Can you be too holy? Can you be too holy? Can you be too close to the person you love? According to the sages, that precisely was the sin of the sons of Aaron, who, on the day of the inauguration of the temple, “brought before the Lord foreign fire, which He had not commanded them.” This was so severe that “fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.” Further in the book of Leviticus, the Torah describes their story as: “they drew near before the Lord, and they died.” Apparently, one can be too close. Drawing too near can be a problem. The book of formation, the earliest Kabbalistic written work, states, “if your heart runs, return to one”. The later mystics explain that one must “run and return”. An intense desire to transcend and become close to G-d must be followed with a “return”, a commitment to fulfill the will of G-d, within the limited confines of time and space. The soul may push to “run”, with passion and ecstasy, toward her beloved G-d, but she must ask herself: what does my beloved want? The soul may want to be in heaven, but G-d wants her to be right here on earth, in this specific place at this specific time. The idea of "running and returning”, can be applied to so many areas of life. When we find something or someone we love, we are full of enthusiasm; a new idea, a new relationship, a new opportunity. We feel the pulsing energy of the “running”, nothing can stop us. But whether the passion will create something sustainable in our life depends not on the intensity of the excitement but rather on whether we can “return”, implement it in our daily lives, through specific, ongoing, seemingly mundane actions. The day after the Exodus from Egypt, the Jewish people understood that a single event, even an event as profound as the Exodus, would not have a lasting impact unless it affected their daily routine. They therefore began counting forty-nine days as preparation for Sinai, representing their effort to apply themselves to internal refinement and personal growth. Passover is the holiday that allows us to experience the energy of freedom from internal negativity that holds us back. Now is the time to “return”, to ask ourselves what specific actions we are going to take to allow us to live a life of liberation, focused on our values and priorities.
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