I wasn't planning to write this week. My whole family and I have been together in Israel for our youngest daughter's wedding. It has been a joyous time focused inwardly on family and on personal transformation, on the reshus hayachid (private domain) of life rather than on its reshus harrabim (public domain). But then I came across one of the most powerful and most valuable teachings in the Torah about transformation and about reshus hayachid andreshus harrabim that I felt a compelling need to share with you.
The teaching is that if you don't believe in the possibility of your own transformation, you not only limit your own potential but you also limit G-d's power to transform your life.
Avram questions the value of his life and accomplishments in the absence of a son to continue his tradition and his work. Hashem responds that the limited vision that Avram has of his future, a future void of miracle, is a valid vision for the man Avram in his current state. It is however, not a valid vision for the different man Avram is capable of becoming and the woman his wife could become: Avram has no son but Avraham has a son; Sarai will not give birth but Sarah will. I am going to call you a different shem…(Rashi Bereishis 15:5).
Shem doesn't just mean "name"; this conversation is not about a name change. This conversation is about the transformation of the defining characteristics of Avraham's essence, this is what the word shem really means.
Nothing is impossible, there are no limitations on an individual's capacity to effect change in the world. However, limitless possibility rests on personal transformation. We are each of us severely limited in what we can do, but we are not limited at all in who we can become. And as we become different and greater people, so our capacity to impact and change the world becomes different and greater too. We cannot always attract miracles into our current lives, but we can transform our lives into ones that do attract miracle.
What was Avram and Sarai's transformation? Up until this time they found G-d inside their individual selves (we know Avraham came to the whole Torah from within himself) and by observing the universe. From now on they were to experience G-d in the very intimacy of their man-woman relationship. The yud of G-d's name now resides in Sarah, and the Hey in Avraham. When they merge in intimate unison, G-d's name emerges. G-d is no longer experienced in isolation and meditation, nor in nature and science, the Divine experience now requires marital intimacy for its expression.
This capacity to find G-d in physical intimacy differentiates the Abrahamic Jew from other nations and religions. So many religions encourage holy people to be celibate, but we call marriage Kidushin, sanctity. Our Kohein Gadol has to be a married man when he serves in the holy of holies on the holiest day of the year. It is through marital intimacy that we achieve divine sanctity - what a Jewish idea!
Avram and Sarai whose spirituality lived outside of the physical intimacy of their union, could not have children. The transformation of bringing G-d, the yud and the hey of His name, into their union, makes it possible for them to generate miracles that could never have happened in their prior identities.
So, believe in the possibility of your own transformation and give G-d the power to transform your life. Consider the things that limit you. How many of them are rooted in your past or in your perception of who you currently are? Then identify one small but significant thing to change about yourself, and start to practice that change daily. After a short time the new behaviors become engrained in who you are, and you are no longer the same person you were. This is when miracles begin to happen: trust me!
