You need to escape your Egypt.
Egypt, in Hebrew, is Mitzra’im—meaning “straits.” A tight, narrow place.
Existence, for a human being, is a tight and narrow place. Because we are children of the Infinite, entirely beyond existence. The natural order of time and space is for us a prison.
A mitzvah, on the other hand, is an act of transcendence, a reconnection to the Infinite. A mitzvah strikes a permanent rupture in the restrictions of being.
That is your Exodus. With every mitzvah you do, you are shattering the bonds that enslave you to Egypt, just as when Israel left their bondage to become an eternal people, transcending time.
Are you no longer human? No longer a part of this world? An angel? A divine thought?
No. You remain human, very human. Your mitzvah takes place within time and space, not much unlike any other human activity.
But your life is now a commentary on eternity, every moment a moment that is forever.
In you, the universe transcends itself.
Hi,
This is confusing to me. Please explain more, I loved the part of
connecting to the eternal but then the summary statement below felt like it
watered it down. I now I don’t transform into an angel but would it be
equally correct to say:
“ You connect for a moment to the eternal and moments like that can have
lasting powerful affects on your experiences as a human with-in your limits”
Steve
Dr. Steve Freilich
Visitingpsychologist.com
Milford MA Chabad Member
It’s not easy to articulate the entire concept in short pieces such as these. I think you’ll find a fuller explanation in a recent article of mine, “Holiness Is a Crack in the Wall”
Steve: We are quite confused by our limitations on our senses.
First, our bodies are insentient, but our actual Self is Eternal. That is all there is.
The instruction is actually only “Look Within”. In order to gain from that we have to understand a Phenomenon, we know as the “ego”.
Everything in this “ego” is our “experience”, our knowledge which we connect to when needed for our safety or success. We do this until we are satisfied that we realize our failure due to “Limitations”, which turn out to be limitless. We gain “silence”.
Thanks; I shall look for it. Best
I understand that and thanks for your thought. It is the relationship between the two- worldly experience like the ego and the eternal and limitless that interests me. In social science we call it a 'peak experience' but of course that is still under the dome of this world -though suggests something happening that we might be connecting to something even greater. Anyhow, take care.