How many of us have ever said, "I wish I was a kid again,” "I wish I could start all over again," or "I don’t want to grow up"? It’s a desire deep within the human soul, but we never seem to know how to reconcile it. Adults and children flock to the theatre to see this dream lived out on the big screen. Movies such as "BIG" with Tom Hanks or "Freaky Friday" with Lindsay Lohan are examples of
Far be the thought! This desire is not a problem, it’s a blessing! When adults dream about being a child again, it is not the opportunity to be immature with no cares or responsibilities; that is not the thing that our souls love so much about children. What we love is their pure innocent unadulterated essence.
Torah is something that is of corporeal substance yet its essence is G-d who is infinite and pure. G-d humbles himself to corporeal matter in order to give us a way to return to him. This concept is explained in the forth chapter of The Tanya. We study Torah in order to shed off the layers of sins and reconnect with G-d whom will restore to us clean hands and heart. As King David said “Hashem’s Torah is perfect, restoring the soul. - Tehillim 19:8
During a Torah service the Torah makes a procession around the room and as it passes the congregants they touch the cover with their tzitzit, or siddurim and then kiss whatever they touched the Torah with. Some kiss the Torah itself, all of these actions are a way of saying; May the essence of G-d be bestowed upon me. During Simcha Torah it is common to have children on the shoulders of adults while dancing around the room, it’s done not only because it is a joyful time, but because Children are often compared to a sefer Torah; pure in essence and fresh from Heaven. In the same way that one would reach out to have the essence of the sefer Torah bestowed upon them, one would reach out to a child for the same reason.
The purity of the soul is expressed beautifully in the Morning Prayer; “Elokai neshama”
My G-d, the soul You placed within me is pure. You created it, You fashioned it, You breathed it into me, You safeguard it within me, and eventually You will take it from me, and restore it to me in the Time to Come. As long as the soul is within me, I gratefully thank You, HASHEM, my G-d and the G-d of my forefathers, Master of all works, L-rd of all souls. Blessed are You, HASHEM, Who restores souls to dead bodies. – Siddur, Shacharit prayers.
In Judaism, the foundational understanding of our souls is that they are pure, straight from Heaven. The soul is referred to in Chasidut as “a spark” which originated from G-d and descended down through many levels, each becoming darker until finding a resting place on the lowest level in corporeal matter, our body. The Soul is the life of the body, but as we grow up though the years our soul becomes covered up in husk or sins that separate us more and more from our source, The Creator. Our sins are learned behaviors from our broken world, and through the years our sins can become completely buried and conceal our G-dly spark from shining in the world of darkness. Our soul becomes trapped and always yearns to someday to be free. Its only desire is to shine in the world, and to reconnect back to its source in Heaven, G-d. This process of getting back to our pure essence is called Teshuva. Teshuva is often translated as repentance. Yet repentance is the act of feeling remorseful and in Hebrew this would be called Charatah. The more accurate translation of the word Teshuva would be To Return.
So when your soul has the desire to be a child again, remember it’s not the immature character you crave, but it is your soul desiring to return to a pure and innocent state. The King Mashiach, Yeshua HaNotzri taught his students this:
In that hour the students came to Yeshua, saying, "Who then is greatest in the
Whoever therefore humbles himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the
Whoever receives one such little child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a huge millstone should be hung around his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea. - Mat 18:1-6
Count it a miraculous blessing that G-d has placed this desire to return to our pure essence in us. May we all be granted that our sins be removed from our souls and we return and reconnect to our maker. Remember! You don’t have to grow up you can be a Teshuva kid! May it be His will that we all become His lighthouses to those seeking to return.
2 comments:
Yasher Koach! Thanks for adding these thoughts to the messianic conversation.
Well said brother! To me it is the loss of innocence, the loss of purity, the loss of holiness that was ours in childhood. There are two situations in which you will find this man crying: in a worship service, when the Spirit of the Holy One, Blessed be He, washes my soul clean from the dust of Mitzraim; and when I watch some movie that touches a deep emotion- be it the heart of a father for his children, the reunion of lovers torn apart, or the sacrifice of the one for the many. Why do these events move me? They are reflections of the Most High. In the book: The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet, R. Scherman writes that before creation, "There was but God's desire; the universe came into being in order that the tools would exist for His will to be fulfilled. He wanted children to honor parents so He created a world in which man and woman join to bear and raise children."
Everything exists to fulfill his will, all creation relects His majesty. I believe that when we desire to be a child again we are missing the innocence, holiness, splendor that we possessed before we were in our mothers womb, (which survived and then was smothered as we left that childhood)before, as you say Roman, our soul descended into this realm. When I cry from deep childlike emotions, it is the Spirit connecting me to my Source.
Praise His Holy Name!
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