Up or Down?

Sometimes going down is going up.
 
I had a roommate in college who was studying to be a diplomat. He came from Argentina. He was very proud of his country and couldn't wait to serve in their foreign service. On our wall was a map of the world. There was something peculiar about the map but I quickly learned not to ask him about it. According to the South American native, there was no reason the United States needed to be on the top half of the world. The earth was round and UP and DOWN were strictly arbitrary. Anybody who asked him to fix the map by putting it "right side up" learned a lesson about the relativity of fixed points on a sphere.

If I were to go straight up from any point on earth, I could reach the moon.
 
If I were to go straight down from any point on earth, going through the ground itself and emerging to the other side, and I continued in that direction — I could make it all the way to the North Star.
 
Down eventually leads upward.
 
If I decide to move in a downward direction and keep going for 12 hours, the earth will have rotated 180 degrees. In less than a day I have gone from going down to up.
 
Why did Hashem create such a topsy turvy existence? What is He trying to teach us?
 
I think He is trying to teach us about the laws of teshuvah through the laws of science.
 
Take a man who spent a part of his life going in a "not-upward" spiritual direction. He ate whatever he wanted, drank whatever he desired, and indulged in all types of physical unholiness. On the surface he is going down. But what happens once he makes teshuvah? He has to spend the rest of his life exerting himself to an even greater degree. We learn in the Talmud that where the penitent stand, not even the righteous can stand. The Rambam tells us that this is because a righteous man never experienced the basic pleasures of the sin itself. Once we have tasted the forbidden fruit we know how good it can be.
 
The result is that the penitent has to make an even greater exertion to return.
 
The Zohar teaches us a lesson about addiction. Once we decide to stop a habit, the punishment is that we have to suffer by longing for it constantly. The Zohar tells us the spiritual reason for withdrawal pains — it is the tikkun (correction) we have to make to clean out the spiritual blemish caused by the addiction.
 
Overcoming addiction to drugs, drink, and the worst chemical dependency of all — personal unholiness, is a very intense job. To gradually pull our souls away from all the forms of impurities to the tongue (through inappropriate speech), eyes, and heart takes a long time and requires all the emotional and spiritual energy we can find. The teshuvah is earth-shaking. The light we bring to this world through our energy is far greater than almost anything man can accomplish on this earth.
 
This is not a license to engage in any form of personal unholiness. We are not allowed to create unnecessary tests for ourselves. Hashem gives us all the trials we need to perform our mission in life.
 
It does prove that in one quick decision down immediately becomes up!
 
Let's expand this to a national level. How many times in the history of Israel has the sword of our enemies come crashing down on us, only for Hashem to save us right as it was touching our necks? How many times did we fall so far, the only direction that remained was up? As the Temple was burning our holy Sages were preparing the Mishnah. Right after we fell from nationhood, the great Rabbis codified the Oral law and preserved us as a distinct people for thousands of years even as we were spread out among hundreds of nations both past and present. The very day King Ferdinand of Spain threw out the final Jew from his country a man by the name of Christobal Colon set sail to discover America, an eventual refuge for millions of Jews. Less than three years after the last Jew was murdered in Germany, a two thousand year old dream that nobody thought possible became a reality through countless miracles.
 
As the chaos surrounding Israel intensifies we are all asking ourselves the same question: How bad can things become for the Jewish People? How close will the blade meet the neck of Israel this time?
 
Instead of worrying we should dance for joy!
 
We know from our own history that down inevitably leads to up. The force with which we are descending only accelerates to prepare for the inevitable ascent!

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Dovber Halevi is the author of the financial book, How to Survive the Coming Decade of Anxiety. He writes for Breslev Israel and The Middle East Magazine. He lives with his wife and two children in Eretz Yisrael.