Today in class, our teacher questioned us:
If we [Jews] all have a neschama, and the Torah is in fact our true nature, than how is it possible that some people [Jews] do not live according to their true nature?
She asked us each to take a few moments to write our own thoughts to this question, and asked us to share what we thought. A good lesson: don’t ask questions of people you are not prepared to hear answers from.
My answer:
If we truly accept axiomatically that Jews are inherently and naturally constructed internally according to ideas of Torah and the Jewish neschama, and accepting the assumption that the vast majority of the people [Jews] who do not live strictly according to the Torah are in fact of sound mind and body (which is fair, as 1. we have not all been institutionalized, and 2. Gd has not found it necessary to smite us all, as the Torah tells us happened to the irrevocably perverse generation needed to be wiped out by the great flood), than the only logical solution that can be drawn from these statements is that what is today interpreted as the way in which one needs to live in order to be living according to the Torah has been perverted from what it in actuality means. Do not mistake this for my opining that those who do live a more traditionally lifestyle are wrong, but rather that the spectrum of lifestyle choices that are in fact acceptable according to what the Torah tells us is greater than is today recognized.
Again, if it is an accepted axiom that we, as Jews, are inherently drawn to living according to the Torah, to living in harmony with our Neschama, than it would be physically and psychologically unhealthy to live in a way that contrasts with the Torah. The reality of people being able to live fulfilling, healthy lives in a way that perhaps is not exactly in line with what the orthodox community sees as the canonical was of the Jewish life is proof that this script is not mandated and necessary for each individual Jew to live to his or her full potential.
I have just relayed this opinion to the teacher. She seemed thrilled, and then reiterated to the class what I had said; she said that the issue is that we cannot know our natures, and we misunderstand what the Torah is accepted as saying, because we don’t know what we are. She says how the rabbinical interpretations of the Torah are what understand what our true nature is, and that for the individual it is a constant battle to bring themselves to the understanding that will allow them to live in harmony with what the Halacha tells us is our nature. This is what the teacher understood me to be saying.
Sometimes I wonder why people ever even bother trying to say.
(side story:
This same teacher has multiple times used different examples of how people, starting from infancy, learn to meet the world; she explains that a child who crawls along the floor, sees something, picks up the brown unknown substance, and puts it into his mouth and discovers it is sweet, enjoyable, and his mother than encourages the child, explaining the substance as chocolate, offering the child more. The teacher explains that this is the important way in which people physically discover the world; however, this sort of behavior, encouraged and accepted, actually just encourages taking things from the ground and imbibing them, unsure of what the circumstances may be. Teacher, perhaps you encourage your children to eat strange things from the ground, but I would not do.)
Side story 2: According to the bias of Rivka Marga, when people cut out large parts of their selves, of their lives, in order to fit into what they think is the accepted mold to which they think they are expected to fit, it is not good. Rather, each individual needs to be able to create a tailor made relationship between themselves and Gd.
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