Turning Life Challenges into Opportunities for Spiritual Growth

When some "bad" thing happens to you, how do you usually react? Seemingly like many other people, I used to react "Why does this happen to me?" I don't remember exactly when, but some time ago, I changed this question to "What does this try to teach me?"

These two questions can be summarized as לָמָּה lama 'why" and לְמָה lema 'for what' in Hebrew. This small change in vocalization in Hebrew has brought about a big change in how I see what my ego used to interpret as "bad" things. Simply put, these "bad" things, or life challenges, have stopped being sources for lamenting and suffering and started becoming opportunities for spiritual growth.

In my case, and probably in the case of many other people who have experienced this life-changing shift, lived experience preceded conceptual understanding. Faced with one life challenge I had never experienced before, I spent some time asking myself why this "bad" thing happened to me, until I exhausted all the possible answers, none of which fully convinced me.

Then the only thing that was left to me was to ask this very question and the assumption behind it. I used to assume conceptually that the Universe isn't always kind to us. But now I'm more and more convinced experientially that it has our back after all.

My formal systematic study of Chabad Chassidus has also strengthened this experiential conviction of mine. Of all the courses I took for the period of three academic years in Jerusalem the most unforgettable one was "Faith and Confidence" - faith that everything is good, and confidence that G-d will give me the power to discover that everything is good.

In retrospect, all my subsequent life challenges have been precious opportunities for internalizing this confidence, and each one of them has helped me grow spiritually in one specific area of life or another. Again, what has enabled this far-reaching change in how I related to life challenges in a tiny change in the vocalization of one Hebrew word.

My present ongoing challenge is to see goodness in any new life challenge while I'm still in the middle of experiencing it, and not after the fact. Of course, this challenge is an enormous one, but the same old narrative by the ego seems to be becoming weaker and weaker and less and less convincing.

PS: While preparing this writing, I had a new experience of accompanying someone who was experiencing a very difficult life challenge, and immediately realized without knowing how yet that not only our own life challenges but also someone else's can be turned into opportunities for spiritual growth.

Self-Seclusion in Nature as a Spiritual Practice

It must have been about four years ago, that is, in 2022, back in Jerusalem, that I spontaneously started what later became my weekly practice of secluding myself, also known as התבודדות in Chassidus, in nature. This was already after I had realized, as part of my spiritual awakening, how language also serves as the gatekeeper of our mind-made prison (and after I had left my academic job as a linguist).

The initial shock of this realization was still rather fresh, and it had not yet been fully integrated into my daily life, even though I meditated daily and practiced a few more conventional spiritual disciplines. In retrospect, it was still half conceptual.

About four years ago, I listened again to the audiobook version of "Stillness Speaks" narrated by the author himself, Eckhart Tolle, who had already left a profound influence upon me and my post-academic life through his two books entitled "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth". But it was this third, lesser-known, and much smaller book that helped me directly experience how our categorization of the universe strengthens our illusion of separation.

When I listened to this booklet for the third or fourth time, I suddenly felt like walking in nature. Then, for the first time in my life, I started consciously listening to the stillness in nature without categorizing anything I saw there.

Little by little, trees started becoming nameless, individual trees started becoming unitary wholes that were not categorically divided into smaller parts, and the whole universe even seemed to have stopped being fragmented. The first reaction I had after this sudden and intense realization was to start weeping out of sheer joy on the very spot where I had been walking silently.

Since then, I have continued this practice weekly during the last hour before the end of every Sabbath. I have also continued this weekly practice after leaving Israel for another country and starting to live in a rural area with rich nature.

It didn't take me long to realize that many people in this new location are also trapped in the mind-made prison through language. I was such a "prisoner" myself, and a hopeless one at that. ;-) So secluding myself at least once a week helps me recharge in nature, where nobody labels me, others, or themselves.

During this weekly self-seclusion, I even stop my inner monologue, at least temporarily. I'm not claiming that this inner monologue has completely stopped, but after continuing this weekly practice for the past four years, I have started to experience occasional pauses in which I don't label anything and even remain equanimous.

Paper Books vs. Electronic Books

Recently I stumbled upon a new book by a well-known essayist who criticized electronic books and proclaimed that he would never read them instead of paper books. Though I've only checked its table of contents and some excerpts, a number of factual errors and inaccuracies immediately caught my attention.

I wouldn't be surprised if I were told that he has never read (enough) electronic books, as these errors and inaccuracies seem to suggest. But I would have to ask the author himself about this. Even meta-criticism must be based on directly examining what is being criticized.

In the meantime, however, this otherwise irritating book has given me a precious opportunity to reexamine how I relate to electronic books and when I prefer their time-honored counterparts instead of allowing it to remain a source of irritation. Here is what it has made me rediscover.

Generally speaking, I prefer electronic books mainly because they occupy far less physical space. This has become especially crucial for me in my present life situation - I'm thinking of relocating to another country when the time comes. For this very reason I left most of my paper books in the warehouse of a close friend of mine, who is a publisher of Chassidic books in Jerusalem.

In short, the fewer paper books I have, the easier it will be for me to relocate to another country. I spent the last month I was in Jerusalem, in September 2023, choosing which 100 books I would send to my present location by mail. I couldn’t afford to send more, as the shipping cost was very expensive.

I find electronic books especially convenient when they deal with information and knowledge. I seldom read them again. But when it comes to books on wisdom, especially those Chassidic books I sent here from Jerusalem, I do read them again and again, including on Sabbaths, when I can't read electronic books.

Furthermore, their presence is no less important than their contents. You may wonder how books can "radiate" presence, but I feel this especially when I am surrounded by them in my present room, which seems like a Chassidic enclave in non-Jewish surroundings. So even though I have electronic copies of many of these wisdom books, I have acquired their paper copies as well.

In conclusion, I see no reason to choose either paper or electronic books. I enjoy both though I benefit from them differently. If I had not stumbled upon this new book, which initially irritated me, I would not have arrived at this clarity. I am therefore grateful to this essayist for his provocative "manifesto". The best way to express my gratitude in action may be to purchase and read an electronic copy of this book. ;-)