By: Rabbi Shlomo Ezagui
Our sages exhort us to, “Know what is above us. An eye that sees, an ear that listens, and all your deeds are recorded.” Can you imagine if everyone always remembered this statement? The world would be so different. These days with cameras almost everywhere it isn’t all that difficult to visualize.
Rabbi Yochonan Ben Zakai one of the great sages in Jerusalem who lived towards the end of the second Temple said, “if only we feared Heaven as we fear people of blood and flesh.” We are very embarrassed before people who may be watching our every movement. Our sages tell us when a person passes into the next world one of the greatest difficulties, is the shame of seeing our entire life played before the heavenly court.
There are people in their humility or sometimes lack of self-confidence who think, “I am so small and insignificant what difference would my thoughts, deeds or action make.”
Comes the Baal Shem Tov and explains the statement we quoted above in Hebrew in the following way. “A person should always be aware that what starts above and then flows down below to become a person’s reality, is always the result of one’s own choices.”
A great percentage of Israelites never left Egypt when everyone was miraculously freed because they didn’t believe it was possible. The same was with many of the Israelites in the wilderness who never merited entering the Land of Israel and actually stood in the way of ever getting there, because they claimed not to believe in that possibility. By their own declaration they excluded themselves from that reality when it did become an actuality for everyone else.
In the book of Psalms King David says, “G-d is your shadow, at your right side.” Just like a shadow follows your movements, the same is with G-d the source of everything. He follows our lead, our desires and our choices.
The reward for doing good for another person can be a payment or prize. Sometimes even better yet, by fulfilling the desires of someone, we get the person themselves. A relationship and bond is developed with the person who feels personally obligated and attached in return for our good deed to them.
Ultimately when we serve G-d we are told, the reward for doing G-ds will is not so much the prize for doing good, but the satisfaction having done the deed itself. The fact that we were able to serve Almighty G-d in all His glory, and that our effort and action should matter to Him, and He should take note of what we do, is itself an incredible opportunity and the greatest gift.
The deepest level of our soul energy inside us, the core essence and foundation to our soul, is that part of G-d that always remains pure and untouched by anything we can ever do. It is beyond the reach of any human being and forever remains completely connected and one with its own source in heaven, G-d.
This explains the tremendous power, gravity and significance in anything and everything we do.
Even the smallest of action, be it even just a mere thought is an expression and manifestation of our entire soul, everything that we are. There is the potential in everything that we do, because of this deep connection inside of us with G-d, to connect through our conduct, with the deepest levels of G-d himself.
Maimonides writes, that one deed of just one person can tip the scales of the entire equation to bring redemption to the world. Everyone, has this profound connection with the deepest levels of G-d Himself and is able through his/her deeds to reveal the most powerful dimensions of G-d for him/herself and for the entire universe to be impacted by his actions.
To read more articles from Rabbi Ezagui visit him at http://koshercaffeine.blogspot.com
