By Philip Drucker
I start with a simple but eminently important premise of life. Namely, that I, you, we, existed long before we were born and that our bodies are vessels into which the true I, you, we, the divine spark within us all, is planted, nurtured and in most cases born into this world.
There is a place I refer to as the Realm of the Eternal. Outside of time and space, light and dark, and for the most part beyond human comprehension, it is where we all come from and it is where we all will at some point return, home.
Free will is a gift given to us by our Creator. It is an essential function of the learning process. We learn as much if not more from our mistakes as we do from our successes. Success leads to repetition. Failure leads to change. Our destiny is one of failure, joyous failure, but failure none the less.
It is an illusion that we can create or destroy. We see the world around us. Is it a hologram? Is it a computer simulation? Is it real? Is it but an illusion upon an illusion upon an illusion. Does it matter? The answer is no for whatever the nature of our universe, it is subject to the ravages of time and therefore, temporary. It will end. But as I mentioned above, we will not. We will continue to exist at whatever point on whatever path we are traveling until we reach our destination. Until we are home. Different religions posit different homes. Purgatory, perdition, heaven and hell, nirvana, satori. The list goes on but all are in the final analysis all the same. It is where we go before we go somewhere else. Until we are home. This is where it gets tricky.
They say you can never go home again. This is true. Not because circumstances in your old neighborhood have changed, but because you never actually left in the first. This is the illusion of separation, or division from the one. It leads to feelings of loneliness and depression.
Some of us try to “fill the void” in our lives through drugs and alcohol. Some by working longer hours. But again, it is all the same. It is a conundrum of celestial proportions. Do you know why? Because on this plane, more is not always more. Less is not always less and for the most part we are not privy to the secrets of the before and after life.
Not knowing is a horrible thing. Ignorance of our true state leaves us feeling we have done something wrong. That through our petulance, we are somehow unworthy of G-d’s love. That we must now spend our lives atoning for our sins, original and otherwise. This is the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But here again is where we go wrong. Eden is not without us, it is within us. All of us. The path to “redemption” is an internal path of light and discovery.
We have been led to believe there is such a thing as right and wrong. That we can learn from and to evaluate the consequences of our actions. This much is true. Our actions do have consequences and we can learn our experiences if nothing else, then to not touch the hot stove again. That is why free will is so important. It is G-d’s will that we have free will. When we choose to emulate our Lord, our Creator we are divine. When we chose not to, we are, let’s call it less than divine. But G-d is kind. He is merciful. He is full of forgiveness and always ready to give us another chance. Another chance to choose the holy, the divine, and eventually find our way home.
Think of life as playing poker. We are all dealt a hand. Fifty-two cards (not counting Jokers) are like our temporal lives, finite. But the potential combinations are of astronomical proportions. And each hand is only as good as in the moment. Surely it is easy to see a winning hand in one round is a losing hand in another, no matter how high or low. How can this be? Hard to understand, but it is so.
Add onto this we play life and poker subject to the same laws of the unknown. We make decisions on what we think the other players are holding and not on what they are. We talk about playing the odds. We are taught never bet against the house. But we do. Because we have free will and for some, money, gambling, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat fills the void of despair we often feel at our inability to know and ultimately control our future. Our fate. We can’t.
Admittedly, fate and free will seem at odds with each other. But they are not. All it means is that we do not have final say over our experiences on Earth. Often, it seems we are destined to suffer and that this is the way of life. Is it? Perhaps. But then, if this is the case, is suffering a bad thing? Do we not learn and ultimately achieve more from facing adversity than from constant, often hollow praise? Yes, we do. But, in the final analysis, isn’t it of paramount importance that we be allowed to make a mistake? For better or worse, especially as we have little to no guidance, except for G-d’s grace to lead the way? And this is where it gets even trickier. Abortion.
Without sounding heretical, G-d kills his children. This is true. To put it succinctly, we are all G-d’s children and we will all die. We don’t know how, when or where. We don’t know if a long life is a reward, a blessing, or a curse. We don’t know. We don’t know if “life” starts at conception. I again argue the divine spark “starts” (it may have no beginning and no end, at least not one we can comprehend) way before human interaction and certainly before birth. For this reason, I categorically state that being pro-life and pro-birth are not the same. Not even close.
In a world where “innocent” is at best a fluid concept, how can we as a sentient species pick the rights of the unborn over the right of women, even if incorrect, for I do admit that when in doubt we must always choose life, to choose their destiny? In fact, do we even have the right to interfere? The unborn child is a spark. The mother is a spark. I am a spark. You are a spark. Are you certain you know G-d’s will to the degree you are willing to choose one spark over another? One soul over another? Interfere in the journey of another? For surely, that would have consequences both good and bad too.
In closing, let me leave you with this. As human beings we spend our lives, here, in a quest to know the unknowable with faith filling in the missing pieces, the rest. Are you so sure your faith, because remember I, you, we don’t really know, and will never know the extent of celestial grace while upon this third rock from the sun on which we currently sit, would extend to I, you, we interfering with the G-d given choice of free will? Of knowing the ultimate plan of intelligent design? Or those matter far, far beyond mere issues of good and evil? Right and wrong? I can assure you I don’t and as a suggestion, for obviously I wouldn’t want to tell you what to do, neither should you.
-PD
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