What is a drug? I suppose a drug is a physical manifestation of idol worship. It’s like an idol worship that’s hard coded into our bodies, whether our neural nets or some other chemical or physical relationship. It is an idol worship that, when allowed in, seeps throughout and eats us alive. If we allow it to. It’s like what happened with Evil Locke in Lost. Or whoever. Let it talk, and it’s already got you. That’s how idol worship works. That’s how stupidity works. That’s how drugs work. And that’s how we lose our way. Every time.

Otherwise, we would go straight. Straight towards the goal. Inside we are straight. It is the outside that gives us the curves, that makes us focus the wrong way.

Just do the right thing, that’s all it comes down to. Don’t do drugs, just like the kids’ commercials say. Don’t do idol worship, just like the rabbis say. Don’t be stupid, just like your teachers said. Sure, they said it wrong, most of them, but that’s just because they were curved also. Curved like all of us. And so their message came out curved. They aren’t tzaddikim. They’re curvy, wavy fools, just like you and me, trying their best, sometimes not trying their best, and saying a truth that at its essence is straight.

Some might say the curviness is beautiful. What would we be without the curviness, they ask. Isn’t it great that we aren’t tzaddikim, that we tend to flow and dip like an ocean, moving with the high peaks of the universe as well as the ditches we tend to dig for ourselves? What would life be without the highs and the lows? Isn’t a straight life utterly dull, boring and unfulfilling?

And it’s true. The curves are there for a reason. We aren’t meant to be tzaddikim. We’re meant to be idol-worshipping, drug snorting, idiots. That’s us. It’s because of these things that we find our unique voice. It’s because of these things that we can raise the world to a level it’s never known. It’s because of these things that we can go higher than the tzaddikim.

But only when we recognize that, in the end, we’re meant to be straight. Meant to be focused. Meant to cut like lasers. If we live a life focused on the curves, then we are lost. Then we curve and curve until we forget where we’re going. Inside all of us, no matter how unique our curve is, we are straight. Straight as an arrow. The curviness exists to express the straightness.

Idol worship is a distraction. Drugs are lethal. And stupidity is both. But when we use those things, we we use them as engines to lift us to a higher level, then everything is different. It’s when we remember that experiences in our past only existed to be uplifted, to express the straightness of the world, then we can realize that all those curves were actually straight.

She emailed me and she said, Mr. Pop Chassid, didn’t you know I’m a fan? I’d like a bumper sticker, please, she said. Here are a few artists for artist of the week.

Oh, and by the way, how come you haven’t been writing recently? Where you been? What you been doing? Why don’t you write? Why don’t you create? I like it, she said.

Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand? That’s what I wanted to ask.

How can I write?

The lasts posts I wrote, I took down. Three posts in a row, I tore off the site after hurting people’s eyeballs, wasting their time and polluting their minds with mindless mush that was created for the wrong reason.

Do you have any idea what that’s like, I want to ask. To know you’ve hurt others with your own words. You’ve torn the world down. You’ve hurt people. If the pen is mightier than the sword then writers are killers.

Dramatic. But that’s how it feels.

Every time we write something wrong, every time we say something false, we’re breaking the world up bit by bit, even though most of us don’t realize it. Most of the time we aren’t aware and so we go on saying careless hurtful things, things that we regret maybe days maybe months maybe years later. Sometimes we never know we’re supposed to regret. We’re spitting on G-d’s creation, hurting the world that could be so perfect, if we only left it alone, if we only stopped talking.

Didn’t she get it? Every time I opened my mouth, it was breaking up. Every time I allowed my finger to press the “Publish” button in WordPress a bit of the world got torn to shreds, and it was happening more and more, the more popular Pop Chassid got.

But no, she wanted a damn bumper sticker.

