“And she shall count for herself seven days, and afterward she shall become pure.” (Leviticus 15:28)
In order to become purified, there must be distance and waiting.
The world today is completely frantic - everything must be immediate, here and now. Instant solutions, constant accessibility, an inability to tolerate distance or the thought that we may not have an immediate answer to a problem. Even to travel two blocks from home, we turn on navigation just to know exactly when we will arrive - everything must feel under control.
Rebbe Nachman describes this in Likutey Moharan (Torah 1): “A fool does not desire understanding, but only the revelation of his own heart.”
Meaning, a person seeks that everything in the world should serve the fulfillment of his own desires. The “heart” represents malchut - one’s wants and longings. When these are disconnected from chochmah—true wisdom—madness becomes inevitable. Indeed, it is a world driven by confusion.
Rebbe Nachman teaches us how to deal with this: slowly, step by step, through a process of counting - day by day. There is no way, and there cannot be a way, to ascend in avodat HaShem all at once, in haste. It is true that to escape from evil one must sometimes act quickly - but to truly feel closeness to HaShem comes only through counting, patience, and waiting. Only then can a person become purified.
There is no such thing as genuine closeness without first being willing to experience a sense of distance.
May it be HaShem’s will that we merit to rejoice in the process, to learn how to wait without despair, and to continue asking all our lives - that we should accept and embrace the feeling of distance, in order to truly come close.
Shabbat Shalom
Chaim Kramer
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