This week, I was able to go to California to celebrate my niece's wedding. It was a lovely party and simultaneously a beautiful spiritual event. Tuesday morning, a few siblings and I went to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook to experience the sunrise.
The other part of the overlook has a set of stairs. However, they are not built according to code and are a few times the height of a regular step. I am still feeling the pain of those Culver City Stairs; feeling muscles I didn't know I had.
The pain is because I am blessed with a body that Hashem gave me and a functioning system that reminds me if you use a dormant muscle, you will feel it.
Rabbi Moshe Wohlberg would ask Yeshiva boys at Chassidic gatherings, "Are you alive because you are alive? Or are you alive because you weren't hit by a truck?"
Meaning, you can be alive simply because your body is still working, or you can live a life worth living.
Feeling my body reminds me that there are muscles I am not using physically. What about my spiritual muscles? Are there any that I am not utilizing? What are the steps I need to take to make sure I am spiritually alive?
What comes up for you when you ask yourself, “Am I truly living? Or am I just alive because I am not dead?”
Have a Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Kushi Schusterman
P.S. Inspired by this class from Rabbi YY Jacobson