After she wrote me, I sat down and stared at my laptop. And I wrote. Not to anyone else. Just me and G-d and a white screen. All talking to each other. Our voices echoing in a mirrored pyramid. We talked and we talked. And at first it was just me and I was bitching and I was crying and I was complaining, why can’t a person create when his heart is singing for something more, for something real, why does it have to be that every time he slips into a world of marketing, a world of smoke in mirrors, where what is fake and untrue is his reality? Why do the great rabbis write silly books with silly titles about Kosher this and Kosher that? Why is it that the higher we reach, the lower we dig?

The questions echoed and for a long time there was no answer and so the fingers danced some more on the keyboard and the white screen shimmered with some black letters and at least it was me and the screen, even if G-d didn’t’ show his face.

But soon another voice entered the conversation. At first it was a whisper and it was quiet so that it hardly showed up on the screen. It said a word here and there, interrupting my manic writing, saying shhh, shhhh calm down. But the fingers kept going and the screen kept shimmering and soon the voice, I guess it had to get louder. And it started to speak. And it started to reason. And soon it was alive and talking and taking over the whole screen.

It said, “Do you even know what I am? Do you even know who I am? Don’t you know I created something? I wrote a story, a book, a blog (G-d help us). And it’s filled with plot holes and errors and misspellings and in the process of the book, the book I’m still writing, many people have died. Every person that ever existed so far has died. Some of them in horrible, disgusting ways. Some got shoved into flames. Some got put in between bricks when the Egyptians were building their damn buildings. Some got – you get the idea. The world is messed up.

And I made it.”

Maybe the words don’t seem like much now because they’re out of my mouth, but they felt like something when they spoke to me from the screen.

The words on the screen, the other voice, it was saying, what is this? You think you can sit back and do nothing?

What if G-d sat back. What if G-d stayed a nothing. What if G-d chose to sit back and not create because he was worried that he would crack some eggs on the way to making his cake?

Nothing. Nothing would happen.

You. Me. The white screen with the silly black letters. They – we – wouldn’t be.

If we believe in G-d then we need to create. Because if we don’t create, G-d’s whole plan, the whole “create the world” thing falls apart. We’re going back in time, back to when there wasn’t anything and asking G-d to go with it, to be okay with the fact that we are afraid, scared, that we don’t want to hurt anyone or anything.

That voice, it was saying, don’t be scared. It was saying, we’re gonna screw up. We’re gonna have bad grammar. We’re gonna hurt people. But that’s what it means to live in the world. That’s what it means to be a creator. That’s what it means to continue G-d’s story, his Big Project, his blog.

And if we keep writing, keep creating, and then look back at what we wrote with a fine-tooth comb, just like we would a piece of good literature or Torah or Gemorah, we’ll realize those errors, they’re just on the outside. Inside is life. Inside is G-d. Inside nothing went wrong. Because what we wrote, that’s a part of His creation. A part of His book. And we helped write it.

This artist of the week is the perfect example of the potential that lies within the Jewish community to create beautiful, G-dly art.  I first heard about Yerachmiel Goldstein when I asked on the Pop Chassid Facebook page for recommendations for music.  Yerachmiel sent me some of his music, and I immediately fell in love.

Yerachmiel’s music is reminiscent of Bob Dylan and basically all great folk music from back in the day.  His music reverberates with real feeling and his lyrics are deeply connected to Torah concepts.  The best part about Yerachmiel’s music is that while trying to make it holy, he does not try to fit into any sort of musical box.  His music is creative, free and lively.

Right now Yerachmiel is a student at Mayanot.  If you love his music and want to hear more, please leave a comment and some love.  He’s only beginning his career so let’s give him some encouragement!

The Sun

Sprout

A Trip Beyond

I never understood it. They were good, loving, calm rabbis. But you got any of them, any of them started on evolution, on that theory about people coming from apes, apes coming from some other furry thing, furry things coming from reptiles, reptiles from fish, fish from amoebas… and these rabbis weren’t so calm anymore.

Their faces would turn red, red like a strawberry which may or may not have evolved from a raspberry. They’d bounce back and forth and their voices would rise above the usual, “let’s just be calm about all this” cadence they usually had. Now they were possessed by some otherworldly anger.

