Sunday, December 7, 2008

"He sees not what he lacks but what he has"


"The ‘righteous person who experiences good’ (in the Talmud's phrase) is a person who is immune to evil.

He sees things differently than we generally do.

He sees not what he lacks but what he has.

This is a different spiritual construct, a different way of living, a state of being in which it is impossible to suffer.

This is not to say that, in an objective sense, such a person does not experience troubles and ills but that he does not suffer.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, certainly not a naïve man, contracted tuberculosis at the end of his life.

He never complained about having contracted this disease, but expressed great pleasure if, between coughing and spitting up blood, he was able to say a few words.”


--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz


From Opening the Tanya, p. 285 by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz