Tehillim 73 - Ramchal on Closeness to G-d

Tehillim 73 - Ramchal on Closeness to G-d

Tehillim 73:28 - “Va'ani kirvat Elokim li tov” - (for me, closeness to G-d is good). Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto) wrote at the beginning of his book Mesilat Yesharim (ch. 1): “And if you reflect further on this, you will see that true perfection consists solely in cleaving to the blessed Creator, as King David, peace be upon him, said: ‘For me, closeness to G-d is good.’ This is the entire essence of man, as Ramchal wrote: “Everything else that people consider good is emptiness and deception.” There is nothing real in life except closeness to the L-rd and cleaving to Him, and all 613 mitzvot are nothing more than the path toward achieving this goal. All of a person's endeavors, both material and spiritual, are means of achieving man's cleaving to his Creator, and the strongest of all these means is His holy Torah. Our Sages' words are well known: “There is no place in the world free of Him”; He is literally everywhere. The first thing that serving the L-rd obligates a person to do is to clarify the purpose of his life. Every Jew knows a simple truth: there is a Creator who created the world and created him as well. The word olam (in Hebrew, “world,” “universe”) shares a root with the word elem (“concealment”). Each of us was sent into this world from a higher world: those who merited it were sent here from Gan Eden, while those who did not merit it came from Gehinom. We all returned here, to this world, in order to serve the blessed Creator. Yet even if a person was sent to rectify a particular sin, his service does not begin with that rectification, but much earlier. The entire purpose of fulfilling the mitzvot is to be together with the Creator, close to Him. Without this, the mitzvah is stripped of its entire inner essence and becomes like a body without a soul. Our holy books state: “The Holy One, blessed be He, the Torah, and Israel are one”; in other words, Torah study and the fulfillment of its mitzvot must be one unified process—one in which a person feels his unity with the Torah and with the Creator—and this is the essence of his life. And not only from one festival to the next. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day (for those who merit remaining united with the Creator even in sleep), and 60 minutes in every hour—this is the entirety of man's existence: to be close to the Creator, united with Him. This is what David said: “For me, closeness to G-d is good.” The Torah is called the “Tree of Life,” as Ramchal writes, in accordance with what is stated in the Torah: “But you who cleave to the L-rd your G-d are all alive today.” (Devarim 4:4) A person must acquire a clear aspiration to cleave to the blessed Creator at every moment [of his life] and genuinely desire this. Once he has this aspiration, his service should consist of seeking ways to structure his life so that it contains unity with the Creator of the world at every moment. (http://www.bilvavi.net)