Why? I simply couldn’t understand. What makes evolution so contradictory to religion? Why did the rabbis that I usually trusted to give a calm rational answer to the sort of logic that most scientists take so for granted suddenly become so emotional and seemingly illogical when it came to evolution.

Evolution, it seems, has reserved itself a special place in hell among almost all the world’s religions. Most rabbis can at least acknowledge the logic of existing scientific theories, avoiding the kneejerk rhetoric of the Christians at the pulpit that have managed to steal almost every meaningful discussion about science away into a world of reactionary zeal. But evolution ain’t like that. Evolution, even us calm Jews get pissy about. Why?

The truth is, it has a lot to do with that last word. Why.

Look at articles that in any way relate to how humans became the way the way they did. Look at how they explain why we live the way we do, eat the way we do, stand on two legs the way we do.

Almost all of them use one word to explain it: Why.

They take one of the most powerful words in the English language, the word that’s meant to give you the deepest understanding for the way things happen, the ultimate reason for their existence, and they use it to explain the world in a totally physical way.

Why are humans bipedal? Evolution. Why do humans use tools? Evolution. Why do humans talk, write, etc? Evolution.

This is what gives the poor little rabbis conniptions.

You’re telling me that the ultimate, deepest reason we exist, that such amazingly deep things are only explained through science?

This is the distinction. This is why evolution gets people so upset, not necessarily the science behind it (although plenty of religious people would probably disagree with me on that point).

I am not arguing for or against the science, but how people use it. Evolution has, for some bizarre reason, become a way to debunk religion. Is it any coincidence that our good friend Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist? Evolution has become the calling card of people with an irrational hate for religion.

They wield it, like some immutable weapon, against G-d, against thousands of years of religious tradition, against the people that represent those religions, and scream on the top of their lungs, “You’re idiots! Fools! Don’t you see we have all the answers with this theory?”

And so the rabbis get rankled.

The problem with evolution, just like any science, is that it only explains how not why. And that makes it ultimately less important to a religious person.

Fine, you say evolution explains why I walk upright, why I talk, why I have two eyes, why I have a face and why I have a bladder.

I say that the body is simply a manifestation of something deeper. It is simply a reflection of my spiritual self. And to find the why of my body, I have no interest in whether your theory is right, because it doesn’t concern me. What concerns me is connecting to my essential self, to understanding the why of the universe not the how of physicality.

Don’t get me wrong. If the theory of evolution helps our study of medicine, is useful in scientific endeavors, go for it, believe in it.

But don’t let it replace your why. Don’t let it make you forget that there are deeper reasons for the way the world works than what Charles Darwin and an army of scientists tell you. Despite what the rest of the world would have us think, science is not, and never will be, the deepest truth in the universe.

That will, and always will be G-d and his wisdom. And until the world comes to realize that, science will always exist on a more exulted altar than it deserves to be.

It was all a misunderstanding really. If only she understood what he was saying, the whole situation could have been avoided.

But the queen was too far gone at that point, too full of ire, too full of anger to see reason.

The mirror, he told her that she wasn’t the fairest one of all, that she wasn’t perfect, beautiful and pure like Snow White. And that made her fly into a rage.

The poor queen. If only she knew. If only she understood.

The mirror, the mirror, he was just trying to tell the queen something that she wouldn’t listen to. He wasn’t talking about who she was, he was talking about how she looked.

But the queen, she had gotten to the point where looks, where externality, where the rubbish of our outer garments had gotten so confused with her inner essence that she couldn’t see she was already perfect, couldn’t see that the mirror, he wasn’t telling her she was ugly, just that she acted ugly, that she lived in an ugly way.

And so the queen resolved to kill Snow White. She hired a hunter to kill the girl. She “outsourced” her evil. Because she wasn’t evil. Just twisted from jealousy.

Inside of us all is a mirror. And just like with the queen, he is whispering to us, telling us the secrets about life, about G-d and about ourselves. And no matter what, he speaks the truth.

