The Choice is Yours | Keter Shem Tov 1:4

The spiritual drama of the Torah unfolds as a plea from the Creator to the Children of Israel not simply to submit and commit, but to remember. This instruction to be attentive and guard against distraction is the key to the Divine–human relationship:

...רַ֡ק הִשָּׁ֣מֶר לְךָ֩ וּשְׁמֹ֨ר נַפְשְׁךָ֜ מְאֹ֗ד פֶּן־תִּשְׁכַּ֨ח
Only guard yourself and be very attentive to your soul, lest you forget… 
- Devarim (Deuteronomy) 4:9

On the surface, the admonition is to safeguard the laws of Torah. But on a deeper level, this mitzvah of remembrance is not merely to preserve a system of behaviors, but to recognize the root and reason for the behaviors – the ever-present Beingness that we call the Divine. We need to remember the Divine because It is never absent; it is our awareness of It that slips away.

This is one of the great paradoxes of spiritual practice. We cannot become any closer to Hashem than we already are. The awareness reading these words right now is not separate from the One we seek. Presence is not something to manufacture; it is what remains when we stop chasing fulfillment in some imagined future, when we let go of our preoccupation with the past, and awaken to the miracle of simply being.

And yet, if it’s this simple, why can it seem to be so difficult?

Rabbi Pinḥas of Koretz explained that when people gather on Shabbat to pray and hear words of Torah, they become filled with awe and fervor. But, as soon as Shabbat is over, they return to exactly as they were before. The inspiration vanishes as though it had never happened. He compares it to someone recovering from madness who cannot remember anything that occurred during the period of confusion.

His words are not a criticism but a diagnosis: the obstacle is not that awakening is inaccessible; the obstacle is that we forget. Spiritual amnesia arises when the ordinary habits of mind convince us that fulfillment or wholeness or peace lie somewhere else, sometime later, in some other circumstance. But this is only because we have become used to this moment; in truth, we need not reach God; we need only remember That which has never ceased to be present: the Living Presence behind all things.

This choice is ever before us; at every moment this potential to realize the Divine asks of us to be realized. The Baal Shem Tov explains:

מֵהַבַּעַל שֵׁם טוֹב פֵּירֵשׁ עַל פִּי ״ נָשָׁיו֙ הִטּ֣וּ אֶת־לְבָב֔וֹ״ (מְלָכִים א׳ י״א:ד׳): שֶׁאֵין לְךָ שׁוּם תֵּיבָה בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁאֵינָהּ סוֹבֶלֶת שְׁתֵּי מַשְׁמָעוּיוֹת, שֶׁהוּא בְּחִינַת דְּכַר וְנוּקְבָא וכו׳. אִם כֵּן, אֵין לְךָ שׁוּם דָּבָר נִבְרָא בָּעוֹלָם שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיֶה כָּלוּל מֵהַכֹּל. וְהַבְּחִירָה נְתוּנָה לוֹ לְהַטּוֹת לְאֵיזוֹ בְּחִינָה שֶׁיִּרְצֶה. לְכָךְ: ״ נָשָׁיו֙ הִטּ֣וּ אֶת־לְבָב֔וֹ.״

From the Baal Shem Tov: An interpretation of the verse, “His wives inclined his heart…” (I Kings 11:4). There is no word in the Torah that cannot bear two meanings, corresponding to the aspects of masculine and feminine, and so on. Therefore, there is also no created thing in the world that does not contain all things. And a person is given the freedom to incline toward whichever aspect (or potential) they choose. Therefore, “his wives inclined his heart.”  - Keter Shem Tov 1:4

...נָשָׁיו הִטּוּ אֶת־לְבָבוֹ – His wives inclined his heart... – I Kings 11:4

In the world view of the hasid, Torah is the blueprint for all creation. In reflecting on the fact that words can hold multiple meanings, the Baal Shem concludes that everything – every moment, every relationship, every situation, every encounter – also holds within it many potential ways of being. Our freedom lies in our ability to choose which beḥinah – that is, which aspect or quality or potential, to cultivate. Do we focus on fear or trust? Resentment or gratitude? Judgement or love? The circumstances in which we find ourselves are not the decisive factor; the decisive factor is the decision of how to “incline the heart.” The choice is yours. 

...פֶּן־תִּשְׁכַּ֨ח – lest you forget…
​If we forget who we are beneath the drama, if we forget the Divine Presence shining through every moment, then our hearts are easily carried wherever habit, fear, or desire happen to lead them. But when we remember, we discover something extraordinary: we have the freedom to move the universe in the direction of Oneness, which is to say, the direction the Oneness “wants” to move through us. 

This freedom is not about control, but the letting go of control. The winds and currents of experience continue to move as they will: joy and sorrow, success and disappointment, certainty and confusion all continue to come and go. Our freedom lies in returning, again and again, to being awake to the miracle of Being now revealing Itself. 
​
Like steering a ship across a dark sea – the waves continually push the vessel off course, and there is nothing we can do to stop the movement of the ocean. But in the distance stands a lighthouse whose radiance never moves. The work of the sailor is not to calm the sea, but simply to keep turning the wheel back toward the light. So too with our spiritual lives: we will forget, we will drift. We will become distracted by the thousand concerns of ordinary life. But none of that is failure; it is simply the ocean doing what oceans do. Our part is the simple act of remembering, and in remembering, gently inclining the heart once again toward the One.

רַ֡ק הִשָּׁ֣מֶר לְךָ֩... פֶּן־תִּשְׁכַּ֨ח – Only guard yourself … lest you forget…
Be attentive – not because the Divine disappears when we forget, but because remembering is the doorway through which we discover the freedom that has always been ours: the freedom to awaken, to return, and to become, moment by moment, a conscious expression of the One Presence that is Ever-Present.