Jump!

Sometimes, you can stand on the edge of a big decision, or a big change, for years and years, peering over the edge at the big rocks below, and debating whether to jump or not. I mean, why jump? Why risk stability, and comfort, and routine, and ease for the jagged edges of the unknown?

It sounds like a no-brainer, in many ways: OF COURSE you don’t jump, you idiot! Why would you risk every thing, your whole way of life, everything you know and are familiar with just to ‘change’ or to ‘grow’?

If that was all there was to it, 99.9% of us would never, ever jump into the unknown. But of course, that’s not all there is to it. G-d is also in the picture, and G-d knows what’s best for us. G-d also knows that for most of us, ‘the comfort zone’ is the single biggest threat there is to our souls.

It’s so comfortable pretending you can live in two worlds at once, doing Friday night suppers but then going shopping the next day; or sending your kids to Jewish school and then jetting off to the seven star hotel in Abu Dhabi for Chanuka; or if your comfort zone is slightly more observant, then the fence you’ll be trying to straddle could be watching dodgy movies on your I-phone while wearing a big, fat, black velvet kippa and apparently learning in yeshiva full time.

G-d sees us spiritually suffocating in all the comfort and convenience and fun and entertainment and superficiality, and He starts yelling at us that we need to get out of that dangerous place, ASAP!

“But G-d; all my friends are here! I have a spacious, large, modern, luxurious home here! I’m doing good things here…People are talking a lot more about You, G-d; they’re reading more Breslev books; they’re even booking themselves trip to Uman. Why do I have to jump?”

And that’s when you really have to strain your ears to hear the answer, because as the prophet Elijah was told, G-d’s message to us is usually a still, small voice, telling us: “Jump, because otherwise I’m going to push you.”

Not because G-d is mean, G-d forbid, but because He really sees what’s best for us, and He can really see all the dangers and problems and issues lurking in those places where we are just so darned comfortable.

It’s like when a bunch of Jewish refugees were trying to escape from the Ayatollahs’ Iran a few decades ago. The only escape route was over treacherous, dangerous mountain trails. One pass was so high, and so narrow, and so dangerous-looking, that many of the people in the group balked: they simply couldn’t do it.

Their guide pulled out a gun, and gave them a choice: either, you cross the pass, or I shoot you dead right here. What a choice! So they swallowed hard, and crossed. At the end of the journey, the guide told them that he was also Jewish, and that he’d only pulled the gun on them because otherwise, they never would have found the courage to face their fears, and get to safety.

His ‘horrible’ action saved their lives.

And sometimes, that’s what G-d is doing to us, as well. He knows how easy it is for people to pick short-term (relative) comfort over long-term safety and prosperity. He knows that most of us, left to our own devices, simply aren’t going to jump. So then, He starts messing up our livelihoods; or our social standing; or our health; or our family dynamics (and sometimes, everything at once) because He knows that if the level of discomfort in our comfort zone gets high enough, we will want to jump.

Jump to what? To where? G-d has those answers for each of us. For some people, the message is to jump to a new location; for others, the message is to jump to a new way of being, of living. But really, we’re all jumping towards the same thing: G-d. And once you know that He wants you to jump, and that He’s going to catch you, wherever you end up in the meantime, then you get the courage to shuffle to the cliff, and to jump.

Even if you can’t afford it. Even if it looks like you and your kids are going to have no friends. Even when you can’t see where you’re meant to fit in, or how it’s going to work. You just trust G-d that it will. And then somehow, it always does.