Seeking Hashem From Right Where You Are

“From there you will seek Hashem, your Lord, and you will find Him, if you search for Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Opening There is one feeling that is harder than all the others. It is not the pain itself. It is not the hardship or the suffering. It is suffering that makes no sense. It is the question: “Why am I here?” Why am I in this job, in this test, in a life that seems to have gone off course? A Jew sits and wonders: Is this a punishment? Did I take a wrong turn? That thought is the real exile. It is the belief that where I am is a mistake, a breakdown I have to escape. Exile as a Mission: The Whole People The prophet Isaiah writes: “I have given you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations.” Notice the wording. It does not say “I sent you away” because you sinned. It says “I have given you.” That is giving, a gift, a mission. The Jewish people are not scattered across the world as a people who failed. They are scattered as a people who were sent. They were not sent just to survive the darkness of the nations. They were sent to light it up. Our Sages teach in the Talmud: “Hashem sent the Jewish people into exile among the nations only so that converts would join them.” We can take this further. The “converts” are not only people. They are also sparks of holiness that have fallen into the “exile” of the material world. They are in the markets and the courtyards, in business and in politics. The Jewish people were sent there not as victims, but as people who sort out the good and lift it up. This is a deep foundation in the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement: every descent is for the sake of a higher ascent. The place that looks like moving away is the very place you are sent to. And this work of sorting out and lifting up the divine sparks that fell into the reality of this world is the heart of the mission. Exile as a Mission: Your Own Life But this essay does not want to stop at the whole people. The exile of the Jewish people as a whole is only the model. Each one of us has a private exile of our own. It might be the job that eats up your time and your strength, and you cannot understand what it wants from you. It might be a challenging marriage, or a hardship you cannot explain. It might be a trouble that knocks on your door again and again. And a person stands there and asks: “I wanted to live a life of serving Hashem. How did I end up here?” Maimonides, the great medieval sage, writes, as the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains, that the world was created so that Hashem could have “a home in this lower world.” Not a home in spite of the lower world, but a home inside it. As the Midrash says: “Hashem desired to have a home in the lower world.” The low place, the physical place, the coarse place: that is exactly the place Hashem longs for. If so, then the place where you are standing is not getting in the way of your mission. It is your mission. “From There You Will Seek”: The New Insight And here comes the verse that changes everything: “From there you will seek Hashem, your Lord, and you will find Him.” Look closely. It does not say “after there.” It does not say, “Once you get out of the exile, you will find Hashem.” It says “from there.” From that very place. From the “there” itself, from inside the hardship, from inside what looks like hiding and distance. Hashem is not waiting for you on the other side of the suffering. He is hidden inside it. As the holy Zohar, the great book of Jewish mysticism, says: “Hashem’s presence is in exile.” Hashem’s very presence is itself in exile. Hashem is not standing far away, watching your exile. He is right there, hidden, waiting for you to look for Him from there. This is not a comforting “it will be okay.” It is a point of truth. The “there” you want to run away from is the very place where the highest revelation of Hashem is waiting.