To be open or closed or maybe both is the question
By zevi770 · December 18, 2012
To be or not to be, is an interesting question
To think or not to think is another
Ultimately, as the Rebbe teaches, there is a fundamental desire within man to be in the state of love, Chessed, unconditional humanness etc.!
On the other hand, as life teaches us, people often become highly subjective in their outlook, for we cannot bury our heads in the sand, and when people become subjective, they become selective, and when they become selective, the details become annoying.
This is why there are so few successful business-men, for most men prefer their fantasies of grandiosity, to the details of reality!
On the other hand, there is a way where we can merge these two tendencies i.e. the joy of open heartedness and the pragmatism of anylization, and that is to redefine the purpose of life.
As soon as we realize, that our goal is neither openness nor closedness, neither selfish love, nor selfish fear, rather to simply be a good robot, to simply allow God to use us, then we both have the open as well as the necessitating closedness, i.e. definedness, for God is into details!