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"In
all your ways know Him and He will straighten your paths." A map is a really great thing to have. With a map, one can find directions. Not only can one know where one is, one can also know where one is going and how to get there. There is just one thing about a map that many people do not understand. In order to use a map properly one has to open it, read it and follow it directions. Otherwise, the map is worthless. What good are directions if one does not follow them? Life without a map is a terrible thing. One spends one’s days forever lost, going around and around in circles, never knowing which way to go, never knowing a right way from a wrong one, never knowing how to reach one’s destination. Try as one will to deny the truth but one who is lost can never be happy and content. Not knowing one’s place means that one cannot know one’s self. This is truly a shame and a great loss. What is the map of life? How does one know how to live? How can one know where lies one’s destiny? How can one know if one is indeed in the right place and doing the right thing? To all these questions there is a right answer and unfortunately, there is also a wrong answer. What is the map of life? One’s own inner feelings and beliefs. How should one live? In accordance to one’s desires. Where lies one’s destiny? Wherever one wants it to be. How does one know the right place? One decides this for oneself. What is the right thing to do? Whatever one wants at the moment. Many read these answers and agree that these are the right answers. Those that believe this are the lost. Those that place themselves as the center of life and their wants and desires as the map have no clue as to what life is all about. Centering life on oneself is the wrong answer. Thinking that the answer to all questions will be based upon what one wants and desires is the wrong answer, a mistaken idea and a dangerous path. This is the path of the lost, who know no other way to go in life. Their path inevitably brings them into conflict with the paths of others. Self-centeredness always brings conflict in its wake. For all the individual selves battle for domination, because for the self-centered, there can only be one at the center; everyone else is secondary and exist only to serve the one. When one is the center of one’s own universe, one’s universe is a very small and confining place. Unfortunately, although one believes oneself to be the center of the universe, the universe itself does not agree. The universe continues to operate according to its own laws. The self-centered individual on the other hand demands that the universe revolve around him. Conflict is unavoidable. The winner is obviously not the self-centered selfish fool. Such a one looses the battle against reality and thus retreats into a fortress of self-made illusions of grandeur and over-inflated importance; angry that the world does not recognize his value and central role in creation. Can such a one be more lost and more misguided? I do not see how. One does not need an outside force of evil to mislead one all the while that one is willing to mislead oneself. One who is so selfish, so self-centered and so blind not to see the truth of the Almighty Wisdom will pay for their lack of vision by having to live in their self-made darkness. In such blindness it is inevitable that one will cause severe harm to oneself, and unfortunately to any other not careful enough to avoid such a one. In the end, one who decides to follow the map will end up safely at his destination. One who decides to follow the map of Torah will end up in the right place in life, peace and fulfillment will be achieved. One who submits to the directions of Heaven will be guided safely and assured. Although one’s path may at present be crooked and lost, one who seeks out Heaven will find HaShem’s road map to life. It is called Torah; its directions are easy to follow; to all those willing to open it, read it and follow its directions.
Comments? Questions?
Yeshivat Lev Torah -
Collel Benei N'vi'im |
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