"When a person does not focus on the ultimate purpose of his life, what does he have to live for?" Abridged Likutey Mohoran 268
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Be an animal!!!
All throughout life while growing up we were always told not to be animals. I just came across something yesterday in Sichos Haran (15) that says the opposite! Well kind of. In our parsha it says (Shemos 36:1) ".....asher nasan Hashem chachma u'sevuna baheima..../....within whom Hashem has endowed wisdom and insight....." The beauty of Lashon Ha'kodesh is that words can have more than one meaning and yet mean all of the different connotations at once. Baheima/within also means animal. Reb Nachman says (It's also brought down in Lekutei Mohoran B:19 & 44) It is (and takes) a great wisdom and great service to be like an animal. This is what our holy rabbis mean when they say in the gemara (Chullin 5:) on the pasuk in Tehilim (36:7) "...adam u'baheima toshia Hashem/...You save both man and beast, Hashem." But once again we can also translate it as "You save a man who makes himself like a beast." The lesson that Reb Nachman is teaching us isn't to run around like wild animals, "vilda chaya's." That's probably what they were telling not to do as kids! Reb Nachman is teaching here one of his main messages. It is great to be simple and pure. Many people mistakenly think that to be simple means to be stupid, and what we learn here is that it actually takes great wisdom to be simple, to be like an animal. As wise and advanced as we think we are, the world is as mixed up as ever! And we still don't have a cure for the common cold! If we would work on being just a bit simpler, than the world would be a much better place. Relationships would be better, everything would be better.
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