The Three Act Play

Part One

Act One: The guy is alone in the room. He feels great. After all his opinion is uncontested. that obviously he must be right. there is no one else in the room. no kidding nobody is disagreeing. There is only one person in the room.  

Act Two: Then, it happens. Someone else enters the room and boom - there is disagreement. The two of them begin shouting at each other, they won’t stop, it’s annoying yet not surprising. After all there are two people in the room, each entitled to their own perspective.  

Act Three: eventually the third guy shows up and begins to listen to the arguments thrown back and forth. after a while he cries: hey! the two of you are saying the same things in different words! if you just listen for a moment you will discover that, in fact, there is no disagreement.

Part Two

Act One: G-d is the only existence there is nothing else aside from him. He is one. But only because there is no one else to disagree.

Act Two: Sensing the inherent problem with this form of unity G-d created the universe; as expected, disagreement erupts. G-d feels that he is the definition of reality, after all he is the creator of the universe. The people walking the earth, however, disagree. Even those who concede the point and acknowledge that G-d is indeed the creator, do not accept the “Unity of G-d Theory”. After all, the human being is born feeling that he is the center of the universe, that the world around him is the ultimate reality, and that spirituality, while an interesting idea, is not the definition of reality. So the dispute goes on. Lasting thousands of years.

Act Three: Along comes Abraham. Listening carefully to the universe around him as well as to his soul pulling him to toward G-d, he discovers that if one looks deep enough, the dueling voices each shouting their own opinion are not in dispute. That the universe is essentially declaring the greatness of it's creator. Thus the father of Judaism discovers: that the true oneness I'd found in the third perspective which perceives the unity of the first two, seemingly contradictory perspectives.

Part Three

The opening statement of the Ethics of our Fathers states: "look at three things and you will not come to sin" and it goes on to enumerate the three things one should "look" at. The Rebbe taught that this above mentioned statement is not just an introduction rather it is telling us "look at the message of the number three and you will not come to sin"; if wherever you look in the universe you will see, not number two - the universe as it appears to dispute G-d's oneness - rather you will see "number three" the universe as an expression of the unity of  God then you will never sin.

And if you still have patience for one more "three" then look at the third teaching in the third chapter of the Ethics where is states: "Three people who ate on one table and spoke words of Torah it is as if they ate of G-d's table". If Judaism has one message it’s this: G-d can be felt not only on Yom Kippur, which the Torah refers to as “once a year” - perhaps because by refraining from eating and drinking and other material pleasures we experience the unity of G-d as it existed before creation. Judaism understands the power of Three (“three people eating at one table”). it understands that the physical universe represented here by food, is where one can experience the tru oneness of the one G-d.

(Parshas Emor 5749. Final paragraph is an Eigene Vort)

The Child Within

If I were old I would be discouraged.

In the Ethics of our Fathers, Elisha Ben Avuyah teaches: One who learns Torah in his childhood, what is this comparable to? To ink inscribed on fresh paper. One who learns Torah in his old age, what is this comparable to? To ink inscribed on erased paper."

I get the first half of the statement. We want to encourage the young to learn while their mind is still fresh and impressionable; but why the second half of the statement that puts down the older learner? Were we not educated on the story of Rabbi Akiva, one of the all time greatest Torah scholars, who began to study Torah at age forty? If Rabbi Akiva would have learnt about the "ink written on erased paper" would he not have been discouraged from learning and the Jewish people would have lost one if greatest minds?

The answer is as simple as it is profound:

The Mishnah is not telling us to learn when we are a child; rather to learn like a child. Not to avoid learning when at old age rather to avoid learning like an older person.

You see, the old person has seen it all. Often, He feels he's got all the answers to all the questions  A new idea cannot creep into his mind unless it squeeze trough his existing knowledge. His subconscious mind is not interested in revolutions, it is interested in ideas that confirm, and conform to, his existing knowledge.

The child, on the other hand, is curious, open to new insights, and intrigued by the mysteries of the universe.

So when your mother told you to "always remain a child", she may have been trying to articulate the Mishnah's point. She wasn't telling you to keep playing in the sand box, she was saying: "you may have a PHD at the end of your name, but next time you pick up a book, do so with an open mind". 

You'll have plenty of time to evaluate and assess at a later point, but at the moment, read like a child.

Bad Neighbors

"Nitai the Arbelite would say: Distance yourself from a bad neighbor, do not cleave to a wicked person, and do not abandon belief in [Divine] retribution". Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 1:7
A bad neighbor doesn't mean a bad person, s/he's just bad for you. The bad neighbors are those people in your life who bring you down or get you in trouble. They might be the kindest or smartest, but for you they're a bad influence and a bad neighbor. From those people you should stay far away from, distance yourself from them.
Then there are wicked people, bad people. You shouldn't distance yourself from them. Actually you should talk to them, teach them, reach out to them, help them become good people. Just don't cleave to them, don't become too friendly or you might be influenced by them.
One more thing to be careful with. If we're hanging out with the right people, doing the things we're supposed to be doing. And we're reaching out to those around us, Nitai is telling us, don't become too sure of yourselves, never think you can no longer make mistakes, "Never abandon belief in Divine retribution". Remembering this will always keep us in the right direction.