Of course it’s not only details, the lomdus of Gemara. It’s kol haTorah kulah, all of the Torah ideology that we’re expected to think along with. You want to know what He’s thinking about, what He wants us to be thinking about? So open the Chumash. In the beginning, there was nothing at all and Hashem created the world, ex nihilo, from nothing at all (Bereishis 1:1). That’s the first thing He wants us to think.
It means that we have to acquire that attitude that whatever you see in the world, it’s devar Hashem, the word of Hashem. You look up into the heavens, it’s Your word is standing in the sky (Tehillim 119:89). You look down at the ground, it’s the word of Hashem. You look everywhere in between and it’s He is commanding the world every minute to continue to be. Every rega, Hashem is mehaveh es kol habriah; every second He continues yesh me’ayin and if He would stop commanding, the whole world would disappear into nothing. The entire world is nothing but the word of Hashem! If you look at the world like that, that’s called thinking His thoughts.
It’s More Than Facts
That’s why Hakadosh Baruch Hu put this in the Torah. Bereishis bara Elokim! It’s not just a fact, a story, a piece of information. It’s a peek, kiv’yachol, into the Mind of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. “That’s what I’m thinking,” He says. “That there’s no reality except for My Will. And Anochi Hashem Elokecha means I want that to be your way of looking at the world too.”
Now, I mention that example, that thought, because it’s the first one. But it’s endless the thoughts we have to put into our minds. It’s a big job and that’s why you shouldn’t put it off. Hurry up and get busy! Hurry up and get busy changing your mind.
Don’t misunderstand me however. It’s work, but it’s well worth it. You know, once you learn to think along with Hashem so you begin to enjoy life to its fullest. Because you’ll look at the beginning of the Torah and you’ll see that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made the following statement: Hashem saw all that He had made, and behold it is very good. Hashem said that: “Everything is very good!”
What’s Very Good?
I explained once that when you write a composition in school let’s say, would you write on the bottom, “I think this composition is very good”? So why did Hakadosh Baruch Hu write in the Torah that the world is tov me’od? The answer is, He wants us to know. He wants us to know what He’s thinking so that we should think along with Him – “Everything is very good!”
What is He talking about there? Olam Haba? No! It’s talking about like it says in the Chumash: all of creation. Plants, animals, fish, birds. It’s all tov me’od. Not tov. Not just good. It’s very good.
Go outside today and look up. It’s cloudy. Clouds! Ahh! Tov me’od! Those clouds are full of all good things. There are strawberries and cherries and pears and peaches and pineapples and bread, wheat and oats and rye; all good things are in those clouds.
The trees are very good and birds are very good. The squirrels and the wind and the birds and people and the sun and the cement, they’re all tov me’od! As big as the world is, that’s how much good there is. And so you’ll never be sorry if you learn to think along with Hashem. Because you’ll be a happy man always – everything you see is good.
Self-Confidence
You’ll think that you’re very good too! Even better than the rest of creation. You know, if you think along with Hashem, you’ll never come here and ask me questions about self-esteem. Because you’ll look into the Torah and you’ll recognize your greatness: Hakadosh Baruch Hu breathed into man the spirit of life (Bereishis 2:7).
What does it mean ‘Hakadosh Baruch Hu breathed into mankind’? When He created animals, there’s no such expression. It says He made animals. It said He made trees. But why when it comes to man, it says that He breathed into them?
And the answer is, when you breathe into somebody, you breathe from yourself. So when Hakadosh Baruch Hu breathed the neshama into man, He breathed something of Himself.
A Piece of Infinity
Now exactly what that means you’ll have to ask bigger people than me but there’s no question that it means it k’pshuto too: Hashem blew from Himself. And the old seforim tell us that when you take infinity and you try to cut up infinity in slices, each slice is going to be infinite because otherwise when you add up finite things, it won’t be infinite. So when Hakadosh Baruch Hu breathed a chelek of Himself, into mankind, it means He gave mankind endless greatness. Just like Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinite, so the greatness in the soul of every man is infinite. The greatness of man is beyond our ability to measure!
