Why are we Praying for Life- What is Life? II

What is the purpose of my individual life? . We started to explain last time that we each, as individuals, have our own purpose in life. We were each born into a situation and with traits fit for our intended life career. The question is how do we know or discover this seemingly hidden secret about ourselves? What is the purpose of my individual life? When we had prophecy the prophet could help you, but now we must delve into ourselves and do some soul searching. There is no one answer. Each person is different with a different life.

There is Torah and Mitzvoth (the commands in the Torah), which apply equally to all of us. Beyond that, though, there is a whole world facing each of us that we each need to find. It is during these days of the "High Holidays" that we all need to stop and spend time trying to find some answers or some questions and think or rethink about our lives and where we are going.

Escaping to a Fantasy World. Today we have so much to occupy ourselves with that there is no time to think. Even worse we have many ways to escape into a fantasy world of non-reality. A person is at work by day, comes home and, if not running to go out can turn on the TV and escape into a false world, furthering us from ourselves.

A Meeting with a Stranger. The master of the ethics movement today, Rav Wolbe, said many times that we never have any time to be with ourselves today and think. He, therefore, suggested to his students to go and take a half hour walk at night to be alone and think. He once asked a serious student about his walk at night. The student replied that he was walking and suddenly a fear overcame him and he ran back into the Yeshiva. Rav Wolbe tried to find out what scared him, but there was no apparent reason since there was nothing out of the ordinary in the streets where he was walking. So The Rav said it must be you met someone strange. The student though was quite sure that he was the only one there. But, stubbornly the Rav insisted that it must be that he really did meet someone strange. The Rav concluded that it was so, he met someone strange- himself.

Upon being alone the student started to get in touch with himself. Why did that scare him? As we loose connection to our inner true self we start becoming estranged. When we one day meet ourselves in it can be a strange or somewhat scary situation with the unfamiliar.

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