Most of us, we’re like the queen. We hear that we’re ugly, and we go out and we lash out against the poor unwitting bystanders in our lives. When the mirror in our soul makes us see our own faults, we do our best to aim him at others, and when we can’t, we lash out.

The queen, she lashed out at Snow White. And when the hunter failed, she went so far as to try to kill Snow White herself.

But it was just a misunderstanding.

The mirror, he was really trying to tell her something. He was saying, Snow White, she’s the model of a pure, good woman. You, you’re not. Learn from her. Grow.

But the queen didn’t understand. She thought he was telling her that she would forever be gross, ugly, that somehow the appearance of this gorgeous step-daughter was the reason she was ugly.

And so it is with us. We see something supposedly bad in others, and our conscious minds don’t realize that that’s really our mirror whispering, whispering through the mist in the glass, telling us, “Look at this… that’s you… correct it… and you could be beautiful.”

Instead, we act like the queen. We lash out. Sometimes we kill, if only with words.

The ironic part of it all was that the more the queen wanted to kill Snow White, the more ugly she became. She went from a goth queen to a snarly, hack-toothed old hag. And we can only assume that before Snow White came along, the queen was even more beautiful.

Why? Because by ignoring the mirror, by refusing to understand what he was telling her, she made her outer exterior ugly.

There is more to an exterior than clothing, than an ugly hag face or a beautiful white face. The story of Snow White is telling us something deeper about ourselves.

That how we act, how we behave, that is also clothing, that is also what makes us beautiful or ugly, at least on the outside. And the more we give into dark, cold feelings like jealousy, like anger, like pride, the more we are wearing dark goth clothing, or even putting on the fake hag teeth of the queen.

But, we are lucky. We aren’t the queen. We are smarter. We are stronger. And the more we learn to listen to the mirror, the more we can make ourselves beautiful, the more we can shine with radiance, and the more we will conquer the world simply by being who we are, just as Snow White did.

There is a mirror inside of us. And he is whispering the most profound truths. All we need to do is listen.

If the queen had listened, she would have known that all she had to do was forget about Snow White. Was rip off that witch costume. Clean up her goth makeup. And she would be the most beautiful queen of all.

Because she would be free. Unfettered by thoughts of others, and only focused on letting the inner queen, the true beauty, the one that had once reigned, back out into the open. She would have been beautiful because she had returned to who she truly was.

We too can return to our pure core of snow white beauty. We too can forget all about our petty jealousies, our bland, shallow criticisms of others. We too can take off our costumes, our makeup, and be perfect in all our naked glory.

All we need to do is look at the mirror.

And listen.

Raskalnikov. Sensitive student. Genius. Killer.

Oscar from the Office. Accountant. Gay. Kind of a jerk.

At the outset, it seems like there’s very little in common between these two. Oscar sits in his cubicle, complains every now and then, and makes small quips about other office workers. Raskalnikov bounces between moments of paranoia and mania to moments of bizarre calm that eventually lead him to killing a cranky old woman and her sister.

But there’s more going on between the scenes, something that binds these two men and can help us understand them, as well as ourselves.

What is it?

Think about the way Raskalnikov behaves before and after he kills the old lady. He is obsessed with justifying himself. Immediately afterwords, he is constantly telling himself why he was right to kill the woman, why he needed to and why he could have done nothing else. He is fixated on the idea that he had to test whether he was a “great man” like Napoleon. Even after he confesses, even after his own emotions betray him, making him do what his brain would not allow him to do, he cannot confess to himself. He cannot allow himself to understand his own horrible, horrendous actions.

Oscar, in fact, lives a very similar life to the one Raskalnikov led. Every day, the man wakes up, frustrated with his life, bitter at the world he lives in. This manifests itself in the way he complains about the people around him. He’s always finding a reason to criticize his boss, his coworkers, even people that have never done anything to him. There are very few moments where Oscar seems genuinely happy. Sometimes, his frustrations even come out in bizarre ways, like a recent episode in which he smashed a car apart because the driver had locked his dog inside.

Oscar and Raskalnikov are prototypes of the classically frustrated man. Never happy. Never content. Always empty. There seems to be no actual content to their lives, except for the way they react to the world around them.

