If you ask a person what frustrates him more than anything else, and really probe to the core reason, he’ll most likely answer that situations where he’s not in control are probably the worst sources of frustration. A person doesn’t mind a normal headache so much if he can take a glass of water and two aspirins, which from experience, he knows will relieve a good measure of his pain within the next thirty minutes. But he can’t stand the inexplicable migraine that doesn’t succumb to the pain killers. Why? He can’t control it…
Now ask a person what the worst type of dream is. Many will answer, the free-fall, when a person feels like he’s falling in space, usually waking up in a cold sweat right before he crashes to the ground. What an utter feeling of no control!
Skydiving is a very popular sport. Those who skydive live and breathe their skydiving. But let’s ask ourselves: are all the skydivers daft? The answer is certainly not. I’ve known skydivers who are level-headed former paratroopers and combat veterans, some of whom with advanced degrees from university. How can they allow themselves to jump out of airplanes? They perform a free-fall for so many seconds then either pull the cord that opens their parachute or else their parachute opens automatically. They can’t control the speed that they’re falling downward. So what’s the difference between the skydiver and the person free-falling in a nightmare?
One word: trust.
The skydiver trusts that the parachute will open. The free-faller in the dream has nothing to trust.
Someone stopped me in the street recently in my hometown of Ashdod, visibly worried. “What’s going to happen, Reb Lazer? All kinds of new armaments are pouring into Gaza by way of Sinai. The Egyptian border has become really dangerous. Have you heard? Achmedinejad is about to clash with the Americans in the Persian Gulf at Hormuz, and if so, we’ll probably get attacked with missiles. Hizbulla is helping Assad in Syria, and to take the heat off himself, we’ll probably get dragged into a war soon. Hey, and I haven’t even mentioned the Atom bomb that the Iranians will have any day. They’re all planning to destroy is. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is calling on all the Arabs to kill all the Jews. And if all that isn’t bad enough, Yair Lapid could very well be the next prime minister in Israel. We won’t be able to send our children to cheder any more…”
Continue reading The Skydiver on this week's web edition of Breslev Israel magazine.
Also featured this week:
Rabbi Shalom Arush: Smiling, No Matter What
ZevBallen: The Criminal Cover-Up
Rivka Levy: Finding the Balance
Dovber HaLevi: Diet for the Soul
Racheli Reckles: Precious Tears
Rabbi Nissan Dovid Kivak: Charm and Wisdom
Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Cook: Parshat Mishpatim - Permission to Heal
We hope you have a splendid week!
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