 I used to have a poster on the side of my refrigerator showing a bunch of hot air balloons soaring high in the sky, overlooking a beautiful countryside.
The poster said, “Limits exist only in the mind.”
Science tells us that the bumble bee is poorly designed for flight. Its body is too heavy, its wings are too short and stubby and it is aerodynamically unsound. By all engineering principles, it should not be able to fly.
Then how is it that the bumble bee can fly?
No one told it that it can’t.
Limits exist only in the mind.
Excerpt from “An Invisible Barrier”
By Rabbi Simcha Weinberg
The family had been close with their local Cohanim for many years. They gave their Terumah to these Cohanim. They would always travel to Jerusalem when these Cohanim were on duty in the Beit Hamikdash. They turned to these Cohanim for spiritual guidance and advice. The bond seemed unbreakable.
Then tragedy struck. One of their children died. Their friends couldn’t enter their home until the body had been removed. They stood outside waiting. The family stood at their window staring out at their friends, feeling as if an invisible barrier separated their dearest friends from them. The body was removed, and still the Cohanim stood at a distance from those who had become ritually impure. They followed the funeral procession, at a distance, until the gates of the local cemetery, and then stopped. They could not enter the burial grounds. They stood away, as close as possible, but still at a distance, and watched the funeral from outside the cemetery gates. They were “there” for their friends, but they were not.
People who suffer, experience a particular sense of loneliness, but the invisible barrier that separated this family and their close friends, the Cohanim, intensified their sense of isolation. The family saw their friends constantly standing as close as possible, but always at a distance. They missed their friends. They were desperate for their spiritual guidance, but it was not to be during the darkest hours from the time of death until they returned from the funeral.
These are very sad moments indeed, when people feel estranged or even abandoned by the ones they love at a time when the sufferers really need and want that closeness.
How sad, how painful to not be able to connect.
Can we even begin to imagine the loneliness, the disappointment, the yearning, as it were, of the Ribono Shel Olam to connect with his children at Har Sinai, when He said:
“Bim'shoch Hayoveil, heimah ya'alu bahar - Upon the extended blast of the shofar, they may ascend the mountain - "When you hear the shofar, come close to me - I want to connect with you." !?
The shofar sounded and the people heard the Ten Commandments, and they saw the thunder and the flames, yet . . .
Vaya'amdu meirachok - They stood from afar.
The invisible boundary of Fear of God . . . or, perhaps . . . the invisible boundary of misunderstanding what God said, what He wanted.
How often do we misinterpret the word of God and set up invisible barriers in our minds, in our belief systems, based on what we think God meant, but are not necessarily fact or truth.
The Meraglim (Spies) brought back their evil report, and we cried. And God said, "You cried for no reason, I will give you something to cry about for generations."
Generation = 1; Generations = 2.
Two generations (2 x 20 years/generation) = 40 years, enough time for those who cried to die out.
40 years - the end of the decree.
The decree was given with a time limit:
“Your children will roam in the Wilderness for forty years and bear your guilt; until [to the time when] your carcasses shall cease to be, in the Wilderness. Like the number of the days that you spied out the Land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, shall you bear your iniquities - forty years [the time limit of the decree – two generations] - and you shall comprehend your straying from me. I Hashem have spoken – if I shall not do this to this entire assembly that gathers against Me! In this Wilderness shall they cease to be, and there they shall die [Shom tehei kevuraschem].” (Numbers: 33-35)
Have we put up an invisible barrier between us and the Beis HaMikdash . . . between us and the Almighty . . . by "standing from afar" to this very day?
Maybe we joined the Chumrah of the Year Club (self imposed restriction), and have held onto the tragedy of the Spies for all these generations, while the Almighty is still calling us to come close . . . but Vaya’amdu meirachok - We still stand from afar . . . and we cry . . . and cry . . . and cry some more, expecting bad things to happen to us around this time.
The Power of Attraction
B’derech she-adam rotzeh leileich, molichin oso – In the way that a man wants to go, Hashem directs him [good or bad]. (Rashi on Numbers 22:35, quoting the Talmud Makkos 10b)
Is it possible that we attract what we focus on, that we attract what we believe?
Is it possible . . . that we don’t have the Beis HaMikdash . . . because we are still crying?
The Decree was over forty years after it was issued.
Can we even begin to imagine the pain of the Ribono Shel Olam when he had to destroy his own house, the Beis HaMikdash, and He wants us to come close and rebuild . . . but Vaya’amdu meirachok – we still stand from afar and cry?
I wonder if it's time we stopped crying, remove the invisible barriers that we have put up in our minds between us and the Almighty, and start building the Beis HaMikdash.
I wonder if it’s time to start thinking about the Ribono Shel Olam’s loneliness instead of our own.
Limits exist only in the mind.
Copyright © 2011 by Harvey (Heshie) Klein, MD
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