The Amen Effect -- chapter 4: COME ALIVE sheet 1: Finding Your Purpose

We learned in a mishnah that Rabbi Eliezer says: Repent one day before your death. Rabbi Eliezer’s students asked him: But does a person know the day on which he will die? He said to them: All the more so this is a good piece of advice, and one should repent today lest he die tomorrow; and by following this advice one will spend his entire life in a state of repentance. And King Solomon also said in his wisdom: “At all times your clothes should be white, and oil shall not be absent from upon your head” (Ecclesiastes 9:8), meaning that a person always needs to be prepared.

THE GREAT LUMINARIES — They were created of equal size, but that of the moon was diminished because she complained and said, “It is impossible for two kings to make use of one crown” (Chullin 60b).

§ Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi raises a contradiction between two verses. It is written: “And God made the two great lights” (Genesis 1:16), and it is also written in the same verse: “The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night,” indicating that only one was great. Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi explains: When God first created the sun and the moon, they were equally bright. Then, the moon said before the Holy Blessed One: Master of the Universe, is it possible for two kings to serve with one crown? One of us must be subservient to the other. God therefore said to her, i.e., the moon: If so, go and diminish yourself.

She said before God: Master of the Universe, since I said a correct observation before You, must I diminish myself? God said to her: As compensation, go and rule both during the day along with the sun and during the night. She said: What greatness is there in shining alongside the sun? What use is a candle in the middle of the day? God said to her: Go; let the Jewish people count the days and years with you, and this will be your greatness. She said: But the Jewish people will count with the sun as well, as it is impossible that they will not count seasons with it, as it is written: “And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14). God said to her: Go; let righteous people be named after you. Just as you are called the lesser [hakatan] light, there will be Ya’akov HaKatan, i.e., Jacob our forefather (see Amos 7:2), Shmuel HaKatan the Rabbinic sage, and David HaKatan, i.e., King David (see I Samuel 17:14).

(3) With ten trials was Abraham, our ancestor (may he rest in peace), tried, and he withstood them all; to make known how beloved was Abraham, our ancestor (peace be upon him).

However, each and every person must come into trial – even if he receives God’s Divinity into his thoughts as we have explained above – nevertheless each person is tested with ten trials, as they said about Abraham, “Abraham was tested with ten trials and withstood them all” (Mishnah, Avot 5:3). And the trial is that they strip him of the connection with which he was connected to Blessed God through awareness. At the moment when he comes into the trial, only free will remains with him; for without this it would not be called a trial. For certainly through the connection the tzaddik holds his path (Job 17:9), and in this way his awareness is diminished (though not removed entirely) and if he withstands the trial, it is because his heart carries the imprint of the expansive awareness he had before then.