QUESTION:
I gave up the internet and email totally and I have a third party check my emails for me once a week and do whatever necessary business I have. I have a question regarding an insight I have gained from having done this.
1) The insight I have is that when I had my smartphone, I felt powerful and in control, with the world at my fingertips. I thought I was in control and could get whatever I needed but really I was addicted and enslaved. My question is, would the Rav agree that the pleasure of feeling powerful and in control in general is the same thing?
2) In other words, the more we seek power and control, the more enslaved we are to the force in the root of all our personalities that seeks to exploit our potential for negativity because of the eating, that we cannot see Hashem is doing everything and loves us and that all there is in the world is He? If this is so, many people believe that having power and control, self-determination if you will, show that they care about themselves. It has become a measure of self-esteem in that way I believe.
3) Is our true test regarding our connection to Hashem going to take place the moment after we are niftar, in that darkness where we have to have built into our soul the truth that Hashem is concealed In the dark and to cling only to Him and His Greatness?
4) And is this sense of power and control within the darkness where we are to make the effort to nullify so that we build deveykus here and thereby for all eternity when we are niftar?
5) And is this the place the Moshiach will uplift us to the world to come?
1) The insight I have is that when I had my smartphone, I felt powerful and in control, with the world at my fingertips. I thought I was in control and could get whatever I needed but really I was addicted and enslaved. My question is, would the Rav agree that the pleasure of feeling powerful and in control in general is the same thing?
2) In other words, the more we seek power and control, the more enslaved we are to the force in the root of all our personalities that seeks to exploit our potential for negativity because of the eating, that we cannot see Hashem is doing everything and loves us and that all there is in the world is He? If this is so, many people believe that having power and control, self-determination if you will, show that they care about themselves. It has become a measure of self-esteem in that way I believe.
3) Is our true test regarding our connection to Hashem going to take place the moment after we are niftar, in that darkness where we have to have built into our soul the truth that Hashem is concealed In the dark and to cling only to Him and His Greatness?
4) And is this sense of power and control within the darkness where we are to make the effort to nullify so that we build deveykus here and thereby for all eternity when we are niftar?
5) And is this the place the Moshiach will uplift us to the world to come?
ANSWER:
1) Very good insight. The root of this took place at the sin with the forbidden tree of knowledge (eitz hadaas).
2) Very good insight. Upon subtler analysis, self-worth is not the same thing as self-love.
3) Very good insight. It is a way to live life, and it ends on this world, at the day of death.
4) Very good insight.
5) The light of Mashiach will uplift a person even further: It will bring a person to the place of simple and total Ain Od Milvado, meaning that there will be no reality recognized other than the reality of Hashem, with the understanding that all creations are nothing but a revelation of Hashem’s reality.
2) Very good insight. Upon subtler analysis, self-worth is not the same thing as self-love.
3) Very good insight. It is a way to live life, and it ends on this world, at the day of death.
4) Very good insight.
5) The light of Mashiach will uplift a person even further: It will bring a person to the place of simple and total Ain Od Milvado, meaning that there will be no reality recognized other than the reality of Hashem, with the understanding that all creations are nothing but a revelation of Hashem’s reality.
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