THE JOURNEY BEGINS My teacher asked me why I'd been so quiet lately. I was afraid to answer. It had already been five years. Five years since I became a "B.T.", a baalas teshuvah, a returnee to observant Judaism. Five years since I'd recited Maimonide's principles of the Jewish faith before the Beis Din. Five years of setting the family on a path of Torah and Mitzvos. By now my emunah should be strong, complete-- shleimah. How could I face my teacher and tell him that I was questioning the very fundaments of our faith? How could I tell him of my repeated fears that we were all just living a big myth, acting it out, wishing it were true? How indeed? I couldn't bring myself to explain it in an email. With Heaven as my witness, I tried. I began a dozen times, and erased each one. All I could tell him was that we needed to talk. Eleven P.M. I dial the phone. R'Meilech answers. We exchange greetings. He asks what it is I wanted to talk about. I blurt out an explanation. I felt emabarrassed and afraid. It is one of the marks of a good teacher: Questions are OK. Let's look at it. In the end he left me understanding that when such concerns are nothing more than idle speculation, devoid of method and action to resolve them, that they are of no value. Further, he reminded me, it is not quite rational to reject eyewitness accounts of so many people and instead give credit to a vague doubt. Why was I engaging in such mental wanderings? Honesty demanded that I agree. The truth of what he was saying was clear. We spoke more, with R'Meilech helping me to see that spiritual growth, like physical strength, must be constantly challenged or it atrophies. If one wants to keep jumping a 15 foot high jump, one must strive for 18 feet. I said I'd hoped the few Tehillim and a bit of Tanya and Chumash I learned each day, would suffice, that it would strengthen my faith and take away the doubts. Not enough, he told me. I had not challenged myself. Instead of making progress on the path, I now found myself with my two feet buried in the mud. I would have to aim higher to go further. Suddenly, like the Baal Shem Tov's carriage flying through the night, he words were carrying me into unfamiliar lands. This was Chassidus like I'd not confronted before. Levels and worlds and experiences of reality surpassing our limited physical world. And there was the letter of Baal Shem Tov. What does it say? When will Moshiach come? It is there. We have to find it. My mind and soul feel like they are in a whirlpool. Ethereal winds blowing against my soul and yet not quite of enough substance to grab. Goals and possibilities which bridge the worlds of creation. I am out of my realm. A part of me wants to run back to the safety of just simple parsha shuirs and to deny all the mystical matters before me. A part of me wants to go on. to find out what lies hidden beyond. It scares me a little. This time there is no measuring of logic, no weighing of emotions. The answer is clear. When one does not know the path, one follows a trusted guide. Thank G-d, I knew I had such a guide. I resolved at that moment to begin the journey. R'Meilech asked me a bit later if I was ready to help create "deeply moving moments and peak experiences...By pioneering new models?" About all I could answer was "naaseh v'nishma." My teacher agreed that only by doing would I learn. My first assignment was to study the Holy Epistle of the Baal Shem Tov, and to find in it goals, strategies and actions. My first reaction was "Say what?!?" Nonetheless, if my teacher set it before me, then it must have value. I set about trying. From the beginning, I had questions. I asked whether the experience of the Baal Shem Tov was an actual ascent of the soul or just an intellectual comprehension. The answer was more than I'd anticipated, but had a deep ring of truth. What my teacher told me was: You raise a question which you have raised before and for which I have provided a vague answer. I want to do that again, but ask that you think about it more deeply. When the Baal Shem Tov talks about "elevations" and "soul ascents," you ask if it is an ACTUAL ascent of the soul or an "intellectual comprehension." That is a question we must answer. But think about this: Assume that "ascent" means changing your frame of reference to more and more refined levels of consciousness. Additionally, G-d created the world with Chochmah - intuitive, preverbal intelligence. So what would you think the experience of ascent would be like? And is there a difference between "actual" and "intellectual?" What I am getting at is there has always seemed implicit in your question that a change in intellectual comprehension is somehow not as real as some other kind of experience. But if you think hard about the way we experience things, about how we process that experience, and about the difference between physical and spiritual, it seems to me that what is implicit in your question may need serious reconsideration. What do you think constitutes "reality?" I would suggest that your implicit belief may be what is getting in the way of you making further progress in all of the matters which are important for you. Think on this during davening. I resolved to do so. Shoshana's Page