They see themselves as intellectuals. They think, they ponder, they gesticulate. The moment someone gives them a chance to talk about something intelligent, they grasp the opportunity and seize it, as if their lives depends on it.

And in a way they do. There is no way either Raskalnikov or Oscar could live with themselves if they weren’t intellectualizing every moment of their lives.

Raskalnikov has his deep-seeded guilt. Guilt that he couldn’t face for years. Even after prostrating himself on the ground in public, even after admitting his crime, even after years in a prison, he couldn’t admit his guilt to the one person that really needed to hear that he was responsible for the death of the two women: himself.

And Oscar. Imagine if Oscar admitted to himself that the reason he is so angry all the time is because he hates his job. Because he isn’t living the life he is made to be living. Imagine if he finally realized that smashing the windows of a car was really the behavior of someone that just can’t handle his meaningless life anymore.

Recently, I was talking with someone who asked me why I can’t even intellectually accept the possibility that G-d doesn’t exist.

I came up with a few reasons, intellectualizing my lack of intellectualizing. But after going back and forth with this person for a while, I realized something.

The reason I can’t admit that possibility to myself is that deep within me, beyond a world of intellect, beyond the most profound thoughts of the most insightful philosopher, is something I simply can’t deny: that I will believe in the existence of G-d even if the most obvious proof in the world is brought to bear against me.

It’s only when we admit these things to ourselves, it’s only when we realize that intellect is, in fact, a very shallow part of our consciousness that we can really, truly live the lives we are meant to live.

Raskalnikov tries to reason the guilt in his heart away. Oscar uses logic to distract him from a reality he doesn’t want to face.

In the end, though, no matter how logical they are, there exists a truth within their hearts. And until they acknowledge the truth, they are in a prison. Raskalnikov existed in bars within bars. A metaphysical prison within a real prison. Oscar lives in a prison within a cubicle.

From these characters, we can learn that until we accept that there is more to our nature than reason, we will forever live in in a prison of deceit. Until we accept that there is, in our very essence, a part of us that is completely unreasonable, logic will only be a weapon we cut ourselves down with.

But when we free ourselves, as Raskalnikov did at the end of Crime and Punishment, when we realize that, in the end, whatever we truly believe in, whether it be G-d or anything else, is in a deep, true part of ourselves, that has nothing to do with logic, our hearts are let out of their cage, and we are free to lead the life we were meant to live.

The book “Moneyball”, the source for the new movie starring Brad Pitt by the same name, features at its center Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team during the 2002 season. Billy Beane is a failed former major league player who, because of his own personal experiences, became convinced major league baseball teams were run ineffectively. Why? Because they didn’t use their intelligence. They were so attached to their own romantic views of what baseball was, to a totally fictional mythology that they had developed in their minds, that they became slaves to their emotions and, as a result, ran multi-million dollar teams into the ground.

They believed that things like steals were good for teams in the long run. That only strong, fast, muscular men, could be successful. They believed that baseball couldn’t be decoded through logic, but instead could only be understood by other major leaguers.

This, my friends, is the way most of us, unfortunately, look at religion. We think that because G-d is big, mysterious and beyond reason, that we have no way of attaching our reason to Him. We think that because other people have a very vague notion of spirituality, that we should too. This is false.

G-d is not some romantic notion. He is real. And he created a spiritual world that lives and breathes according to logic, just like the physical world. In fact, the physical world is just a mere glimmer, a tiny reflection of the logic in the supernal, spiritual realms.

Billy Beane’s unique innovation was to take an incredibly low-budget team and turn it into a playoff contender. All he had to do was look at the numbers. At reality. And so he hired a Harvard graduate and started crunching the numbers. Started figuring out what truly makes a player effective. For example, he found out that steals were actually bad for teams. They led to unnecessary outs.

Billy Beane exploited the prejudices of the old-time big leaguers, with amazing results. He found out that not only can fat players be good, they can be great. Pitchers with weird throws could be amazing. And a team filled with these midfits could be champions.

