Trying to Be G-d

Usually, “self-help” books are full of exhortations to readers to “ignore their limitations” and go for broke; don’t let anything get in your way! That might work (for a while) if you’re young and inexperienced. But the older and wiser amongst us know that we all have our limits, and we simply can’t get beyond them – unless we put G-d in the picture.

G-d wants us to see that He’s the only One in the universe that doesn’t have any limits. It’s hard to admit to ourselves, but we aren’t G-d. We have limits. If a woman spends all her time with her girlfriends and entertaining and doing acts of kindness in the community, then she will never be with her children. All her giving is limited to people outside of her own family.

The opposite limitation is also a problem. If a woman is only with her children; if she can only think about her children and no one else’s; if she can only talk about herself and her wonderful children’s accomplishments – then her kids will grow up to be spoiled brats. She is ruining their lives and her own.

So how are we meant to know what “limits” to set? What to let go of, what to hang on to? What to leave alone, and what to choose?

How do we deal with the existential problem of feeling too “free” which leads to the overwhelming feeling of having too many choices? The answer is that G-d only wants us to have one choice right now, and that is to have faith in Him. He wants us to know that we only have this moment and there is only one thing I’m supposed to do right now. G-d isn’t going to tell me what to do next, until I finish this.

He’s setting things up like this, because He wants me to have peace of mind and pleasure from life; He wants me to see how much fun is packed into every precious moment, and to see the beauty He’s created all around me. If I live this moment fully, I can really enjoy a full breath of fresh air for the first time in my life. I can smell the fresh herbs and flowers.

G-d wants me to know that multi-tasking is no good for me, that it’s dangerous, both to my soul and my physical body. Multi-tasking is making me give my powers away. When I focus on so many things at once, I lose myself, and become a super-efficient robot. The Evil Inclination would be so happy to make us all into “successful” religious Robots that are in denial about how we’re killing ourselves. 

I know a psychiatrist who is a master at multi-tasking. He can literally do 14 things at the same time and he’s proud of it. He also has a violent temper and has been raging at his family for years. He’ll yell and scream at his family, and then sit down to a meal of lentils and sprouts because he fancies himself a health buff.  Then he’ll cheat on his wife and go exercise – and end up over-exercising and injuring himself.  He’ll fast to repent for his sins, and he ends up over-fasting and making himself sick. It’s ironic that his robot-like life without emuna leads him to dozens of behaviors that actually threaten his health. Try and speak to him about what he’s doing to himself and his children and not only will he deny he has a problem for which he needs help, but he’s so darn persuasive that he can actually convince some people that his life really makes sense and that he has good reasons for abusing others and himself the way he does. The doctor may not know it, but he is leaving G-d no other choice but to give him loud wake-up call to help him find his way back to sanity.

Someone else I knew, a 50 year old woman, got that wake-up call already and she learned (the hard way) to accept the limits that come with being a human being and not a G-d.  The lady was blessed with a brilliant mind and a very personable character so she quickly moved up in the fortune 500 company that she worked for. The problem was that due to the back-stabbing politics and the male chauvinism and the stress that she encountered while climbing the corporate ladder, she paid for her “success” with two heart attacks. She told herself that these heart attacks were “minor” and were part of the price she had to pay in order to move up.  By the time that her doctor referred her to me, she had been made one of the vice-presidents of the company with a department of 200 employees. By the way, the man who had this job before her died of a massive heart attack himself. Not having G-d in her life, this lady unthinkingly took the plunge and accepted this lethal promotion. Fortunately for her, it was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. She had a third heart attack, and this one almost finished her off. Now she was forced to resign and re-examine her life. She learned about emuna and began to speak to G-d daily in personal prayer. She transformed the self-destructive patterns of behavior that she had been “addicted” to in a matter of months and she used her intelligence and creativity to become a successful author.

The test of one’s emuna is often more difficult for a person with high intelligence as it was in Rabbi Nachman’s famous tale of the The Simple One and the Sophisticate. The more capable the person is, the more likely it is that he will believe that he can “master life” without any help from G-d. These are amongst the most difficult people to help because they have so many intellectual defenses that “protect” them from the truth which is that they are destroying themselves and those around them. Fortunate are those who discover G-d, and are able to turn their lives around in time.