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THE TASTE OF LIFE
Most people think of life as a trip through a treasure-house of experiences. "Living it up" is
synonymous with living itself: white-water rafting, paragliding, sipping margaritas around the
pool, seeing the Mona Lisa or the pyramids or climbing Everest - that's what life is all about!
This view of life sees existence as a compendium of possibilities, and he who dies with the most
toys - or the most trophies - wins. According to this view, someone who lives his life without
tasting any of life's countless experiences hasn't really lived. The eulogy "He had a good life"
usually means that the person used his time to maximize his experiences in this world. Someone
who hasn't experienced any of life's myriad delights is considered to have wasted his life.
Judaism's view of the world is the total opposite. Life experiences are like Cinderella. They last, by definition, for as long as one experiences them. However sweet, however exciting they may be, there comes the moment when the gilded coach turns back into a pumpkin. Every moment of life is constantly passing and vanishing forever. As soon as the taste of one moment has expired, we must seek a new taste, a new experience. If life is the sum total of our experiences, then life is really a kind of ongoing death, running from moment to moment, never being able to possess the moment itself. Judaism understands that all the pleasures, all the experiences of this world, are given to us for one reason only: that we might feel, that we might sense to the smallest degree, the taste of life itself. But what is this "taste of life"? And what is "life itself " if not those experiences that it contains? Imagine that you are standing in front of a firing squad staring down the long black tunnel of the barrel of a rifle. "Squad! Take aim! And..." Just at that second, a messenger comes running into the square. "Stop the execution! The prisoner is free to go!" Imagine how you would feel at that moment! When our life hangs in the balance, when we are saved from a life-threatening experience, that euphoria is the perception of life itself, of existing. Obviously, that feeling fades. However, that moment of being rescued from death brings us face to face with our own existence. This is the reason for the popularity of dangerous gravity sports such as bungee jumping, mountaineering, downhill racing, and the like. The hairbreadth (not to mention hair-brained) encounter with death stimulates the sense of life itself. There is, however, another less drastic and infinitely more spiritually uplifting way to experience the taste of life. The Talmud (Rosh HaShana 31a; Avoda Zara 9a) teaches us that the world as we know it will last for six thousand years. In the seventh millennium, about 233 years from now, the world will undergo a fundamental change. At that time, all activity will cease. That world is known as Olam Haba, literally, "the World to Come." If we were to try to imagine that future world, it would be like one continuous Shabbat. Shabbat is really a hint of the future world, the faintest whisper of that reality. On Shabbat, we are bidden to refrain from very specifically defined "creative" work, and by doing this, we are able to make contact with something that is beyond this world. The essence of the future world is that it is an existence devoid of activity. When all activity ceases, we will be able to perceive being itself. In the world in which we live now, we cannot distinguish between life experiences and life itself. We understand reality as being identical with our experiences. This is not true. The activity of the world in which we live now masks the perception of life itself, but when all activity ceases, then we will experience the taste of life itself. And when we experience that, it will be the sweetest thing that can be. That is what is known as the World to Come - existence without activity. Living - without living it up. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who passed from this world on Lag BaOmer, was an implacable critic of the Roman occupation of the Land of Israel. On pain of execution, he was forced to go into hiding along with his son Rabbi Elazar. They fled to a cave in the Galilee. There they lived an otherworldly existence for twelve years. When the Caesar died, the decree against Rabbi Shimon was rescinded, and they emerged into the light of day. Their enforced isolation had given them a unique perspective of this world. They saw people going about their business, reaping, sowing, planting, and harvesting, seemingly engrossed in their day-to-day lives, oblivious to all else. They were outraged that people could be so involved in this temporary existence and neglect the eternal life. So intense was this feeling that everywhere they cast their gaze immediately became engulfed in fire. What perception caused this intensity of feeling? We tend to think of this world and the next world like two chapters in a novel. One finishes and the other begins. This is not the case. There is nothing in the next world that is not in this world already. One of the blessings we say on the Torah says, "And He has planted within us eternal life..." A plant does not make an appearance out of nowhere. The plant will never be more than what the seed contained. Similarly, our eternal existence is no more than what God has planted within us in this world. Every moment lives and then is no more. If we live for the moment by perceiving life as a series of fleeting experiences, then the taste of the moment lives on our lips but a second and disappears forever. However, if we take all those moments and connect them to the Source of life itself, if we understand that our entire life, our entire existence, is just one facet of what the Creator wishes to express and reveal in His creation, then in the next world all those passing moments return to live eternally. When those moments are used to create something that can never be eradicated or lost, that's called living an eternal life in this world. The seed that was planted within is nurtured and flowers into eternal life. This is the taste of life itself and nothing can be sweeter. TWO SPRIGS OF MYRTLE
hurrying
between the twilight's embers to welcome the Shabbat Queen. in his hands, two sprigs of myrtle to guard, to remember the Hand unseen. and all those years we spent up to our necks, our souls were clothed in nothing more than sand; we could burn the world with eyes of fire, but it's enough, it's enough, that there are two such as you and i. More articles available at Ohr Somayach's website. |