Menachem Mendl of Kotzk on Ego, or "How i've come to realize i don't have all the answers..."

First, let me apologize to my readers (what few of them there probably were to start with) for the delay in posting new material. I've had a truly hellacious couple of weeks, but hopefully the end is drawing near. Please pray for me. I really need it right now.

If there is a lesson that stands out to me through this time of trial, it is that I truly know nothing about god, and specifically about what he had planned for my life. I don't mean this in Leibniz-like "this is the best of all possible worlds so clearly this is god's plan and i just don't understand it" kind of way. Instead, what i would really like to focus on is the more general meaning of that phrase... "I don't know what god has planned for my life." In my last post i talked about a book i was reading, "GOD was in this place & I, i did not know" by Lawrence Kushner. In continuing to draw insight from that book, I'd like to shine a third-party light on my situation in the hopes that it will offer some encouragement to you.

In the second chapter of his book, Kushner imagines how Menachem Mendl of Kotzk would have likely addressed Jacob had he found him in the desert. You see, Mendl's school of thought focuses entirely on ego and its dissolution. Not ego in a Freudian sense, but in the more self-contained arrogance that truly defines ego. Channeling Mendl, Kushner writes "[Many times we find ourselves] deep into one of those mental self-examinations where what you need, in order to go on living, is to believe that you are a good person and destined for greatness. Although what you actually need to become a good person and to be destined for greatness is to confess that [neither of those statements is true about you]."

You see, when you have truly destroyed your ego then you become capable of LISHMA. Lishma is the jewish concept of doing something solely because god has requested it, with no thought of reward or compensation... easy to write down in a blog, but something entirely different to live. And so, to my final point... A lot of times we view the hardships we go through as necessary paths to our greater reward. "Well, this sucks but I'm sure god has something even better for me down the road." We need to begin to let go of this way of thinking. Not Leibniz, but Lishma. Not the reward of deeds, but the gift of life. Not i,... but GOD.

"Life is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're gonna get." - Forest Gump
"Because I said so..." - God (and also my mother when I was younger)