Most of us live in the realm where we regard spirituality in the way the big league insiders thought of baseball. We think that because there exists a certain mythology, a certain passed-down knowledge that we’ve heard here and there and that everyone else seems to agree on, that there can be no real, methodical way to understand the truth of the spiritual universe. And so we make no effort to truly delve into Torah and the knowledge beyond the dogma.

The result is that half-baked truths become people’s Judaism. We choose popular truths, commonly accepted truths, over true truths. Such as believing that Judaism is only right-wing. When if one looks at the sources in Torah, there are liberal views as well as conservative ones. Such as believing that there is only one truth in Torah. When, in fact, books like the Gemora are riddled with examples of multiple truths existing simultaneously.

As a result, we waste the potential of our own multi-million-dollar teams: ourselves. We waste our potential to look at the world in a truthful way and make a complete and positive change within our souls and in the world around us.

Billy Beane took a team with one of the lowest budgets in baseball and turned it into a powerhouse. All he had to do was look beyond the hype.

And that’s all we have to do. Because when we take a look at the numbers, look at the stats, the way Billy Beane did, we can change the world. We can mold reality. When we know what the Torah says in the Torah’s own words, in G-d’s and his messengers own words, we are in touch with the truth of the world.

Some might laugh. Some might point fingers. This happened to Billy Beane throughout his career. But we, like him, will know that we’re in touch with the secrets of the universe, the truth of the supernal realms and G-d’s true essence.

In the end, that’s all that matters.

The question comes up all the time.

Is it possible to be creative and still be a Jew? Can I, a person filled with this passion in my heart – a passion that is alive, breathing, on fire – translate that passion into a piece of art without compromising my principles?

Oh, please.

How can people ask such questions? Don’t you know that G-d created you? You are living in his mind right now, and his lips are constantly uttering you into existence. That emotion in your heart, that one that wants to come out as some sort of rap, or drawing, or whatever, that’s being whispered right now, right out of G-d Almighty’s mouth.

And you know it. So why all the ho-humming, and why all the back and forth, and why all the shuckling?

Because we are afraid. And with good reason. We’ve seen only one or two true and truly successful Jewish artists in the world. Artists who have truly held onto their principles in the face of fame, an upside-down creative world and their own desire to be personally fulfilled.

And so we hold back, blocking our inner Artist, letting him out for a guilty gasp every now and then, just so we can walk around and feel like we’ve done something with that poor guy.

So sad.

But this is all a bit silly isn’t it? A Jewish artist is just a Jew at the end of the day. And Jews have been screwing up since day one, sinning, selling out to golden calves, the whole nine yards. So why don’t we give ourselves any allowance to screw up as well?

This allergic reaction to selling out, this righteous anger that erupts from the religious world and from the very artist himself, is what has created such a schizophrenic split down the Jewish artistic world. It’s what makes “frum” art so incredibly, horribly, depressingly, boring. Paintings that sell, traditional songs, badly-written stories that everyone already knows, etc. Yawn. Art created by people who have replaced their artistic heart with dogma.

And so the ones who still have that heartbeat banging in their chests, and aren’t willing to part with it, who know it’s a real and true part of who they are, they hold onto it with all they have and they end up telling themselves that if the world won’t accept their screwing up, then the world must be wrong and screwing up is really right and they might as well make the choice to always screw up since it’s not really screwing up at all.

And so we have a side that’s dry as a cracker and another side that’s bleeding out of its own ears, creating works of art that are full of fatty, ugly, non-G-dliness dripping over a core of truth, like some chocolate bar left out in the sun. Not because they hate G-d. But because the others have rejected them.

It is all of our jobs, in this new generation, to fix this rift. Like good friends, like ones who love those who share our soul, we need to allow screw-ups, but still demand truth.

An artist is simply a person, he is not a saint. His art will never be truly 100% G-dly. But it will be G-dly, because it is coming from a strength that G-d himself is uttering into the artist’s pen, paintbrush or keyboard.

