Divine Messaging

 If we don’t cut it out before it embeds itself deep into our skin, it soon becomes a painful part of our daily life.
 
Have you ever suffered from an ingrown toenail? It isn’t pleasant, to say the least. Recently, I felt the familiar tell-tale sign of slightly painful swelling on the edge of my big toe, where nail meets flesh. I realized that this has become a recurring problem, and I suddenly understood. Hashem is sending me a message. No, he is not telling me that I need to stop buying cute shoes (or maybe He is?). It has to be deeper than that.
 
Firstly, I was instantly relieved to observe that Hashem was telling me something. I am grateful that I didn’t end up at the podiatrist, again, having to undergo an extremely painful procedure that cuts, digs, and extracts the embedded nail from infected, swollen, and extremely sensitive flesh. Come to think of it, last time that happened was way before doing teshuva. Since then, I always manage to catch it before it becomes chronic, and I take care of the ‘extraction’ myself, which is a lot less painful.
 
I think I’m onto something here. It’s time to get to the foot of the matter.
 
I have a feeling Hashem is using my big toe to uproot an ‘ingrown’ negative personality trait that needs reigning in before it becomes a painful part of my life. If it does, one of two things will happen: either I will have to root it out, or Hashem, aka The Podiatrist, will. My choice in the matter affects the how, and the when.
 
But which trait? There are so many. Anger? Pride? Impatience? I feel the familiar surge of growing confusion. They are all intertwined, so where do I begin? Pride breeds anger, impatience breeds anger, pride breeds impatience… Ah, looks like my pride is being taken to task. Hashem is so poetic, for is not the big toe the pride of the foot? I can’t help but have a little chuckle at my own expense.
 
Choosing how to deal with life and Hashem’s messages depends on our level of Emuna. I can see my ingrown toenail problem as having only physical significance, or I can choose to connect it to G-d and His constant messages. No wonder today’s society is so addicted to SMS, Messenger, Skype-ing and online chatrooms. It is the physical counterpart to Hashem’s constant messages that our soul craves to listen to, but our body drowns out. Our souls yearn to constantly connect to our creator, but we are distracted by our bodies, so this is played out through our addiction to modern technology and communication.
 
In his book, “Trail to Tranquility”, Rabbi Brody teaches us a 3-step process to get us to search and destroy the issues and negative traits in our lives, before they become ‘ingrown’ and infect our inner peace. The steps are: Observe. Self-Evaluate. Implement. To observe means to take stock of a certain situation and realize that there is a higher message involved, and to connect to it. Self-evaluation requires that we connect the message to something in ourselves or our lives that needs improvement or attention. Implementation is the active phase of this process, and the step that completes the cycle with a tangible act that represents the desire to change.
 
So far, I have completed two out of three stages. But to tell the truth, I always get stuck on the implementation. I seem to think that realizing the problem is just as good as solving it. But it really isn’t. Action is the end-all. That’s why Torah demands we physically perform the commandments, not only study them. Where knowledge is understanding, action is internalizing.
 
Pride is such an ugly, all pervasive trait. It affects simply everything. Rabbi Nachman teaches that it is the root of all the bodily appetites. Pride literally throws our lives off-balance, a little like having a sore big toe. So how on earth do I implement this? Rabbi Yisrael Salanter used to say that it was easier to learn the entire Talmud than it was to change one character trait.  Looks like I’m in for another ingrown toenail sometime soon…
 
Wait right there. G-d doesn’t lightly hand out such heavy-handed messages and tasks on a daily basis. We are not superhuman. It’s a reminder, not a sentence! Perhaps I do need to take my pride in hand, but not to the point where I should despair about it, or give up before I begin. That’s just my Evil Inclination getting in the way. I feel better already. I simply need to focus on one area where my pride gets in the way and start with that first, little by little. As Rabbi Brody says, once we show G-d that we got the message and are working on it, he doesn’t need to send us daily reminders anymore…
 
I guess the main thing is to realize that life’s little iniquities are in fact our greatest assets, if we would just slow down long enough to pay attention. If we checked our Divine G-Mail as often as we check our e-mail, we’d stay connected where it truly makes a difference.