The Diamond in Everyone

“The deeds of our forefathers are a signpost for the children.” The Bible is not just out to tell us lovely stories; the stories in the Bible are there to serve as an example, to teach and provide a sense of direction for all future generations, under all circumstances.

Many more people and events took place in the lives of the people mentioned in the Bible than are covered in the stories themselves. God chose to include only these unique stories because they serve as lessons for all eternity.

There were three forefathers to the Jewish People: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Isaac occupied himself primarily with digging wells. Besides the literal undertaking of digging the ground (“and he found there a well of living water”), this story, as one of our forefathers, has a far more spiritual and eternal dimension.

Mysticism — which addresses the soul and inner message beneath the surface of the stories in the Bible — explains that the job of Isaac, with his very forceful energy, the energy of severity, was to eliminate all that covers the wells that lie deep inside the earth.

Isaac dedicated a great deal of effort to this end. This quality of not accepting how things appear on the surface and having the optimism to dig for wells is now found within the spiritual genes of every one of his children’s souls. Just as parents bequeath much of their characteristics to their children, we inherit genes from our forefathers due to their conduct.

Every soul is considered “A desirable land” of God, and deep down inside, there are channels of living waters, no matter what the surface shows. Sometimes to the eye, the land appears to be covered with all kinds of stones and dry earth, an arid and unfertile land, without hope or any reason for optimism for growth or usefulness.

As one of our forefathers, Isaac instills within us the great lesson that we must uncover the pure well of nourishment & life within through dedication and perseverance. Every single person has an untouched, uncontaminated well of water; sometimes, it may be deep down inside, but it is there.

We must never give up on others, and certainly not on ourselves.

Some of the greatest sages compared this natural and essential spark of God inside to a diamond covered in dirt. The value is always there, sometimes not even recognized by the owner of the diamond himself. Rabbi Shneur Zalman, in his seminal book Tanya, explains that every soul within each person is literally a piece of God.

This knowledge is very powerful and self-empowering.

No matter how much dirt or impurity accumulates within a person because of the bad choices made over his lifetime, it is merely and essentially superficial. The internal good, the internal happy, and the internal blessed are always there and never lost.

Isaac and his servants encountered many challenges in digging those wells, but they never gave up. They persevered and succeeded. There is the eternal inner struggle between good and bad. No one has a free and easy pass to life. However, the knowledge that we always remain “connected” no matter what, reinforces our will, for both ourselves and our efforts with others, to never give up.

The moment we reach that little spark within, all the darkness is eliminated. The little spark dispels sooo much darkness and confusion, igniting the fire of enthusiasm for all that is good in our lives and the world around us.

Chapter 166 www.aspiritualsoulbook.com