The more we understand this, and still allow his art into our hearts, the more we will realize that we have been missing more than we can possibly imagine: G-dly energy humming inside of thousands of Jewish artists, just waiting for us to allow it to burst forth into our souls.

Are you a monkey? Don’t hurry with your answer. The truth is, it might be a harder question to answer than one might think. Just look at the movie Aladdin.

Aladdin, the poor fellow, was doing his best to find the genie, and then his monkey, Abu, ruined the whole thing for him by grabbing a big ruby, the very thing that huge scary tiger-in-the-sand told him not to do.

But don’t blame Abu. He was just doing what monkeys do. They see something they like, and go for it. No thought, just banana banana, giant ruby giant ruby.

But that’s not what Aladdin was thinking. Aladdin was thinking beyond what was in front of him. He saw the rubies also. The piles and piles of gold that would be more than a “king’s ransom”. But he just walked past ‘em. Straight to the lamp. Straight to the genie. Because he was smart. He saw that the coins, the precious stones, all that good stuff, it was just part of the glitter on the way to the real prize.

Life is a choice. Always a choice. And often, the choice comes down to two things: Be Aladdin. Or be a monkey.

We can be Abu, the monkey, who jumps at the first thing he sees. We could be distracted by the various jewels in this world, whether literally gold or some other distraction from the deeper things in life.

Why do you think people sacrifice family for their work? Because they hate their family? Clearly not. But when they get into monkey-mode, life is all about what’s in front of them. At first they’re working for their family. But soon, gradually, as work begins to overtake their lives, they’re sucked in. And next thing they know, they’re holding a ruby that’s melting in their hands.

Or we can be Aladdin. Remembering the deeper things. Remembering the family or any other deep thing we know is truly important. We can say no to the boss just this once for our family. Or we can even say no to our children once, because we understand that our goal is their maturation, not our momentary peace from their griping.

Being Aladdin means going beyond. Seeing beyond. Knowing that where our momentary desires pulls us is just an illusion, a mirage before the true oasis.

But is it possible to go even deeper, to look further than just the next level? Maybe there’s another level?

There always is.

Think about it. Was Aladdin really going for the lamp? Was a piece of brass laying in the middle of a cave his aching desire?

One could argue it was the genie with all his wishes. A person could get practically anything he wanted with a genie like that.

But Aladdin wasn’t just anyone. He was thinking deeper. He was thinking about the princess. He realized that even the amazing powers of the genie, and the lamp that came with him, were just tools. Tools to reach his ultimate goal: the lady of his dreams.

And that’s what we have to realize: at the end of the day, even our morals, even the deepest things we learn and touch and feel are simply paths to our true and only love: Hashem.

Hashem is our princess and we are Aladdin. We need to run through the cave of life, with all its riches, all the money surrounding us, all the benefits of stopping to grab a bit, and say to ourselves, “I only want G-d.”

And even when we’ve accessed spirituality, even when we’re talking to angels during our prayers, and when we feel high from all that love for G-d, we have to realize that even that isn’t enough. We may be in the palace, talking to the higher-ups and the advisors, but we’re still not married to the princess. We’re alone until we’re one. And no matter how close we are to her, it’s never the same until we’re locked in her embrace.

To do this requires bravery, intelligence, and skill. Even Aladdin fell at first. He thought wooing the princess meant wearing fancy clothes, acting hoity toity and walking around like a big fat yaysh (existence). He got lost in his clothes, as if they were also covering his eyes.

But to be a true lover, to be a true Jew, means to pull the wool from our eyes, to push aside even the angels, even the most spiritual worlds, even Gan Eden itself, and run as fast as we can towards G-d, riding the magic carpet of Truth.

If we don’t we will, without a doubt, end up like Abu. Poor, stupid monkeys, holding what once was a fabulous jewel, but is now a melting piece of lava, burning us alive.

The choice is ours: live like a monkey, or live in holy matrimony with the princess. Don’t let the jewels distract you on the way. She’s the only ruby that will last past tomorrow.