With Heart in Mind

How awesome is this place. It is no place other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

PLACE” has great significance in Jewish thinking. Your existence in this world is defined by the space you occupy, and only so long as you occupy that space are you part of this world.

Where you are defines your relationship to the world around you: When a person makes a blessing over food, that blessing is effective only as long as he or she remains in the place where the blessing was said. A significant change of place requires that the blessing be recited over again.

Another example is the distinction between private and public domains. Many of the restrictions that apply on Shabbat have to do with the boundaries of the place that you inhabit and what you do that causes objects to move from one place to another.

The most mysterious but illustrative example of the importance of place is that one of the names of God is HaMakom—which literally means “the Place.”¹ God does not have a place; rather, God is the Place of the universe.

We learn from these and many other examples that the key thing about a place is that it has dimensionality that permits it to hold and restrict something else. We are not talking here about not stepping out of line in the social order, but of being present to the reality of the particular space or spaces that you occupy, in many dimensions of reality.

This notion shows up in our personal lives in regard to the inner trait of humility, which I have defined as “occupying your rightful place.” You are meant to play a unique role in life, and that role has dimensionality that is yours to occupy. A key aspect of wisdom is to know who you are and where you fit into greater schemes. Occupying too much space (call that arrogance) and occupying too little of the dimension that is yours (call that self-deprecation) are equally major barriers to growing into wholeness.

According to the Maharal, knowing your place refers to selfknowledge.² You must have an honest assessment of yourself in order to acquire Torah. Otherwise, the basis for learning and transformation will be false and the results skewed. At the same time, knowing where you are at this moment creates the possibility of experiencing the awesome profundity that is accessible everywhere and always, if you open to it. In the wilderness and with only a stone for a pillow, Jacob proclaimed, “How awesome is this place.” As is this place.

To acquire Torah, you must know the place that is yours in this moment and occupy it fully. That is not a one-time process, however, because our relationship to the world around us is constantly in motion. That shifting relationship only comes to an end when we are laid to rest in our final place.

We all know that we will ultimately occupy an unchanging and final place, but that knowledge tends to be intellectual. It is very hard to grasp that our time on earth is limited, and that we have no idea when the moment of its ending will come. We tend to live as if death isn’t real and won’t touch us. Yet this is delusion. Our teachers encourage us to recall the reality of death not to be morbid or depressing but to cause us to wake up to the preciousness that radiates within every moment of life. You have the gift of being here, now, in this place. Occupy it fully. Don’t waste this gift! Live a responsible life of purpose before it is too late!

The story is told about two men who came to Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin to resolve a dispute over ownership of a piece of land. After both men had explained their claim, Rabbi Chaim bent over and put his ear to the ground. The men had no idea what he was doing, and so he explained. Both men had laid claim to the land, and now he wanted to hear what the land had to say. He reported that the land said both men were making a big mistake: It was not they who owned the land, but rather they would eventually belong to it. His point was to challenge them: Why are you getting so caught up in the mundane and material and forgetting the profound and the spiritual?

The Alter of Kelm employed a visualization to make this point. He told of a town where the people had been so good that they merited an unusual boon: Their dead would come back to life, but only for half an hour. At the appointed time, the cemeteries emptied, and shades invaded the town. What did the dead do in their short time back among the living? They valued what the living took for granted and neglected, and each hastened to do studies and good deeds they had overlooked when they were alive.

Holding in mind the reality of death puts life in its proper perspective. Life is precious, but in the midst of it, we can forget what an exquisite—and temporary—gift has been given to us. This is one of the explanations for why we smash a glass at a Jewish wedding. By shattering the vessel, we remind ourselves that all that is created and formed will eventually break. We temper our joy with a reminder of the fragility of life and our own ultimate mortality.³ The same link is made in the traditional greeting that is recited to mourners, which refers to God by the name HaMakom—the Place—in wishing comfort to the bereaved.

Awareness of death can cause us to realize the spiritual potential and irreplaceable opportunity that inhabit every moment. The same Alter of Kelm explained a confounding teaching of the Talmud in just that way. Rav Hamnuna Zuti was asked to sing a song at a wedding feast, and so he launched into that entertaining ditty “Woe! We are dying! Woe! We are dying!”⁴

Why mention death at a wedding? The Alter’s answer is that this reminder of mortality was meant as a challenge to the new couple to enhance their true simcha (joy) while they had the chance. As should we. Today. Right now! Here, in this place.

PRACTICE

Pirkei Avot 3:1 reads as follows:

Akavya ben Mehalalel said: “Reflect upon three things and you will not come to the hands of sin. Know from where you have come, to where you are heading, and before Whom you will give justification and accounting. From where have you come—from a putrid drop; to where are you heading—to a place of dust, worms and maggots; and before Whom will you give justification and accounting—before the King Who reigns over kings, the Holy One, may He be blessed.”

The text is saying directly that doing these visualizations, which are a core Mussar practice, will keep us from sin.

Our text focuses on “knowing your place” in a certain ultimate sense: the grave. Can you visualize your final resting place where your body will be placed in the earth? This is not easy to do, as we are generally averse to recognizing the truth of our mortality (except intellectually). But it is possible, and valuable, to do.

Imagine a plot of land, grass, a headstone, words written on that stone, including your name. Stay with that imagery for a few moments, exploring the visual details of your own grave. Have a good visit. Don’t run away too soon.

Remembering death can give us a perspective that will help us with the decisions we face today. This visualization, while perhaps a bit uncomfortable, is a sure way to prevent mistaken decisions based on transient criteria (which, incidentally, may just be a good working definition of sin).