Choices

Unlike animals, human beings can choose, consciously choose, and at the end of the day, we are the sum of our choices. Each of us has a dark side and the potential to do harm. This is not a bad thing. This is for our best. Since we are capable of behaving wrong and harming others - if we choose not to do that, it is to our merit. The more we choose to do good, the better people we are, and the existence of our dark side doesn't make us bad people. It makes us excellent people if we choose to do good even though we have evil inclinations.

One more idea, taken from the Torah: If we choose to do bad, the first time it may seem like a bid deal to us and we would be ashamed or disgusted of ourselves. But the next time we want to do this specific sin, it would already be easier to do so, we would have less pangs of conscience. And the next time - even less pangs of conscience. This means that our choices actually SHAPE us. Each choice we make, modifies us, affects us, changes who we are, how we see the world and how we act in it. A person who does good acts, would also find it more attractive to do more good acts. Each good choice we make shapes our identity, shapes what we think of ourselves, and this perception then affects our next choices.

Of course, a person can do true repentance and return to G-d with their whole heart, but it gets harder and harder the more steeped you are in evil. This is why, in Judaism, if a sinner repents with all their heart, they are on a higher status than someone who has always been righteous. Why? Because their journey back to G-d was much harder, improbable and arduous. They had to walk huge mental and spiritual distances, against their own nature (and what has become of their nature due to wrong choices) to return to G-d. If they managed to do this journey back, it means that they truly wanted to repent, and it places them higher than most other people. This way, even their past sins work in their favor. And as the prophet said - if your sins will be as red as scarlet, they will turn as white as snow.  

In sum, all of us have the potential to do good and to to bad. Having evil inclinations does not make us bad people. All people have such inclinations. What decides who we are is not our bad potential, but what we do with it. Our choices shape us, and we have to choose carefully. If we choose wrong, it strengthens our evil inclination. If we do good, it strengthens are good inclination. Let us choose wisely. 

Shavua tov.

Just a bad dream?

When I was a student on Mt. Scopus, I remember that one day I went to bed in the dorms and had a dream. A very bad dream. In the dream, the Arab population living in Israel was rising against us. They were attacking us mercilessly and they became stronger than us. They were throwing stones and rocks at us and killing us with every means they had. In the scene I was viewing, I was hiding behind a public trash can on the seam between Mt. Scopus and the French Hill, and saw destruction all around, and I knew that I was one of the last few in my country to survive. I remember thinking to myself with alarm: "They are killing all of us". 

It was such a REAL dream, and in my heart it felt as if this was not just a bad dream. It felt more like a projection of the future. In the years that have passed since, I recalled this dream from time to time and noted to myself that it hasn't yet came true and that it was probably just a bad dream. But now - now I feel like the situation is getting so bad, that it feels like the beginning of the nightmare that my dream depicted. 

There is a heavy feeling in my heart. In the past month or so, 18 people were murdered by Muslims in Israel. The last 3 were murdered with axes, one of them in front of his 6 year old boy... how cruel can human beings be. This is just so horrible. Every day there is another attack, sometimes they succeed in killing and sometimes they fail, but we are under constant attack, and I don't think that the world is aware of this. It is so sad.