Becoming a Receiver for Hashem’s Infinite Light

“I Don’t Feel Anything” A Jewish man once came and said: “I don’t feel Hashem. I walk through the market, I sit in my home, and all I find is a physical world. A closed world. A world where you don’t hear or see anything spiritual.” Many people feel the same way. Someone devoted to Torah, or a working man who makes time to study, sits in prayer now and then and feels that his words rise to the ceiling and stop there. “I don’t feel anything.” This pain is real, and we must not take it lightly. But maybe the question itself needs to be fixed. The Parable: Waves No One Picks Up The man was asked: “Do you feel Wi-Fi?” He looked puzzled. “You know that right now, at this very moment, waves are passing through you. Wireless, cellular, internet. They are here, in this room, inside your body, all around you. You don’t sense them. Why not?” “Because I’m not wired for it. I wasn’t built with an antenna for those signals.” “Exactly. So don’t ask why you’re not picking up the signal. Ask why you haven’t yet built yourself a receiver.” The Foundation: The Light Is Always Here This is not just a nice way of speaking. The Bible says: “The whole earth is full of His glory.” The Tikkunei Zohar, a classic work of Jewish mysticism, explains: “There is no place empty of Him.” There is no place where He is missing. Not on the street, not in the office, not at home. Hashem’s infinite light fills all the worlds, quite literally. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains this in the part of the Tanya called “The Gate of Unity and Faith.” Hashem’s word is not like a king who hands over a letter and then goes on his way. Before Hashem created the world, there was nothing but Him, and it is exactly the same now. Hashem brings every single detail into being and gives it life, at every single moment. This is not imagination, and it is not just an idea in the mind. It is solid reality. So the problem is not that the signal is weak. The signal is very strong. The problem is on the receiving end. The Lesson: The Missing Vessel The animal soul, together with the physical body, is not built to receive Hashem. The ear picks up sound and the eye picks up light, but neither has a “sense” for radio waves. In the same way, the physical body, on its own, is not “wired” for Hashem. As Job said: “From my flesh I will see Hashem.” It is precisely through the flesh that we must see. But for that, we need to switch on a completely different sense. What is that sense? It is the divine soul inside us. By its very nature, it picks up Hashem, because it is “a piece of Hashem above, truly.” But it is covered over and darkened by screens: physical habits and busy activities that do not let it work. So the inner work is not to “invent” light from the outside. The work is completely inside: to clear away the screens, and to let the soul, which was always there, do its job as a receiver. How to Build the Receiver In “The Gate of Unity and Faith,” Rabbi Schneur Zalman teaches that the way to sense Hashem’s presence is through deep reflection. This means going deep into the awareness that Hashem gives life and existence to everything there is, without a moment’s pause. This is not the work of one big hour. It is building, step by step, day after day. When you sit, study Hasidic teaching and reflect on it, you are building. When you take two minutes before prayer and think, “Hashem is here, now, truly,” you are laying one more layer of the receiver. You don’t jump from “I feel nothing” to “I feel everything” all at once. You wire yourself. Gradually. Consistently. The Real Question When that man asked, “Why don’t I feel anything?” he thought his question was aimed toward heaven: “Why doesn’t Hashem show Himself to me?” But the real question is aimed inward: “What did I do today to build my receiver?” The signal is here. The network is available. There is no place empty of Him.