In other words, to paraphrase in a simple memorable way who we are

 

 

Fundamentally, we and God are one and the same, for our soul is God

 

That soul then descends into its home, while we live on earth, our body.

 

Our body is a very interesting home.

 

It has a basement, a first level, and an upstairs.

 

The basement is our identity/ego; the ego is the desire for our identity to be great and certainly not to be shamed.

 

Our first floor is our heart, our emotions; this is really like a dog, which in Hebrew is called celev (cooloi-lev) as it is an emotional animal; it has strong love toward its instinctual desires, be it people or food etc. and of course, as all dog owners know, if God-forbid hurt, it will recoil, become afraid and balance its Go/love, with its Stop/fear.

 

So initially we are as the Talmud states: a little child is like a little animal – true, we are idealistic, as children are, but practically our soul begins in the dog, is very reactional, and our innate loves, food – people get balanced with our fear of say punishment, shame etc. etc.

 

Now unlike a dog, we have an upstairs; that is a brain – a human is the only creature in the universe that can change its behavior based on its thoughts (for though animals think, the thoughts are only as result of their emotions) we can choose our emotions – this is a very difficult process, for our emotional world has been programed into us, either through nature or through nurture (or the opposite of nurture, abuse) be that as it may, if we wish to exercise a truly free life – a life of our choosing, not reactions to our dog or others (dogs); it is only through following the exercises in Kabbalah-Life which compile how to overcome fear and choose to love again (a natural as well as positive state) – this of course is very brief.

 

Ultimately though, it is still not so simple, for deep in the basement lies our ego – now our ego is like the dragon in the basement – we don’t even know we have it – but let someone offend you, and your rage will show you, that boy does that dragon exist!

 

All evil is the ego – in fact, as we know, evil doesn’t need to be hurt, rather, the very perception of its shame, visa-a-via good people (aka, antisemites, radicals, terrorists etc.) is enough to start finding justification (aka Nazis, blood-libels, current anti-Israel propaganda) which will allow the person’s heart to do what it would never normally do, namely, to viscously, cruelly, and in great barbarity do what the Nazis did, and what God-forbid the Arabs wish to once again do.

 

So the mechanism to slay this dragon is very very very simple – it is why Judaism exists – Judaism posits that in order to overcome our anger – a natural reaction to perceived (and of course genuinely) unjustified shame, we need to reorient our identity away from the body that houses the dragon, the dog, and the mind – our purpose in life is not to be better, and likewise, not worse than another; not to feel pleasure (the goal of love) or not pain (the goal of fear – to prevent pain); nor even the pleasure of intellectual discovery (curiosity, which Aristotle believed was the highest aspiration of mankind, himself being an intellectual) rather, our purpose is to fulfill our Divine souls agenda.

 

What is the Divine soul’s agenda? Well, it is to fulfill God’s agenda.

 

And here is the thing: if we submit our desires to what God teaches us – mainly through asking a Mashpia (Chassidic spiritual mentor; you can go to “Ask The Rabbi” on chabad.org) then two things happen – number one: we have an objective viewpoint of right and wrong; but most importantly because our dragon is not tied into that viewpoint – after all, you cannot claim that viewpoint to be yours, as you are following, not defining it – hence, even when you fail at it, even when others prevent it, your ego (for example, the horrendous religious “holy” wars between Christianity and Islam, and Islam against the world today, all stem from the fact, that their ego was tied into their faith, hence, they saw the dominance of their faith either as a goal; or the prestige of their faith being under attack, hence necessitating revenge etc.) so in other words, as it is God’s will, not yours! you are following, you are a. truly following what is noble; but most importantly, b. you will not allow the dragon to suck you into the basement of evil!