Thursday, December 3, 2009

"Each soul understands and does things in a way not suitable for another soul"


"Divine service in the world is divided up, with each human being, like the primordial Adam, put in charge of a certain portion of God's garden, to work it and keep it.


It is said that in the Torah there are seventy faces which are the seventy faces of the divine Shekhinah, and that these contain six hun­dred thousand faces in accordance with the number of primary souls of Israel, so that every individual soul has a certain part in the Torah.

In other words, each soul understands and does things in a way not suitable for another soul.

Everyone can and should learn from others the proper way of doing things, but in the end each person has to follow his own winding path to the goal that is his heart's desire.

Some lives have an emotional emphasis.

Others, an intellectual.

For some the way of joy is natural.

For others existence is full of effort and struggle.

There are people for whom purity of heart is the most difficult thing in the world, while for others it is given as a gift from birth."

--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz


From T
he Thirteen Petalled Rose by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz