The Dream

“When a wicked man turns from his wickedness and executes justice and righteousness, because of these he will live.”(Yechezkel 33:19)
 
My friend confided in me the most amazing dream he had the other night. He dreamt that he died. He became a ghost, drifting throughout his life, trying desperately to reappear in front of people he knew. In the end he had to admit to himself that he was dead. He realized that his body no longer existed in human form. He looked at his hand and concentrated on the fact that it was no longer a corporeal substance. As he internalized this new reality, his hand disappeared. He then looked at himself and realized that the mask which made up his body was unnecessary. He was dead, it was no longer necessary. Without losing consciousness, his entire body disappeared as well. He became nothingness, a pure spirit returned to its Source. The moment this happened, he began to sing Psalm 126. His soul began to dance for joy. He heard the voice of an angel join in with him. He accepted his fate. As he was ready to move on to what was beyond his transitory existence –
 
He woke up.
 
At 3:55 in the morning, he emailed his Rabbi and readied himself for whatever news the Sage would bare. His Rabbi told him his dream was a blessing. It meant that he was born again. His life begins anew and he has a clean slate. He is now a man with no sins. Everything goes back to square one. In the eyes of Heaven, he became a new person.
 
My friend discovered the blessing of Personal Holiness later on in life. Looking back on what he did before that, he made a personal accounting of his past sins. He told me that his life has been very difficult for a long time. He had problems in his love life. He was hurt many times. Half of his family had cut him off, and he knew it was because of the sins he had committed.
 
In Duties of the Heart, we learn that one reason for us to love Hashem is to realize that we can never repay Hashem for all that He gives us each day. Hashem gives us limbs, organs, and trillions of electrical connectors that He binds together to form our brain. He breathes into our body fresh air 20,000 times a day. He pumps our heart five times that much. To sin just once is to ignore all of G-d’s Divine Compassion. It takes the gifts He gave us, and stuffs it in His face. There is no way any of us could atone for even one sin committed in our entire life. When my friend tallied up the sum of the mistakes he made, the numbers were staggering. He paid for it with a lifetime of unnecessary and excruciating tribulations.
 
He woke up one day and decided to do teshuva. The teshuva was just as intense. He constantly struggled with an inclination that tormented him with the appeal of re-living past desires. Years went by while he struggled with these inner demons day after day.
 
Then one night – he died. That person who had filled his allotment of forgivable sins a while back, and was slated to spend the rest of his life in emotional and spiritual agony, only to pass this world and have to bear eleven months roasting in the hottest pits of Gehennom – was erased from existence.
 
In his place was born a new being. This person has no sins. He has no past. His darkest emotional problems have faded to the point where they were never were. All that remains is a man who davens with focus, distances himself from personal unholiness to be best of his ability and beyond, and strives to appreciate the true ultimate value of every mitzvah. What a way to start over!
 
Hashem blesses His people with miracles like this to show us how much our personal teshuva can accomplish. As bad as our lives can become, as hopeless as our situation may be, as resigned we think we are to the hopelessness of trying to change – Hashem reminds us that everything is possible in His world! The Gemara tells a story of a man who purchased the services of a hundred prostitutes in his lifetime. He traveled a long way to meet what he heard was the most appealing woman in the area. When he went in to meet her, he heard a voice telling him that he could never make it to the Next World.
 
He didn’t despair. He didn’t quit. He walked away, sat down, and cried. He cried over his sins. He cried over his lack of teshuva. He cried over all the mitzvot he didn’t perform. He cried so hard, and from such a deep place within his soul that he died right there. A moment later, a voice called out from Heaven announcing that this man had been accepted into the World to Come.
 
For my friend, it took almost 5 years. For this man it took a moment. For us, all it takes is the effort. G-d gave us the ability to start over at any point in our lives!
 
Rabbi Nachman of Breslev tells us never despair! When a man exerts himself to do teshuva, he is given Divine Assistance. When he exerts himself to perform a mitzvah, any mitzvah, Hashem lends him a hand.
 
We do get second chances in life. We can be born again and embrace the world with the innocence of a little child. It’s entirely possible to escape all of the emotional ills of our existence by finding a mitzvah, and focusing all of our energies on it so much, that the people we currently are just cease to exist.
 
My friend once confided in me that there were times in his life when he wished he was dead. Who would have thought that his happiest moment would come the night his wish was granted.
 
If these blessings could happen to people who fell into the absolute worst levels of human depravity and strove to break free — Hashem can perform miracles like these for any of us as well!