Discovering the Purpose of Life
G-d recreates the universe each moment, making every moment an opportunity to reflect on its intricate beauty and the lessons it teaches us. Yet gifts that we receive constantly are rarely appreciated. That is why we set aside one week each year to delve into the beauty of G-d’s Creation. This is the week when we read the first portion of the Torah, which describes the creation of the world.
One of the first things that strikes me when I contemplate Creation is the sheer number of species and the countless members of each species. There are countless grains of sand and granules of earth. It is impossible to count how many plants and vegetables grow each year. How many insects, fish, birds, and animals exist? And then there is the crown of creation, humanity, which now numbers more than eight billion.
I find it fascinating that the more valuable something is, the more time and effort it takes to cultivate it. Sand lies on the surface of the earth; diamonds and precious gems are buried deep beneath it and require careful searching. And once you find a gem, it is useless until you purify it, cut it, and set it.
If you want a cup of water, you need only collect it and drink. If you want a piece of fruit, you can pick it and eat it. But if you want a steak, you have to engage in a long process that includes raising, slaughtering, salting, soaking, seasoning, and roasting before it reaches your plate.
Not only does it take more effort to prepare something valuable, but it also takes more time. When a calf is born, it carries itself within moments. It can walk and prance within minutes or hours at most. It learns to nurse from its mother almost immediately.
Contrast that with a human baby, which takes years to develop. It can take many attempts before a baby learns to latch on properly. It takes weeks for its sight to develop and months for its digestive system to tolerate food. It takes more than a year to learn to walk and even longer to talk. Then the real education begins. A child must learn to read, write, and do math. They must learn social etiquette and countless other skills. Animals are born ready to go; humans require years of refinement and development.
And that is just to learn basic motor and survival skills. Learning a trade or profession can take twenty or thirty years. Becoming a mentch is a lifelong endeavor.
No matter how refined and balanced you are at fifty, you will look back at sixty and realize you were a baby. No matter how sophisticated you are at sixty, you will look back at seventy and realize you were a child. And no matter how wise you think you are at eighty, you will look around and realize that those younger than you think you are over the hill.
The learning curve is lifelong for humans, while animals emerge from the womb almost ready to go. Animals reach physical maturity relatively quickly, while humans take decades to reach their greatest potential. And the difference is that animals peak primarily as physical specimens, while humans continue developing wisdom, life skills, emotional maturity, and empathy. Those things take longer.
But they are also more worthwhile. It is worth waiting and working toward a better result rather than settling for instant gratification. Animals reach their destination faster, but humans can reach much farther. And good things are worth waiting for.
It is like the difference between fast food and gourmet dining. Young children don’t know how to appreciate the finer aspects of life. They may prefer a greasy burger to the delicate flavor of a perfectly seared steak with a rich, savory sauce. They will get to eat faster, but it will take years for them to develop a taste for more sophisticated dishes.
It is like the difference between throwing together ingredients readily available in any supermarket and preparing a truly healthy meal that accommodates different needs and tastes. The first is comparatively effortless. The latter can be exhausting. But the results are worth the effort.
The same principle that applies to life’s pleasures also applies to life’s higher callings. If life were merely about earning a comfortable living and enjoying its pleasures, we could achieve our goals relatively quickly. But life is about something nobler and more important. Life is not about filling our own needs; it is about discovering what we are needed for. It is about discovering the higher causes that we were born to serve.
That requires selflessness. It summons us to recognize that there is something greater than ourselves. The highest joy and achievement in life is to find the inner courage to set our own interests aside in the service of another, in the service of a higher purpose.
It takes decades to develop an appreciation for this kind of nuance. Most people merely glimpse it. Some even taste it. But very few live it. And those who do are often mocked by those who don’t understand them and revered by those who do.
Because good things are indeed worth waiting for. This message is embedded in nature itself. Only nature doesn’t understand sacrifice and surrender. Nature doesn’t understand causes that are higher than us. Nature is about the survival and triumph of self.
It takes a long time to cultivate a diamond, but when it is complete, it serves us. It takes a long time to plan and prepare every intricate detail of a large wedding, but when the happy day arrives, it is all about us. We are the center of the room.
Nature doesn’t understand the value of taking ourselves out of the center and finding a higher epicenter around which we can build our lives. Yet the very lesson that nature teaches us about delaying gratification and investing in something worthwhile can be applied to the highest achievement of all: the brilliance of spirit required to surrender to something greater than ourselves.
That greater thing can indeed be G-d, as my parents taught me countless times during my youth.
It is a good thing that humans are given more decades to live than most beasts. Perhaps this is why G-d gave us a longer lifespan. The extra time we have is not meant merely to fill our own holes. We can do much of that in our first three or four decades. After that, our physical constitution grows progressively weaker anyway, and there is less need to stimulate it as frequently.
No, my dear friends. The extra years of life that we are given are an opportunity to extract the most we can from life in service of the cause that is higher and greater than all.
This cause is the Creator, the G-d of all G-ds, the One Who placed us on earth for a purpose that He considers worthy of the entire enterprise. A purpose He considers worthy of our very existence.
Let us not waste our lives on greasy fast-food burgers or other self-serving causes wrapped in nobler bunting. Let us devote our lives to the very causes for which we were placed on earth. The cause greater than us. The cause that justifies us. The cause that gives us reason to remain on earth for a hundred and twenty years.
The cause of our Creator Himself.
He taught us precisely how to serve His cause. He laid it out for us in intricate detail in the Torah that He gave us at Sinai. But in its very first chapter, He demonstrated the importance of serving that cause.
We begin reading the Torah from the beginning again this year. Let us learn it carefully, take its lessons to heart, and turn it into the cause of our entire lives.
Shabbat Shalom
