As we discussed in a recent post, the human eye sees everything UPSIDE DOWN and the brain then adjusts the perspective to be right side up. Why did Hashem create us this way? Why can't the eye perceive things as they are??
May I suggest that this is a simile to the spiritual world. Everything we see down here is upside down and the job of our brain is to turn things right side up. Says the Gemara [Bava Bara 10b]:
כי הא דיוסף בריה דר' יהושע חלש אינגיד א"ל אבוה מאי חזית אמר ליה עולם הפוך ראיתי עליונים למטה ותחתונים למעלה אמר ליה עולם ברור ראית ואנן היכי חזיתינן [א"ל] כי היכי דחשבינן הכא חשבינן התם
This is like the incident involving Yosef, son of Rabbi Yehoshua, who became ill and fainted. When he returned to good health, his father said to him: What did you see when you were not conscious? Yosef said to him: I saw an inverted world. Those above, i.e., those who are considered important in this world, were below, insignificant, while those below, i.e., those who are insignificant in this world, were above. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: You have seen a clear world. The world you have seen is the true world, one in which one’s spiritual and moral standing determines his true importance. Rabbi Yehoshua further asked him: And how did you see us, the Torah scholars, there? Yosef said to him: Just as we are important here, we are important there.
This world is an inverted world - עולם הפוך!! So we must readjust our sights and view things as they are in the true world. Up there, Facebook friends, twitter and instagram followers, and all the trappings of Modern Sheker have zero significance. All we have up there is the quality of our connection to Hashem that we forged in this world.
This week I had my 25th wedding anniversary. So, coincidentally did my wife. I pondered this event. I look at the lives of the rich and famous and they look much more exciting than mine. They have tons and tons of money, multiple beautiful, luxurious homes, gorgeous wives, active social lives, and endless possibilities for fun and adventure. No worries. They flash their big smiles and get their picture in the papers.
Me - a simple man.
I can tell myself that in the NEXT WORLD I will be rewarded and they will not so I shouldn't be jealous. But it is not true. It is not only in the NEXT WORLD that I have it better but in THIS WORLD.
Who REALLY has it better in THIS WORLD? Let's see. Go to the wiki page of any rich and famous personality and you will see that they are divorced almost 100 percent of the time. Almost 100 percent infidelity. They always have a small number of children and if they have a larger number it is always with multiple women - often while married to one woman they will have a child with someone else as well [מקפיד on פרו ורבו?]. They are hit with paternity lawsuits left and right. Every month they are writing laaaarge checks to support children they don't know and women they despise [i.e. their ex-wives]. They are often miserable, in therapy, on medication for emotional issues, consumed by jealousy, self-esteem issues, anxiety and many other mental and physical maladies. There is often drugs and or alcohol. Behind their golden smiles and the beautiful women posing with them in the pictures are very sad, unfortunate people. This is not a mussar shmooze [well not ONLY a mussar shmooze] but absolute reality. Has there ever been written a biography about a rich and famous personality who had a normal, stable, happy life? Never.
We religious people are lucky. From a young age we learn right from wrong and SELF CONTROL. Drugs, alcohol, infidelity, domestic violence and many of the other addictions and plagues of the rich and famous are foreign to [most of] us. We get up, go to minyan, hear a shiur on the daf-yomi, work out a little bit, work 10 hour days, stop for mincha and maariv, eat some dinner, put the kids to sleep with shma and kisses and go to sleep ourselves. We have no time or energy for parties where people are less celebrating and much more drowning out their sorrows with alcohol and loud music. We don't get divorced because we fell out of love with our spouses and found someone more attractive. There are ALWAYS going to be women who will seem more attractive than our spouses. But we believe in stability and building large, solid families where the goal is not pleasure but a higher and more meaningful purpose of preserving our tradition and perpetuating the Torah. Ultimately, sticking it out even when things aren't so exciting brings us MUCH MORE joy! We never allow ourselves to forget the Holocaust and other events in our history because they remind us what life is all about and what really matters.
We are constantly enriched by Shabbos and Yom Tov, weddings, Bar Mitzva's and Brissim. We might not know all the famous people but give any two religious Jews five minutes together and they will discover with a quick game of Jewish geography that they are connected in 17 different ways and often are even related through marriage. [Just tonight I was talking to my son and said "Hey, I went to school with your father!!"].
Life might not always be "fun" or "exciting" but it is firm, stable and filled with meaning and purpose. What looks shiny and exciting in the outside world is all a big facade. Everybody knows that or should know that.
Rich and famous people don't have the exquisite pleasure of learning a Minchas Chinuch or a Sfas Emes. They are SO-TOTALLY missing out on the SWEETEST delights of the mind and soul. They don't have the INCREDIBLE FULFILLMENT of overcoming their bodily desires as we do when we have fast days and keep Taharas Hamishpacha. They stuff food and drink into their systems without thinking. We have the JOY of making brachos and expressing deep gratitude. [They never experience the excitement of someone klopping on the Bimah after Chazaras Ha-shatz to cancel תחנון. Or saying only some of the kinnos on Tisha B'av.... 😊😀 ].
Rich and famous people don't have the exquisite pleasure of learning a Minchas Chinuch or a Sfas Emes. They are SO-TOTALLY missing out on the SWEETEST delights of the mind and soul. They don't have the INCREDIBLE FULFILLMENT of overcoming their bodily desires as we do when we have fast days and keep Taharas Hamishpacha. They stuff food and drink into their systems without thinking. We have the JOY of making brachos and expressing deep gratitude. [They never experience the excitement of someone klopping on the Bimah after Chazaras Ha-shatz to cancel תחנון. Or saying only some of the kinnos on Tisha B'av.... 😊😀 ].
So remember!! This is an עולם הפוך!!! People who LOOK really happy are usually the MOST MISERABLE. Robin Williams, to take one of a million examples, looked AWFULLY happy. In the end - we find out how awful it was indeed. Instead of being jealous of others we should FEEL BADLY for them. So sad. All that money, all that fame, all that potential - and sooooo empty.
ברוך א-להינו שבראנו לכבודו והבדילנו מן התועים ונתן לנו תורת אמת וחיי עולם נטע בתוכנו!!!
