Trillions of Stars

This is the garden of a great and magnificent King! – Lubavitcher Rebbe on Adam's reaction to seeing the world for the first time.

It was always there, everywhere.

Every night we see the stars, trillions of them. They were there from the time of Adam, to King David, right to this very day.

We are surrounded by boundless beauty. Green trees dot the landscape filled in by a sapphire blue sky. Birds fly overhead and flowers bloom all around. Each morning we see this great fiery ball emerge from the horizon.

We live each day in the Garden of the King. The Universe declares the Glory of Hashem.

Don't we do the same to our own abode? Don't we built the finest exteriors to our houses by adorning them with the most expensive decorations?

We do it to let people know how great it must be inside.

We do it to feed our egos. He does it for exactly the opposite. He does it so we can feel small. Small enough to enter the inner chamber of what the greatness of His gardens are proclaiming.

What a vessel He gave us to occupy. The human brain has 10 trillion connections. The entire body has 100 trillion cells. Each one of us is host to 3 billion base pairs of human DNA, each strand is 2 nanometers wide.

We live in Hashem's Garden every moment we are alive. It's the things that are inferior, the manmade stuff that takes it all away. When we are thinking about making a living, politics, and being the center of attention we forget where we truly are. When we focus on tomorrow, it’s at the cost of what we should be doing right now.

Regret over yesterday and resentment for tomorrow are the great blindfolds of today. But a blindfold can be taken off. We can stop for a minute. Sit in a park. Meditate on the sun above, the sky overhead, the grass, the dirt, the birds, dogs, and the assortment of flowers around us and realize where we are.

Even if a job is in jeopardy, a relationship is on the rocks, or you see plenty of reasons not to be content, we can look all around and remember. We aren't starving. We have people in our lives who love us. Hashem loves us. We have freedom to think, to speak, and to dream knowing that the government will not get in the way of our pursuing the things we most want in life.

We are part of G-d's world. We live in a treasure house of gold and diamonds. Every act of kindness we do is like picking up a precious coin and throwing it into our safe deposit box. Every time we smile, give charity, let a woman or child go in front of us in line, learn Torah, let our spouse win an argument, or even just take out the garbage – we are inching beyond the greatness of G-d’s garden of Eden in this world, and moving closer everything that greatness represents.

Exactly how great is His greatness? What will it be like to be closer to Him in the Next World once the blinders of this one are removed? Is there any type of sample we can taste to get a glimpse of what's in store for us if we life our life His way?

Open a window.

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David Ben Horin is the author of Thank God for Israel. It is my greatest desire to share this with you, along with another book I wrote, The Great Life Hack. You can have it for free!