A Pound of Flesh

If Kim Kardashian had warts and zits all over her body, would you still be interested? 

According to the Tanya, all the evil of this world is a bitter shell, like the shell of fruit. Bite into the outside of an orange. It’s bitter. The taste is the opposite of what’s inside.  

But it’s the skin that looks appealing, even if it deceives you into believing its taste is as desirable.  

This is the world we live in.  

Everything on the outside such as money, influence, having the right friends, power, status, material possessions – it’s the shell. Like the orange peel, a shell has its use, but it becomes garbage after it’s used up.  

Everything on the inside such as Torah learning, prayer, humility (or giving away influence and status), charity or giving away money, character traits, self-sacrifice (or giving away possessions and deferring to friends) – that’s the inside. Even if its appearance implies a bland taste, it’s pure sweetness.  

Even after the inside is consumed, it continues to benefit the body and the soul.  

The orange is digested by the stomach. What’s left goes to the liver. The liver transforms it into blood and sends the blood to the heart where it is pumped throughout your entire body from the feet to the brain – to the soul.  

Hashem tells us the blood is the soul. (Devarim 12:23). 

The inner sweetness becomes a part of our very existence.  

Trapped in Mitzrayim 

Every day, twice a day, we read the Shema. In the third paragraph, Hashem describes Himself to us as our God Who brought us out of Egypt, or Mitzrayim.  

Every time a Jew eats a piece of bread, in the second blessing of Birkat HaMazon, he recalls how Hashem brought us out of Mitzrayim.  

What is Mitzrayim? Break apart the word to find out: Mi – from, tzarim – narrow straits.  

Hashem redeemed us from the narrow straits to take us into a spacious land.  

Huh?  

Egypt is 50 times larger than Israel. So, how could we leave a place of over 1 million square kilometers to go to Eretz Yisrael, a land that is 22 thousand square kilometers, and call it “spacious”? 

Every day we are commanded to remember the Exodus – to remember that we went from the narrow straits to the spacious land.  

Flesh is narrow. It has the thickness of four pieces of paper. But we subjugate ourselves every day for it. We snuff out our souls and cast ourselves into exile for nothing more than a shell of flesh.  

You don’t believe me? 

Imagine the sexiest person alive – but not for too long. Now, imagine warts all over their face and pus dripping down their cheek. Even if they have the “perfect figure,” would you still be interested? 

To invest our soul in the pursuit of flesh is a narrow venture. It feeds the shell of this world, the evil klipot (shell), the narrowest most limited area of existence.  

We trap ourselves into the narrow band of physicality, which is limited. We cast our soul into exile by obsessing over the bitter shell at the expense of the sweet fruit.  

We waste precious energy and time in something that tastes dreadful and whose purpose is to be peeled off and discarded.  

Human flesh protects the mind and limbs so they can busy themselves with the performance of mitzvot. Once our time is up in this world, our flesh – like the orange peel – is discarded into the earth.  

That’s Mitzrayim.  

The service of Hashem is connection to the Infinite. Living in Eretz Yisrael is a mitzvah we perform with our entire body every moment of the day. That is why Eretz Yisrael is described as spacious while the obsession with Mitzrayim is narrow.  

Mitzvot is the sweetness. It’s the soul that continues forever. It’s the good we do in our life that endures. It’s eternity in this world and the Next that expands our horizons to forever and beyond.  

Resisting the shell adds to what’s inside. Focusing on expanding the sweetness through emunah, Torah, and kindness is what we are here for.  

Every moment we waste thinking about or even pursuing the shell is a bite into sheer bitterness . . . no matter how appealing it may look.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David’s Israeli startup, Center Stage Marketing, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.