Looking at the World Today with Well-Trained Eyes

Two people were marveling at the height and design of the Twin Towers. But one's look seemed deeper than the other, as if peering through the very buildings themselves. His forehead was furrowed in concentration. "I would like to figure out how these huge skyscrapers were built" he said to himself. This person was an architect. He was trying to look through the very walls and understand the buildings' structure.

In the same way, there is a neshamah, a soul, in each and every one of us. The soul understands, feels, and wants to reach out to holiness. But the soul lives in a physical body, which doesn't sense holiness easily or naturally. The physical body understands only physical "reality."

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, the ultimate advocate of the Jewish people, once said, "Master of the Universe. If You had put holiness in front of our eyes and written about physicality in books, it would have been easy. But you put physicality in front of our eyes and wrote about holiness in books. So what do You expect of us?"

When Moshiach comes, our bodies will be able to sense holiness just like our souls. Like a person who gets a new pair of glasses, we will be able to see the G-dliness in everything. The understanding of holiness will come to us in a natural way, and just as the architect sees through the building's inside structure, we will see through the veil of gross materiality and perceive the spiritual essence of all things.

Getting back to our architect he drew up the plans of the building and explained its structure to his neighbor. "Wow!" the neighbor said. "You are a genius! You designed a brilliant frame to support those huge buildings.

"No, I didn't design it" the architect said. "The frame was already there. I just figured it out."

"Then why don't I see it?" the neighbor asked.

"You need well-trained eyes, my friend."

The architect intellectually discerned the design of the building; he neither designed nor created it.

G-d put a vivifying part of His holiness into everything He created. The holiness is there, like the frame of the Twin Towers. But more often than not we are not able to perceive it. This is because our physical eyes have not been trained to see spiritual holiness.

When Moshiach brings the long awaited Redemption, our very perception will change--we will all have "well-trained eyes." We will be able to discern the holiness that has been there all along.

Adapted by Yehudis Cohen from "Let's Get Ready" by Malka Touger