As a kid I used to find myself daydreaming all the time.
Momentarily zoning out of my immediate surroundings, losing a sense of the present reality and envisioning various fantastical hopes and ambitions coming to fruition in my mind’s eye.
The daydreaming has followed me into my adulthood, but it has since matured and my dreams are more concentrated on hopes and aspirations that will contribute to the rectification of the world.
I don’t like to call it ‘daydreaming’ anymore. It’s a misnomer.
I’m really ‘dreaming of the day’ when…
When I’ll be living at one-hundred percent and what I’ll be able to offer to the Jewish people and the world at large with that kind of manifestation of all my potentials.
When my beloved people will be fully unified and no longer divisive.
When my soul and body will be in perfect harmony and I’ll be bringing light to the world and not darkness.
When the wolf and lamb, two naturally opposing forces will be living harmoniously.
When the guns and swords and grenades will be melted into agricultural tools.
When Hashem’s dream will be no different than our dreams, and each and every individual will be living for the sake of making “like days of heaven on earth”.
But you know it’s hard to value dreaming, when we have to earn a living. It’s so hard. The soul of our lives is so trapped and confined when all we have time for is making money. Of course we need to pay our bills and support our holy families, but we were put here with tremendous dreams and incredible potentials, dreams of doing big things for the Jewish people and for the world. All of which would merely be making use of the faculties, skills and talents, which G-d pre-programmed into the very fabric of our genetic make-up for the sake of bettering this world. How could I excuse the very purpose for my soul’s journey through this particular body and it’s unique vessel because I’m stressing for money? It’s spitting in the face of my creator who made me exactly how I am to give exactly what I’ve got…
What if the Rebbe said: ‘I can’t give over my entire existence to the Jewish people and activate Judaism on the four corners of the world, though I may dream of that day, I need to be practical and make bank for my mishpokha…’
What if Rav Shlomo Carlebach said: ‘It would be nice to write tunes and teach the deepest depths of Torah to all and heal broken hearts, and yes, I do dream of that day when I can live for the Jewish people and give to the world, but I need to be practical and earn a living first…’
I believe we need prioritize the dreams of our soul and so does Rav Kook:
“What would the world be like without dreams? Life immersed solely in materialism is coarse and bleak. It lacks the inspiring grandeur of expansive horizons; like a bird with clipped wings, it cannot raise itself above the bitter harshness of the present reality. We are only able to free ourselves from these shackles through the power of dreams.
Some foolishly take pride in being ‘realists.’ They insist on taking into account only the present state of the world — a partial and fragmented view of reality. In fact, it is our dreams which liberate us from the limitations of the current reality. It is our dreams that accurately reveal the inner truth of the universe.”
The world needs a lot of healing, the world needs a lot of wholeness and if we would do all we can do be proactive for our soul’s dreams, G-d will provide.
G-d will provide, because He wants us to have what we need. Especially, when we make use of all the particular tools, skills, and talents he planted within us for the His sake and the sake of His very own dream for each of us and the world at large, he will hook us up in the most sweet sweet ways with exactly what we need and more.
We’ll reverse the curse of “by the sweat (זע) of your brow you will eat” when we have the boldness (עז) to follow G-d’s unique will for me and for you. And we will begin to recieve “a portion without bounds”, the portion of Yaakov our forefather. For as we know “the return to Tzion will be like dreamers”
So I ask you: If you are not for you or the precious dreams of wholeness for the Jewish people and all of humanity that you’ve personally been given…who is? Who is going to make these dreams “like days of heaven on earth” come true? And if not now my friend, then when?
