Accept the world at its face value and it won’t let you move forward.
Every impulse must be bridled, every step carefully balanced
—and even then, for every step forward, you fall back two.
You are enslaved within an Egypt of your own making.
Here is your route of escape:
Meditate deeply upon the inner soul of the world;
struggle to see the vision described by our teachers.
Part the murky waters of a coarse, material world;
enter the reality that lies beneath it;
let that be your path from bondage.
Grasp that inner vision and it will flow outward
through the heart to the conscious self,
down to the heel that steps upon the earth,
until all these, as well, become mind.
Your eyes are now open,
your heart is awake,
your hands themselves know what to grab and what to avoid,
as your feet know where to walk.
In the struggle for deeper vision,
life becomes effortless.
You are free.
The Kabbalists ( Rashbi (author of Zohar), the Ari and others) learned to recognize our egoistic intentions, ask for correction until they were rewarded with attaining Ein Sof - seeing the true reality even while in this physical world.
Hope this clarifies your questions.
Toronto, Canada
Cornafean,Co Cavan
New York
Crown Heights
New York City, New York
Thanks for your important comment. There is a fundamental prescriptive theological answer to your question, and I can give an derived applied answer from Victor Frankl. The prescriptive answer is that since Exodus, although our bodies may be oppressed, imprisoned, subjugated, burned; as Jews, our minds and souls are forever free from human bondage.
This sounds too esoteric to be useful, however, this is exactly the experience of Victor Frankl. He was a psychotherapist (he wrote man in search of meaning and founded logotherapy), interned for years in the concentration camps, his wife, his entire family murdered. Frankl in the camps realized meaning in dark suffering. Read on wikipedia the 3 paragraph quote starting with "We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones .."
You as a Jew are forever free. No matter what happens, noone can take this from you, you can always claim your freedom: Through love and moral agency.
Norwich VT
Very moving
New York, N.Y.
Only Rav Freeman could be so descriptive.
Thank you.
brooklyn, ny
fort lauderdale, fl