One and Only Truth.
This perception is inaccurate and deceptive at best. But it becomes truly problematic when the people we live and work with, each with their own unique take on life, feel the same way.
Daat, in Hebrew, means attachment, connection. It means to know something in a way that is personal and meaningful.
Daat allows us to care about things, to be attached to people, to be motivated, to follow through. But this very same quality can act as a blindfold as well.
There is only one absolute Truth – G-d’s perspective. The rest of us may think we have a grip on Truth – but most of the time all we have is a leg, a trunk or a tail. The personal take on life that results from our daat-driven perceptions and agendas often bears little resemblance to reality.
Once again, this is no accident. It is a fundamental part of our purpose, of G-d’s plan for creation. The blind self-consciousness of the Tree of Knowledge is not our final stop. It an intermediary state of darkness that is a preface to a far greater level of light. And as dark as it may seem now, the light at the end of the tunnel has never been as close or as bright as it is today.
