Been There, Done That

בס"ד

"וידעת היום והשבות אל לבבך כי ד' הוא הא-לוקים בשמים ממעל ועל הארץ מתחת אין עוד" [דברים ד:לט]

"And you shall know today, and you shall internalize towards your heart, that Hashem is G-d in the heavens above and in the earth beneath there is no other" [Devarim 4:39]

This famous passuk which concludes the first half of the Aleinu that is said at the end of every teffila contains two very important lessons.

The first message is a lesson in internalizing. How do we take knowledge and assimilate it ? How do we apply that which we have learned – and make it into that which we are ?  The trick is in where we attempt to integrate the information into.

When the passuk speaks about our heart – it uses the multiple "ב" of "לבבך"(levavcha) instead of "לבך" (leebecha). The Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh teaches us that this is an allusion to both "halves" of our hearts.

If we try to learn about good actions and things we should do and believe - all that stays in the realm of the theoretical. The key to bringing it into the actual is not in our yetzer tov (he wants to do all the mitzvos in the world !) but rather in our yetzer hora! 

Just learning about something is not enough to make a lasting change. We need to develop a game plan, a battle strategy for overcoming the obstacles the evil inclination will certainly place in our way.  Once we have a realistic approach of how the yetzer will attempt to dissuade us from doing this mitzvah or learning this torah – and have a plan for how to counter that evil advice – then we will have set the stage for transcending mere knowledge and reaching internalizing.

The second message is equally powerful.

The word the torah uses to describe this process is derived from the same word as teshuva, or return. This hints to us that any bit of divine wisdom – every positive action or mitzvah oriented mindset that we attempt to assimilate into who we are – is in fact just an act of returning to the pristine state we once occupied.

When a Jewish neshama is about to be born it learns all of the torah directly from an angel. The angel then promptly makes us forget it all. Why learn it if we are only going to forget it ? Because we are nonetheless comforted by the knowledge that no matter how hard it gets – we can definitely do it ! After all, we've already been there and done that.

Hatzlacha !!