The Secret of the Good Point: Entering Difficulty and Negative Places

So, Rabbi Nachman reveals to us that we are essentially good, and that even when others do things that seem bad to us - deep inside, they are essentially good. So everything is fine...

Sounds simple, right?

Everything seems so simple, theoretically, and yet, we are surrounded by evil and suffer from it. We behave violently, sometimes even cruelly. Even if deep down everyone is good, there is certainly a great deal of suffering in the world.

Apparently, what we see around us is exactly the opposite of the good point! The world is rushing in the opposite direction... Even if we understand that the search for good is logical and correct, for some reason it's difficult for us. We forget it or dismiss it as "spiritual nonsense that has nothing to do with my life."

"If everything is so good and beautiful, why does everything look bad?" one might ask oneself. "And if finding the good is so natural - why is it so difficult?"

Wait a minute. We didn't say it was natural. It's your inner truth, but it's not natural. It's not the mechanical nature. The mechanical nature ingrained in us is actually completely opposite. Nature pulls us down so that we can spread our wings and fly, out of choice and accepting responsibility - not as an automatic process.

Even when I was deep into becoming religious, and even read and studied Likutei Moharan (Rabbi Nachman's book that compiles the teachings he gave to his students), I still wasn't really "connected" to the concepts. My friends would talk to me about "Azamra" (a teaching about finding good points), and it seemed natural and simple to me. What's the problem? I asked. Seeing good, big deal. I felt "okay" overall. True, if someone had asked me specifically about certain areas of my life, I would probably have admitted that the situation wasn't perfect, but I didn't dwell on it. I tried to see the good "in general." I refused to acknowledge the pain that sat beneath the surface, the feeling of being stuck that accompanied me, which I tried to avoid and escape from through various means.

Only years later - when I started to practice hitbodedut (personal prayer) and confront the difficulties within me, when I discovered that day after day I encountered a wall of frustration during these prayer sessions, a feeling of immobility - I began to understand what they were talking about. I understood that without "Azamra," without seeing the little good, I was lost. The deeper you go inside and are willing to face the difficulties - the more you need something to balance things. You need to strive to find hope even in a place that seems dark and hopeless.

As we proceed, we will understand and contemplate a very basic point: "Hashem has made the one as well as the other" (Ecclesiastes 7:14). This means that if there is a possibility for good in a certain place, the completely opposite possibility also exists, like a mirror image of the good. If there is a possibility to reach amazing and incredible good - there must also be a possibility to choose exactly the opposite.

Rabbi Nathan recounts a conversation he had with Rabbi Nachman: "Once he told me - everything you see in the world is only for the sake of choice, because the entire world and everything in it was created only for the sake of choice" (Chayei Moharan, 519).

All the trials that come to us in life, all the difficulties, all the ups and downs - they have one purpose, to allow us to choose. To provide us with the infinite field of possibilities, where ultimately we make final choices that navigate our lives toward the good shore of promise, or God forbid, repeatedly crash us into a reality that seems harsh and uncompromising.

The Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, may the memory of the righteous be blessed, one of the greatest Kabbalists, who lived in Italy and Holland and was buried in Israel) wrote in his book "Derech Hashem": "However, this must be by his choice and will, for if he were compelled in his actions to necessarily choose perfection, he would not truly be called the master of his perfection, since he is not its master, as he was forced by another to acquire it, and the one who bestowed it is the master of his perfection, and the supreme intention would not be fulfilled" (Part 1, Chapter 3 - On Humankind).

The Ramchal explains that if we were compelled to choose good, it would not be a choice. If the possibility of good was so brilliant and so simple, without forces opposing it - that would not be a true choice.

To allow us free choice, we were born with good points and tremendous desires for good, and above this, shells of concealments, defense mechanisms, and illusions cover us. Their role, as we will see later, is to provide counterweight, to give the apparent possibility to choose that which is not good.

The Creator, as it were, clothed the not-good aspects, the tendency to be drawn to negativity, the root of falling, over the kernel of good, over the juicy fruit of our truth, like an outer shell.

Our natural tendency can be likened to climbing up a down escalator. If we stay in place, we'll go down instead of up; only if we climb by choice and with effort - will we succeed in reaching the top.

The Chazon Ish wrote in his book "Faith and Trust" that in fact all bad traits are reduced generally to one bad trait, which is "the neglect of life in its natural course" (Chapter 4). This means that the natural tendency is to sink, to go down, to see the bad and identify with it (later we will learn how this relates to our childhood and to the sin of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil).

Therefore, in order to connect to our good, we need to look straight and examine within us all the negative voices, the beliefs that try to "pull us down," and pass through them on a journey to our eternal truth. This truth is the fact that we are good and valuable by virtue of our creation, and all things that are not good are merely external garments or things that "stuck" to us along the way, road dust which we must shake off and break free from.

I must understand that I am good, I am the essence of good, and I am on a wonderful journey aimed at discovering this in myself and in those around me - to see the good in them too and to add goodness to their world.

From the book "The Secret of the Good Point", by Ran Weber, writer, therapist and workshop facilitator in the spirit of Hasidism. Contact: ranweber@gmail.com