Wednesday, December 06, 2006

DOING

Someone on a message board wrote the following to me:

"Let me know if you ever get off your duff in the periphery, and come down to the center of the country to actually DO something constructive regarding the things you write about. "

I answered:

There is a mystical Jewish teaching which holds that this world is called the World of Doing (or Action) - עולם העשיה in Hebrew.

It is the lowest of four worlds, each more rarified, sublime and vast than the one beneath it in the order of creation.

There is nothing in this world that is not doing. It cannot be otherwise.

To say to someone in this world that she or he is not doing something, is to misunderstand what doing is and the nature of the level of reality that we inhabit fundamentally.

Is not writing doing?

Is making people think not doing?

In this world even thinking is doing. It is an action in and of itself, even if it does not lead to further action.

My mother taught me when I was a child that the pen is mightier than the sword. I believe that to be true.

Writing is what I do and it is as much doing as another other activity in the World of Doing (or Action), which we inhabit.


Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com