In this weeks Torah Portion we read an amazing thing
By zevi770 · August 21, 2011
God says to the Jewish people “recognize that I have given you both a blessing and curse; the blessing is when you will adhere to the Biblical commandments, the curse is when you don’t.”
In my own life I see this clearly:
Often growing up orthodox once fails to see the blessings in God’s commandments and in fact sees them as onerous restrictions.
Nothing could be further from the truth
Nothing is greater than meaning and nothing is a greater – in the cursed sense – than having a meaningless life.
When a person grows up in poverty they always think riches would make them secure, healthy, happy and wise; but a westerner growing up in affluence knows that no amount of McDonalds burgers, or Kentucky fried chicken feeds one’s soul.
It is for this very reason the Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that in our generation most Jews were brought up non-religious.
For it is precisely in the understanding that God’s commandments are blessings that one appreciates them.