Rabbi Nachman from breslov says that the highest thing we have is
our hands, because they can reach higher than our heads. The way we
should do God's will is that our hands should be uplifted higher than
"I". Anything higher than my head is my crown.
We have 613 mitzvoth, 613 laws. I don't like
the word "laws," because they are not laws. The word law
reminds you of police, some "straight" character sitting
there telling you what to do. Very bad translation. Mitzvah means
that God gave us 613 ways to come close to Him. The ways are divided
into two parts, 248 ways of reaching God by doing certain things,
and 365 ways of reaching Him by not doing certain things. If there
is a red light and I don't go, nothing happens, right? I just don't
cross the street. However, if God's red light flashed and I stop when
I have a chance to do wrong, then something happens inside me. Something
happened to me; I walked a few steps higher.
Thoughts, words and actions are the three revelations
of my soul. On the "reality" level, action is the strongest.
On the soul level, action is the furthest away. Speech is a little
closer. Thought is really it, because a person is what he thinks.
I am not what I am doing, because sometimes people or circumstances
can force me to do things. The most private thing in the world is
thought; so nobody can say, "I was forced to think this way."
Who forced you? If I want to know who I am I don't have to look in
a mirror. I just close my eyes and check what I am thinking about.
Every mitzvah should be done on all three levels.
If I give a poor man a dollar I fulfill the mitzvah of giving charity
with my hands. If I I'm more of a mentch, if I am more real, I say,
"How are you, my friend? Is there anything else I can do for
you?" Talking to him fulfills the mitzvah of charity on a speech
level. I can also fulfill it on a thought level. Believe me, the poor
man will know whether you thought of him while you gave him the dollar,
or if you were thinking of something else. He will feel it.
When I do a mitzvah I am drawing life upon
myself. I am actually opening a gate in Heaven and life is flowing
into me. If I do a mitzvah only on the level, then the life that flows
into me is on an action level, far away from my soul. If I also use
speech, I get a little closer and my spirit also receives life. A
mitzvah on the thought level is complete, and life reaches me in a
deep way. Even this is not the deepest depths. The deepest depths
is doing something so heartbreakingly hard that all of me has to struggle.
Then not only my actions, speech and thought receive life; all of
me, even my skin, receives life.
Sometimes someone asks a favor which is very
hard. We don't have the faintest idea what a favor the person is doing
us by asking. At that very moment God is opening gates for us, giving
us a chance to have the image of God on our face again.