Now this seems like a rhetoric form of speech, but we have to study Torah and that is exactly what the Torah is saying: that mankind possesses within himself an endless measure of greatness because its source is the endless greatness!
Now, why is that written in the Torah? So that we should know about it and think that way. That’s how to look at mankind, like a skyscraper of potential greatness – like Hashem looks at them.
Bnei Torah Must Learn
Now, I can say with confidence that even many bnei Torah – ordinary people I’m not saying because about them there’s no question, but even many bnei Torah – have not made that Torah thought part of their own mindset. We learned it when we were little children and we retain a juvenile understanding of that all our lives. Does it become part of your mindset? No.
But Anochi means that it must become a way of thinking. We have to take it out of the cellar of our heads from time to time as we grow older and review it. Not just as a fleeting thought; to spend time on it until it becomes part of your mindset.
Now, if that’s the greatness of man in general – of every Puerto Rican or Italian – so what is a Jew? He’s a skyscraper on top of a skyscraper. How do we look at our fellow Jews? With the thoughts of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The Jewish nation is My bechor, My firstborn, says Hashem (Shemos 4:22). The word bechor is related to the word which means a chosen one; bechor means the chosen first one. ‘You are My chosen first nation in the world’.
That’s a thunderous declaration from the Mind of Hashem. And it means that it should be thundering in our minds from that time on. I’m not saying you have to yell it from the rooftops; the nations of course don't like that kind of thunder. But what can we do? In our own minds at least it has to reverberate without end. We are obligated to think along the lines of thought that He revealed to us.
Acquiring a New Mind
Accepting the Torah doesn't mean merely signing on to keep the laws of the Torah, signing on to be a doer; it means accepting a new way of thinking, acquiring a new mind. At Har Sinai the Bnei Yisroel accepted that they will stop using their minds and think only what Hashem wants them to think. Torah means giving away your mind and substituting for it the Mind of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Of course, the intelligentsia will come out with the protest: “What’s he saying?! We should stop using our minds?!”
Absolutely not! We want you to use your mind; but only to think true thoughts. Because, let’s say you want to be open-minded. So whatever you hear comes into your mind. And what is the result? All kinds of sewage collects in your mind. All kinds of garbage are now filling up your mind; it’s a garbage disposal, that’s all.
But if your mind is closed, and it’s open only to the subject of Hashem’s thoughts, that’s the most open mind you could have. It’s like in a bank you have the bank vault, the safe. It’s a closed place. There’s nothing in there except for gold and silver; and stacks of greenbacks. That’s all that you’ll find there and therefore it’s the most valuable place. You want an open place?! Walk out of the bank, stop at the curb, and look down into the sewer. That’s an open place. Everything runs into the sewer. Which is more important? Which is more valuable?
False Independence
And I have to tell you something: don’t imagine that you’re an independent thinker. Ach! You have to know that in case we don’t think along Torah lines, don’t think that we’re thinking along independent lines. You’re never independent. Either you’re thinking Torah thoughts, Torah attitudes, or you’re thinking the attitude of New York City, of Hollywood, of the street. The mind is not a vacuum. It’s one or the other.
And so anybody who will say, “How can I give up my own independent mind and accept the Torah way of thinking?” is really saying, “I prefer to hold on to what the New York Post is telling me.” And if that’s the choice, it shouldn’t be so difficult.
The Unreliable Conscience
“Oh,” he says, “but I have my conscience that I listen to.” That’s what this humanist – I don’t want to say his name here – wrote in the New York Times; a long letter. “I don’t need Torah”, he says, “I follow my conscience. My conscience is enough to guide me to do what’s right.”
So you ask him, “What conscience was guiding Hitler? If you think that all you need is a conscience so Hitler when he killed six million innocent people he was following his conscience too. And all the ...
