After practicing psychology for a few years, I started to feel that there was a deeper healing that needed to occur and that all I was doing was putting band-aids on a much deeper, more universal wound. I thought that the best thing would be for me to become a rabbi (Makes sense right?). When I arrived in Israel, I began inquiring at Yeshivot. A rabbi at Bat Ayin asked me why I want to come to yeshiva; my answer was that I think I want to be a rabbi. His response has stuck with me very deeply: "Don't worry so much about becoming a rabbi -- become yourself."
Although this response was given to me as a fledging ba'al teshuva, I think it is deeply connected to Jews at all stages of growth. I heard Rav Scheinberger say this week that the reason why you see many "Torah" Jews doing so many bad things is because they lose sight of the inner focus and pay too much attention to the outer garments. He continued to say that although Datan and Abiram as well as Korach are always thought to be evil, that they were really indeed mitzvah-observant Jews. The problem was they had their own agenda and were not looking inside enough in order to be doing what they were doing for the sake of heaven.
The prophet Amos states that there will come a time whent there will be a hunger, not for food or drink, but for the word of Hashem. What does it mean to have a hunger for the word of Hashem? I can be fulfilling every mitzvah I possibly can (I wish) and still not know what it means to really thirst for the word of G-d. Thirsting for G-d is not an external journey. Of course, Judaism is not Judaism without the mitzvot, but they are only the framework, the shell in which to function. The Ba'al HaTanya brings down that the 613 mitzvot equal the 248 limbs and 365 sinews of the body of man. But what gives the body life? The soul, the inner thirst to find G-d within ourselves.
This is, however, a very difficult process. We see in this week's parsha that Hashem descends in a cloud and that Moshe enters the cloud. In the book of Deuteronomy, where the giving of the Torah is also mentioned, we see repeatedly that the voice of G-d is within the fire. If you really thirst for G-d, you must be willing to enter in the confusion and darkness of the cloud, the pain of the fire, which is the inner journey.
We all have pains to heal; we all have great inner growth to achieve. The healing is there, but we really must be willing to go through our inner pain to achieve it. It says in this week's parsha that the Jewish people can not go up the mountain lest they die. The Midrash says that when G-d began to speak, everyone's soul left them and they died. They were not able to handle this, and told Moshe to take this one for them. I think that we must be ready to experience that death. It is the death of our old selves. When we leap into the fire, we may die, but G-d is waiting there for us to bring us back to life, so that we may be reborn into a deeper of consciousness of who we really can be.
I bless us all that we experience our struggles and our pains with courage, and that we all take on that inner challenge so that the external structure we deal with in the world is a just a reflection of the inner light which is shining so bright.