Monday, June 17, 2013

Finding One's place

Once, when the Seer of Lublin was a young child, his father saw him running off to the forest.

"Yaakov Yitzchak" his father called out, "why are you going into the woods?" Stopping, the future Seer turned to his father. "I'm going into the forest to meditate and talk to God," he replied.

"My son," the young Seer's father said, "Why do you need to go into the wildreness? Don't you know that God is everywhere?"

"I know that God is everywhere, father," the boy replied, "but I am not!"

This is such an incredibly profound lesson. It's not enough that we recognize  God's presence, which encompasses and permeates everything; we have to have the ability to "meet" Him there - to see God in everything. This is the lesson of the Seer's quip: דרשו ה׳ בהימצאו


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