Many of us harbor fear about the uncertainty and unpredictability of life. We are anxious about what could go wrong that might completely unhinge the path of our life or any short experience of tranquility that we might currently feel.
At such times, I often remind myself that if things could go wrong in one moment, how much more so could they go right, as light is more powerful than darkness.
There is a teaching from the Talmud,1 that blessing from Above does not rest on something that has been counted, but rather on something hidden from the eye. Perhaps this might help us to reframe our fear of the unknown as a yet hidden, but transformative space where Divine blessing rests.
The Torah was given as black fire on white fire. The white fire—the space around the black letters—represents the hidden supernal encompassing parts of the Torah. It holds even higher potential and blessing than the black fire of the Torah’s letters that are in more revealed form.
As it is in the spiritual, so it is in the physical. There is an increasing awareness in the field of quantum biology of the importance of connective tissue—the joining bits of the body—that used to be discounted in favor of the emphasis on the larger organs. Now we are learning that this oft-ignored, hidden organ of joining and connection has profound transformative properties, and is the place from where healing comes.
We learn in Tanya2 of the generative power and the potential of the earth. The seed germinates by decomposing, activating the hidden potential of the earth itself. Arborists are now discovering connections between trees in a forest through their underground roots, which not only communicate information about danger, but share nutrients between trees.
Could we not then reframe this fear and uncertainty about that which we do not yet see or know, as untapped potential—potential for blessing beyond any bounds, precisely because we do not yet know? Precisely because it is not yet counted, limited or predictable.
What if we were to seize and embrace our moments of uncertainty and anxiety as moments of unlimited potential and closeness to G‑d?
That would truly be a redemptive approach.
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