Sadness - The
Root of Evil
A categorically erroneous misunderstanding crept into Judaism as some point in
our history and that categorically erroneous misunderstanding served as the
basis of the errors even further afield in both Christianity and Islam.
That fateful
mistake was the idea that sin and evil are original and that in order to be
Godly and attain God-consciousness, one my battle sin and evil directly.
While sin and
evil need to be eradicated and will certainly compound not only one's culpability,
but also one's misery; sin and evil are not the crux of the problem and the
Cosmic War is not good vs. evil.
Sin and evil are
not original. They are derivative - and what they are derivative of is
unhappiness. Sadness is the root of all evil.
We have been told
that one can be a good and yet unhappy person. That is a lie and a dangerous
one at that. There is no unhappy person who will not, sooner rather than later,
come to sin and to hurting others. Unhappy people do not sin and hurt because
they are wicked, but because the pain of their unhappiness drives them to
distraction. Their judgment is impaired, their vision is clouded and they are
desperate to alleviate their pain. Unhappy people cannot love properly and this
lack of love and its accompanying agony will cause them to take many drastic
measures to escape their pain. Unhappy people will, invariably, hurt those they
love and who love them.
Unhappy people
who inevitably drawn to sad, macabre and even shocking things because being
unhappy dulls their senses. They need "peak experiences" and
"shockers" to feel. Such experiences give their half-dead hearts a
jolt and, for an instant, they feel alive. Witness how many good, but sad,
people on the internet ruminate about corruption, war and all sorts of real and
imagined horrors. They think they are fighting corruption with their
"awareness" and making others "aware". In truth, they are
watering the root of evil with their sad tears, feeding it with their sad
emotions and artificially enlivening it with their anger. They also invite
others to do so along with them - thus providing ample food and mead and
negative energy for evil.
We cannot attack
sin and evil directly, then. We must cut them off at their root - that root
being unhappiness.
Unhappiness is
our natural tendency and melancholy our natural state. To attain and be able to
sustain unconditional JOY in the heart, i.e., JOY that is not contingent on
anything and JOY which we do not crave because if feels good, but want to
achieve because *the World needs the high energy levels of JOY to be
beautiful*, an the ultimate moral-spiritual achievement.
The Hebrew word
Mashiach (Messiah) is naught but Simcha - meaning Happiness. Mashiach has never
been anything but sheer JOY. To those who are unhappy, the idea of ecstatic JOY
seems so far off that they come to all sorts of imagining about what (or who)
it is. Mashiach is always at our doorstep. We have only to open our hearts to
JOY, the high levels of JOY whence high "energy" emanates and creates
beautiful worlds and we are in the Messianic Days.
One might ask: Why did this error occur and how?
The level of
unconditional JOY we are capable of determines the nature and intensity of the
Light that we create. When unhappy Jews read the Torah, which is the Book of
Life and the template from which all the worlds proceed; they created a dim,
weak slow and unhappy light.
That light flows
in one direction only. So, when the Torah is read in the dim light of
unhappiness, the Text is dark, the letters seem to occur one after the other in
only one direction and one's ability to interpret what one is seeing is
radically reduced and hindered.
On the basis of
their semi-blindness, they came to all kinds of dim and grim ideas of what the
Torah says and what is written in it.
When one's Heart
is in a state of ecstatic JOY, the Light that one creates in that state of JOY
is alive, allows for far deeper viewing, it dances, it does cartwheels, it
jumps to and fro and it frolics. In such
light, the Text of Torah appears very differently. The letters dance, jump and
rearrange. The Text can be read in many orders of sequence, one's view is far
deeper because the Joyous Light is so penetrating that it allows us to see
within.
The truth is,
Jewish Law forbids anyone who is in a state of mourning and/or pathological
melancholy to learn Torah precisely because they are incapable of seeing
anything but the dimmest, grimmest interpretation of Torah - but that prohibition
is routinely ignored.
Unfortunately, it
is those dim, grim and highly contracted views that have made their way into
translation.
Joy, like its
opposite, misery, loves company. Those in a state of sustained, unconditional
JOY want others to feel the same and contribute to creating a high-energy,
vibrant, colorful and Just world. People in a state of JOY are not driven by
selfish or unwholesome desires and want everyone else to be the very best they
can be as well.
JOY is a decision
we make over and over again. It is a Supreme Act of Divine Will and the
ultimate Victory.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
