What’s Over There?

Don’t Look Down 

Did you hear President Joe Biden’s speech the other day? He called 150 million of his countrymen “extremists”. He said former President Donald J. Trump was “a threat to the Republic”. Mr. Trump then called Joe Biden “the enemy of the state”. 

It’s getting intense, as if it wasn’t already.  

You should have seen what they were writing on Facebook. There were wild comments in the Times of Israel and Huffington Post. The New York Post eviscerated Biden’s speech and Truth Social went berserk.   

I wonder what Ben Shapiro and Candice Owens had to say? 

There something very sinister behind all of this. 

The real motive behind these comments can be found in Sefer Shemot:  

The work shall be made harder for the men so that they shall be busy doing it and not talk about trivialities. (Shemot 5:9) 

We are being distracted to the point that we don’t take so much as a second to reflect on God and His mission for us in His world. 

Remember the Exodus Every Day . . . and Why God Did It

According to the Ramchal our purpose in this world is to perform mitzvot. We are to accumulate mitzvot with the alacrity and vigilance that we would gather gold and silver.  

He points out that we have very little, if any, real peace in this world. We have seventy to eighty years of a healthy body, filled with bouts of ailments and sicknesses before the natural weakening of the body as it ages, all the while worrying about filling our daily bodily needs.  

How can we focus on accumulating wealth for a world that is temporary and riddled with periods of pain and uncertainty? 

The Next World is eternal.  

The currency you amass for the Next World is forever. If we are to be vigilant to amass money that we can only spend for a short period of time, and retain physical ability to enjoy for an even shorter duration, how much more so should we be diligent to perform mitzvot to accumulate merit that lasts forever, whose enjoyment we can celebrate for all eternity? 

Would you prefer stock options that eventually expire or preferred stocks that pay handsome dividends forever? 

The only way you could make a naive choice is if your brain gets hijacked. 

That’s exactly what the Evil Inclination is doing.  

The Satan, which drives your Evil Inclination, is a master of war. It is a common war tactic to attack a platoon of well-armed soldiers with a small squad of 10 warriors simply to bait them into abandoning their fortified positions, only to have the rest of that squad’s division attack from the rear.  

This strategy is so widely used that even Joshua employed it in conquering Eretz Yisrael.  

By luring us onto Facebook, Instagram, CNN, and the Comments boards, we are turning away from our fortified position – Serving God through the mitzvot He gives us.  

Given a constant feed of visual chocolate, we indulge in the small delicacies of intrigue, gossip, and outrage while turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the real reason we have eyes to see and ears to hear. 

It’s to ask the big question: What are we doing here? What is our life’s purpose? 

This is the position we are being distracted from manning and as a result, we are sacked by the Devil from the rear. We go days, months, years, even longer not reflecting on why we are created and what it’s all about. Countless opportunities to bring light are neglected as the Satan eats away at our soul.  

Reflecting on how your Creator blesses you with enough to eat from an infinite variety of foods, and how He creates your body to extract the benefits from each type of food while expelling the toxic wastes without causing any harm, and He enables us to do this process hundreds of times each year, let’s us understand how much Hashem gives us.  

We realize how much He loves us.  

We receive a glimpse of what it is all for.  

Every day, we have the chance to gather more mitzvot than we can “Share” and “Like” combined! 

• Absorption in prayer by concentrating harder on our blessings.  
• Acts of kindness (start with the easy by being extra nice to our spouse, kids, parents, cousins, friends, people in our Beit Knesset, and co-workers) 
• Charity
• Torah learning
• Smile at anyone we see! 

There are so many ways to acquire stocks that pay endless dividends throughout your life, with the proceeds from the sale of the stock itself following you up to the Next World.  

We are in the ultimate treasure house, surrounded by gold, silver, diamonds, rubies, and countless gems. To grab all you can and escape from Satan’s clutches, turn off all screens for at least an hour a day and ask yourself What it’s all about?. 

If you don’t have the answers, talk to Hashem and ask Him. 

Just don’t get distracted.  

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The Ben Horin family lives in Afula with their children, a new high-tech center, Jewish and Arab neighbors, and Matilda, the local camel. David’s Israeli startup, Center Stage Content, provides content services for startups and small businesses.