Being on the Outside Looking In

And the inside looking out, like an actor who has to both live the part and be beyond it and true to him'self' is what we have to be doing in this world. Like Kirk Douglas described, per Rabbi David Aaron from Isralight.

He talked about the importance and necessity of being both in and out of a relationship at the same time to gain perspective. To be both within this world and above the personality, charachter, role you were given to play in this lifetime, seeking deeper within yourself to the soul and ultimately to know yourself, the deep spark within you that is like a "Ray of G-d." That is a part of seeking G-d in the world. He's not just 'somewhere out there'. He is deep within your core, your soul.

He said: Relationships should not be based on just the character, etc. they must be 'soul mates', reach above. We can't look "skin deep", we must look deeper to the soul. Ultimately, even a person who feels like a soul mate will be extremely different from us, because we are all entirely different and unique people, as similar as we may start out thinking we are...

Then, I went to the Carlebach Shul for a seminar on "Frum Jews Who Rebel", and there was a speaker there named Rabbi Russel who brought across the idea that - Every person comes to this world to do a tikkun, therefore inherently there must be something wrong with every person you will ever meet. And that is the gift. The challenge, and the hardest part of that person, is the place that challenges you to most love them, to seek to understand them, to understand what pains them. The struggle and the challenges we face in dealing within ourselves in connection to others is what brings us to grow in this life, and that is really what life is about.

Rabbi Schoenfeld (?) who runs the Thursday night chulent "get togethers" in midtown (they are vegetarian for any of you out there :)) also seemed compassionate to the importance of the process of asking questions honestly. He said that the struggle is what it's about.