The Earth App

“When the foundations are destroyed, what has the righteous man done?” Psalms 11:3. 

The earth is an app no different than Microsoft Word.  

The similarity is that both applications are stateless.  

What is stateless? What is state? 

A state is a picture of what an application looks at any moment in time. I can open up my Microsoft Word and write this article. Just before I save and close the application, the current state of the Word app is a file with lots of words about Rabbi Nachman of Breslev.  

If I were to close the file and open up my to-do list, the state changes. The current state of the app is a file with a grocery list. Once I close the application, it has no state. Nothing is there. Once I turn it on again, the grocery list is gone. It’s just an empty application waiting for instructions.  

That is stateless: Regardless of what is in the application in any current state, the moment you turn it off, it’s wiped clean.  

The same applies to our world. Hashem created a stateless planet for us to live in. 

The Earth will be Destroyed 

Our Sages explain that everything physically created will cease to exist at some point in time. We just celebrated the 5781st year of creation. Once the calendar hits 7000, the world ends. The state of everything physical will cease to exist. 

All our homes, cars, money, computers, friends on Facebook, everything we may have bequeathed to our children and theirs will be gone. 

It is just like the computer screen once you press Exit.  

The same applies to our bodies. 

After 120, our physical self will cease to exist. Everything retained by our body: muscles, height, even a Botox injection evaporates into dust.  

If that is the case, what’s the point of existence?  

The same point of using Microsoft Word: To make creations that outlive the application.  

Pressing the Divine “Save” Button 

Microsoft Word is more than an application, it’s a platform. On its own it does nothing. Its function is to enable users to create files that will be saved to disk. Once saved to disk, they outlive the application. You can turn off the app all you want, and by simply opening up the file, you get the state returned to you.  

A Word document is something that survives the application to create something of value that survives its application’s destruction.  

We are the users of this application called earth. The earth and our bodies are the platforms. Our mitzvot are the documents. Our task is to cling to the Infinite by doing His will and outliving everything around us.  

Every time we pray, learn Torah, give tzedakah (charity), speak well of others or refrain from speaking ill of anyone, stand firm in our emuna in Hashem in the face of everything that is going down around us, we create an angel. We also create the clothes that will clothe our spiritual bodies in the Next World. 

That angel outlives us. Our merits outlive the lifespan of the earth. Our souls outlive the lifespan of our bodies, and the earth. 

The good we do in this world is the reason for its existence. Once Hashem turns off His “Earth Application,” everything is erased except for the mitzvot on file that He retains.  

That is why learning Torah is vitally more important than learning a trade. Sure, you have to make a living, but learning one will get you trinkets that will eventually disappear. Learning the Book of G-d will get you Divine Gems that will never leave you.  

Spending an hour on social media gets you nothing that will exist forever. Spending that same time reciting the morning prayers and Psalms nets you eternal acquisitions.  

The Sages, who knew this clearer than the rest of us, spend at least 20 hours a day acquiring what mattered. From Hillel the Sage to the Chofetz Chaim, they would only work until they had enough to get their families through the day . . . much like the Manna that Hashem gave us.  

The moment their temporal needs were met, they rushed to the Beit Midrash to learn.  

They knew the power of doing Hashem’s Will: The power to go beyond the limitations of this physical world. The power to survive beyond its destruction. The power to thrive beyond our own demise.  

Hacking into Heaven 

Every day we are burdened with the same choice: Will I put today first or will I put priority on forever? 

Here is where Hashem’s compassion shines upon us like sunlight on a clear summer afternoon: We don’t have to choose one over the other.  

According to the Tanya, once we give 10% of our annual post-tax earnings to charity, we sanctify the other 90% of income we make – as long as it is made honestly.  

If we reserve our intimate relations to the appropriate times with our wife, we sanctify our bodies. As long as we eat Kosher foods, we sanctify our internal organs. If we guard the Shabbat, we sanctify our time. If we set serious time for Torah study, we sanctify our minds.  

We can do both, as long as it is holy, and in doing so we answer the “Will it be for today or forever” question by saying, “Yes.” 

Life can be a happy balance between the spiritual and the physical in such a way that even the physical is spiritual and everything we do will last forever. 

These are the keys to eternity. The special login and password our Divine Programmer gives us to access everything Divine that exists beyond time and space.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Israel with his wife and children.