Let My People Know

"A Jew decides whether an object will be used for sanctity or not"

"When a person makes use of the world, he takes responsibility for more than the end result, what he himself uses.

 

For instance, he is responsible for the entire system that has grown and prepared his food: for the people, the tools, the place, the sky, and the earth that toiled, prepared, and brought him that food.

 

The entire world is involved in such preparations.

 

Inanimate matter, plants, and animals all work to bring neutral reality, a point of decision.

 

A Jew stands at such a point and decides whether an object will be used for sanctity or not.

 

Will he raise it to holiness, so that the entire framework connected to his deed attains justification and meaning, back to its very inception, or will he contaminate that object with unworthy deeds or thoughts?

 

Depending on his decision, this entire portion of the world will be judged either positively or negatively—for success or for destruction.


If he chooses holiness, it will rise and be connected to sanctity.


If he does not, it will again wait, as it has done since its inception, until someone comes and rectifies it."

  

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

 

From Understanding the Tanya by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz