What makes the world go round? Is it the worldly events that take place daily? Is it the good news we hear? Or is it the bad news that makes us shiver?
Perhaps what makes the world turn is the small children heading off to school each morning, or perhaps it’s the old couple sitting on a bench in the late afternoon?
There is the physics that technically makes the world go round, and there is the spiritual side as well.
Obviously, one can’t work without the other, however which one is dominant?
I will give an example. If there is a great athlete who is healthy and well, and suddenly he were to fall to the ground and faint. At that very moment that person, can’t see with his healthy eyes, and can’t run with his healthy feet, and can’t eat with his healthy mouth.
So it seems that the spiritual part of our being is stronger that the physical. And yet without our strong bodies, our soul, the spiritual part of our existence, couldn’t come to light either.
Rabbi Nachman speaks about this point in one of his stories. He goes to great lengths to describe a spring of water and a heart, that long to be next to one another. But each one is standing on opposite mountains. And if one were to come toward the other there would be a moment where they would come down from the mountain and not see one another and then the world would cease to exist. So there is a man, who is the man of chessed, of good deeds, and he collects all the good and honest actions that people do during the day, and gives it to the heart. And the heart in turn gives it to the spring of water, and that gives the world another day.
Rabbi Nachman’s stories are always filled with examples that personify in them spiritual and holy messages, in the form of a story.
In this story what I can understand is the importance of our deeds and the honest actions we take daily. We may think that we are just individuals and not so important in the world. We are not rich nor famous and no one even knows if we did something good or not. No one in particular even recognizes that I am around. Let alone notices if I did a good deed or not.
Rabbi Nachman is letting us know that all our actions count, especially the honest and good ones. Even though at times our good deeds are not even noticed, let alone acknowledged.
The continuation of the world comes from every one of us in our small actions. Each one of us is absolutely necessary.
I attended an engagement party this week of a man who had lost his mother when he was a young child. I had known his mother. As I stood looking at the sweet couple, I couldn’t stop thinking how this young man’s mother was probably watching from above.
No, I couldn’t see his mother, my friend, from where I stood, but I could feel her presence with all my soul.
This deed of the couple connecting and deciding to get married was indeed the reason the world received another day to go round.
Here was a boy who lost his mother as a child, and now years later, this action of him deciding to get married, created continuity, to his mother who has been gone for so long.
We might think that our actions are small and insignificant, however the things that we do, especially the honest and good ones, are world mattering. The goodness that comes from these special moments actually gives you and me an extra day in this world, since without them the world would cease to exist.
So, the next time you feel that you are experiencing a special moment, or that you yourself are contributing something even very small, but real, know that at that very instant the man of good deeds is taking your action and giving it to the heart of the world so that another day will come.