Engraved Self Compassion

Among the things we share on our family whatsapp chat group is podcasts.  I imagine some families are into mysteries and share mystery or detective podcasts.  Other families are into sports and share sports podcasts.  On our family chat, we pass around podcasts on trauma, personal growth, parenting, navigating life with adult children, navigating life with little children and so on.  

It may sound glorious, and it is, but it is also exhausting.  All this self-work can be tiring and literally emotionally draining.  It is important to have the self-compassion to take a break from work every now and then and just be.

(The joy of the holiday of Sukkot celebrates the drawing of the water ceremony in the Bais Hamikdash – the Jerusalem Temple.  Water is unflavored and represents the surrender or break from all the “flavored wine” work, the complexity of being, existing and navigating life.)

How do we get to that place of self-compassion?

One answer can be found in two words at the opening of this week’s Torah portion.  “If you will go in my statutes – “Eem bicukosai taylachu”.  The word for statutes also has the root word of engraved.

The Alter Rebbe, first Chabad Rebbe, explains that we have two components to our being-ness represented by the written word and the engraved word.  The written word (Torah), is made up of parchment and ink.  The engraved word is one with the object into which it is engraved (the two tablets).

There is the component of our existence which is defined by other-ness.  How we feel, how we think, our attitudes, how we show up, what we’ve done, what we are doing, what we will do, how you perceive me, how I value myself, what are my goals and visions for me, my family, my career and so on.  (I feel exhausted just writing all of that.). This is where the parchment and the ink are two separate things.  

Then there is the component of our existence which is undefined by any other-ness. It is exclusively defined by what I am at my core – a G-dly being, a creation of Hashem, a soul.  This is like the engraved word; one and the same with its essence.

While the reality of life is that we live in the space of the written word, working on all that stuff mentioned above, we can and should on occasion reconnect with the core and essence of who we are, our being-ness undefined by any other-ness.  Just being a part of Hashem.

This is the definition of self-compassion according to the Alter Rebbe and in fact he writes in his essay on this Parsha that one needs to awaken the attribute of Rachamim – compassion in order to achieve this objective.

The Torah is telling us that if we identify with the statutes/engraved component of our being then we can go, we can go without limit.  Once we identify with our true core, nothing can hold us back from getting to any destination we choose to.  That self-value empowers us to not be held back by self-talk, but rather navigate life with the infinite power of our soul.

The verse continues – “and the Mitzvos you will guard”.  The Torah is telling us that after we connect with our true essence, then the observance of the Mitzvos, preserves that self-value.  That is because a Mitzvah exposes the essential connection between our Neshama – our true essence – and Hashem.

Have a great Shabbos!

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