If Only…

Being Fully Alive—Present in Each Moment

If only they wouldn’t hate the Jews so much. If only we’d been born into a wealthier family. If only our spouse was kinder, our kids more obedient, our health more resilient. If only we’d have bought that home when it was still affordable. If only we had made the flight in time or been given the promotion—life would have been amazing. The list of wishful thinking is endless, and it’s enough to drive us positively crazy.

The pain becomes even more personal when we reflect on our personal life stories and the challenges or injustices that we’ve endured. If only we’d have had more loving parents. If only our abusers would never have been. Life could have been so perfect if not for certain people or experiences that we suffered. Why does it have to be this way?

It’s here where Jewish spirituality lifts us and carries us through our pain, infusing us with meaning, meditation, and purpose.

In the most famous declaration in all of Judaism—”Shma Yisrael” (Devarim 6:4)), we affirm our most foundational convictions. In the second verse, we are called upon to “Love G-d, your G-d, with all your heart.” The Oral Torah (Medrash Sifri) clarifies this to mean “that we shouldn’t complain to G-d (Hamakom).” But the word used for G-d in the Medrash is peculiar. Instead of one of the holy names of G-d, G-d is referred to here as “Hamakom,” which means “the space.”

In a profoundly uplifting clarification, the Medrash (Breishis Rabba 68:9) explains that G-d is sometimes called “The Space” to make us aware that no place is devoid of His presence. Nothing happens to us by accident; every experience is purposeful. Every space we enter is sacred—as we arrived there not by chance, but on assignment, by Divine dispatch.

Indeed, when our forefather Jacob is fleeing for his life from the first anti-Semite, his brother Esau, the Torah tells us that he arrives “at the space and slept there” (Genesis 28:11). The Chasidic mystic, Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin (1738-1792) explains that the word slept in Hebrew can also mean complained. Thus, he reads the verse as Jacob complaining to G-d about his woes. He then falls into a deep slumber where he sees the famous ladder with ascending and descending angels. During that dream, G-d promises Jacob that he will always accompany him wherever he ventures, in both the ups and downs of his life. Hence, upon awakening, it dawns upon Jacob that his pain is not his problem, it’s rather his purpose! Thus he emphatically declares “Indeed G-d is present in this very Space and I was completely unaware!” (Genesis 28:16). With this passage, the Torah explodes our spirituality to new heights as we realize that we are never displaced—we are always dispatched!

Of our three daily prayer services each morning, afternoon, and night, the evening service is the one founded by our patriarch Jacob. Jacob, whose life story led him to discover the comforting presence of G-d in the darkest moments of his life, is precisely the one who inspires us all to find our Divine connection in our nighttime as well—when everything is dark and gloomy around us.

Worrying about the future is admitting that to you, the next moment is more important than the current one. Most humans are never fully present in this moment. And sadly, they miss their whole lives, which are always “later,” “when I’m ready,” or “not now.” Conversely, you can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that you leave your arms too full to embrace the present.

Imagine living your life with this degree of consciousness. Imagine a life where you are so fully present in each and every moment—fully aware that this experience is what your purpose is right now. With this mindset, we never feel sorry for ourselves; we never wish time away. Each encounter is cherished like a precious pearl, infused with the excitement of finding out why we needed to encounter it.

Instead of defining ourselves by what happens to us, we declare that we are stronger than our struggles. Don’t blame yourself and don’t declare yourself a victim. You are a man (or woman) on a mission, and you’re going for gold!

We can now appreciate why it’s a biblical mitzvah to recite the Shma Yisrael paragraph every morning and every evening. As we do so, we declare that we are commanded to “Love your G-d with all your heart—without complaining about our Space.” We say these words not because G-d needs to hear them, but because we do. We need them in order to survive. Each time we say these words, we remind ourselves that wherever we are is precisely where we need to be. We are never alone. G-d is always walking alongside us, carrying us through the darkest of times.

May we never allow the sadness of our past or the anxiety about our future to ruin the serenity of our present!

Rabbi Dovid Vigler
Chabad of Palm Beach Gardens
6100 PGA Blvd, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418
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