Someone this week was very rude to me.
They were obnoxious. They were mean and irascible! My insides began to churn. I won’t tell you what I began to plot what I would say to them. I will not share sitting across a very thorny bush! Where was the Yud? (I didn’t find it to be honest! But looking for it stopped my own icy responses, and I flowed to a different place and went quietly instead).
Then I laid eyes on France. As I write this, four Jews have been massacred in another terror attack. Twelve were murdered in cold blood the day before.
How can I find the Yud? Death is ice that doesn’t melt. Yet, I have to ask myself, does evil have me conclude that there are no other possibilities?
Waters of Moshiach
Human history is filled with saints and mystics, peasants and sophisticated, thinkers and doers, the selfish and altruistic, and the list goes on. When I see one “snowflake,” will I forget that the human story is fluid and changing?
Maimonides quotes the prophet Isaiah that the end of times will be “as an ocean filled with water.” G-dly wisdom will be everywhere. It starts with finding the Yud, the fluidity, and focusing less on what we have perceived to be as fixed as ice. Only then, will we find change. Only then will we find freedom.
So how do we answer? Our answer to this question is to set our sights on what truly matters, for in this response lies the key to our liberation.
If you feel enslaved by something today, look back to see how Pharoah enslaved and you will find your own “what’s the point” moment.