The root of illness is the yearning of all life to return home.

The Shechinah, the mother of all souls, has descended from her place on high to give life. And to that true place, where she was one with her Beloved, to there she longs to return. And with that longing, she gives life.

If so, at the core of life’s pleasure lies a gnawing pain, an ache that says, “This is not my true place. I must be higher, somewhere beyond me.

“But I am not there.”

From that anguish comes life. But from that anguish may also come illness—from our futile efforts to alleviate the pain with habits that pretend to fill that void, with vanities that are not life at all.

To live is to yearn; to yearn to be more, but not to be fooled.

The yearning itself, let that be life.