The Shattered Mirror

Let’s stop already with the complaining about CNN reports, UN condemnation and all the anti-Israel propaganda on college campuses. Why? It’s from Hashem, and it’s for our best. As a nation, if we take a look in the mirror and see that we are responsible for our pain, we’ll shape up and help others grow stronger in Emuna from a place of dedication and love.

Let’s look at marriage, Rabbi Shalom Arush teaches in the Garden of Peace not to make any comments to your wife, because she is a mirror that Hashem is using to show us our own faults. What does that mean? In simple terms it means that the next time she rebukes you for not doing something important for her don’t snap back with a bunch of complaints on her, rather FIX YOURSELF.

Thousands upon thousands of married men who follow the Rav’s advice can say that this saved their marriages. If you are messing up as a husband, your wife will be aggravating you in a certain way. But this is not because she desires for you to tear your hair out, it’s simply Hashem calling out your name, “Dave, uhhh, where’ve you been lately, My son? You need to evaluate yourself and find out where you are slacking.” “OK, Hashem, wow sorry. Ya, I’ll fix that and be better next time, please forgive me and help me not repeat that mistake!”

How do we get to this level, only through daily self-prayer and evaluation and to simply think about your day to day occurrences over the last 24 hours and say, “Whoa, Hashem sorry for seeing that girl at the mall, sorry for saying rude things, sorry for forgetting to do that favor for my wife.” Basically, it’s a daily shower for the soul. By staying clean and asking for forgiveness about our mess-ups, we don’t need crazy wake up calls or complaints from our wives. We correct and move on, because you my friend are paying attention! You believe there’s a G-d in the world and that He is letting you use your free will. Sometimes we screw up, so we say sorry. We don’t let a day go by without a shower for the body, and we don’t let a day go by without a good hour evaluation rinse on the soul. Try it yourself and do it every day, your life will change!

So how is this all connected to the balagan (crazy situation) for the Jewish people? We are not interpreting on a national level that all our problems with the world are from Hashem and that they carry a message. We are on the golf course and in the spa, and worried about which desert to order. We are first Americans and then Jews. We are not proud carriers of Torah…yet. We are up to our nostrils in materialistic pursuits and desires that sadly the only way to get us back on track is a good punch in the nose at times to deflate our egos. We are a nation that can at times be totally ungrateful both in our personal lives and our collective national life. How much do we take for granted, our homes, wives, children, jobs, the Holy Land of Israel…We need to learn to stop the hustle of life and chill out with Hashem, sip a cup of coffee and just speak to Him and say, “Hashem, you are so good to me, and I have all I need, what can I do for You and Your people, what do they need?”

We are nation with a mission, to bring the world as we know it out of the dark and into a new existence of emuna. But let’s do the math for a minute… If there are 12,000,000 Jews living in the world, and only 2,000,000 are keeping the Torah it’s absolute failure on our part. So no wonder we have all the dissension from the non-Jews. It’s like the wife saying, “Take a shower — you stiiiiink!!!” What do we do, complain that she is too sensitive? No! You stink so you shower with soap, use the scrubber that you hate and put on some cologne. Problem solved, no bickering, just fix yourself. We as a nation need to do the same. How? We need to spread emuna and reevaluate how we ourselves observe the Torah. Are we smiling when we prepare for Passover, are we smiling when we say Alenu L’Shabeach (It is our duty to praise the Holy One) or are we a bunch of rushed and stressed out kippa-wearing homo sapiens. Where’s the emuna and joy, let’s get to work.

Homework:  Take responsibility for the world, spread emuna books and pamphlets.  By doing so may we merit world peace.