The realization of the opening

I recently took a trip back to Florida for my semester break. I found out a few things about my family, and re-connected with family members as well. However, I think it may have taken a little bit of a toll on me as well. First semester, I was on fire. Spiritually heightened, I was always on a constant thinking marathon analyzing things I've learned and took everything into account. I was never really this way before; I mean yeah I was intelligent, but I never recognized my potential, making me lack many aspects of my true deep-thinking qualities. So I get back to Florida, after my amazing first four months and slowly but surely loose a little bit of that fire I achieved. I didn't pray everyday, I wasn't learning, I wasn't really thinking every second of every day either. It was a little mind-numbing going about daily activities and I was pretty excited to get back to the thinking process.

So I returned back to Israel and reality had been set upon me. I faced the challenge of my past shadows walking beside me. Looking at them in the face, my mind-numbness had continued. I felt sort of sick, lacked interest in showing up to class, and took my voluntary learning and put it off to the side. I just walked along normal life activities in a tiresome way.

Anyways, one thing that happened was that I went out one Saturday night, of course drank, and had my guard walls broken down. With another student, we began to discuss life and tear-wrenching memories began to bubble up. Over a period of a few hours, sobs were exchanged and then daily life continued. I sat down with one of my staff members of my program and discussed this issue, and realized that I needed to regain some inspiration. After a long talk, the question of how still remained.

My Judaic classes today; Jewish Literacy and Tanach, revealed some information that allowed me to regain a little bit of that spark I had all last semester.

From Jewish Literacy:
We've been speaking about the Jewish life-cycle lately and today we touched upon death. From the stories of Eliyahu a concept is discussed. It reads that every person gives G-d the same excuse when he reaches heaven: 'you didn't give me the capabilities to reach that potential you set for us!' These people don't realize that G-d isn't judging the soul, he's judging how they reached their potential. Basically said stated by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi 'the world is compared to a waiting room-prepare yourself in the waiting room before you enter the court'. Once your soul departs from your body at death, there's no turning back, so make sure you reach your full potential. Many of these teaching do not come directly from the Torah, but are only hinted then furtherly explained in the Zohar.

From Tanach:
Shir HaShirim, the poetic and visually provocative controversial love story from the Megillot section of Tanach, was talked about today in class. At first, the many reasons of why it shouldn't be controversial because of course it is an allegory of many other wonderful things were presented. Basically the maiden in the story being Hashem and the beloved being the Jewish people and the relationship between them is the most famous explanation. After this was presented, an essay by Rabbi Yosef Soloveitchik from 1961 was partly read. It was called "Kol Dodi Defek: The Voice of my Beloved Knocks". He introduces the essay by explaining the horrors of the Holocaust and how when we were in the worst of pains, G-d finally 'knocked' and the state of Israel was born. He adds that six knocks from G-d have been recorded. The first knock was a political knock in Nov 1947, when the UN gave Israel permission to their own state. The second knock was on the battlefield-how when the Arab's denied the Partition Plan which would have given them most of Israel, they denied it, fought us instead, then lost, resulting in our victory of the land of Israel. The third knock was theological on how Christians believed Jews were supposed to disappear, and now the Jews were receiving their own land, going against there beliefs entirely. The fourth knock was the hearts of the perplexed, or the hippie stages, when the returnee movement (Baal teshuva) was created. The fifth knock was that Jewish blood was not free discussing the 1976 black September when Golda Meir hunted down the terrorist that killed the Jewish Olympians. And lastly the sixth knock was when the gates to a Jewish homeland were open to all Jews worldwide. All this tied into now the Maiden, or G-d is knocking on our doors and the question is if you want to open the door and read the messages.

All in all, I have a new realization that I am the only one that is going to make me work to my full potential and that I also know this escapade away from home in Israel is G-d knocking on my door. Hopefully I can do this and hopefully I open it in time.