Huff Post: by Eiton Press.
My heart feels torn because I don’t want that which I love, which I am a part of, to experience suffering, to be destroyed, whether it be due to humankind’s unconscious behavior or otherwise. I want to live in a world that is free, that is a reflection of the highest good for all beings, for all of the the web of life. Than I see the causes of these problems are so much bigger than me and I begin to feel small and powerless, that its pointless for me to try to make a difference and often this leads to cynicism and bitterness. A sense of learned helplessness sets in and I become numb to my true self which to desires to change the world for the better. I quit believing in goodness, my inner light dims, and I begin to go through the motions of living and accepting the fallen state of the world as “that’s just the way it is.”
There is a teaching that all forms of communication are an expression of love or a cry for help. The thread common to much of the problems in the world — from pollution to poverty to war — is human beings. Human beings creating suffering because they are acting unconsciously. It’s easy to cynically dismiss much of human race as beyond hope but this unconsciousness is really a form of groaning, of crying out for help, calling out for love. If I want to start to change the world all I need to do is start loving the human being next to me. Rabbi Brodt teaches, in the name of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, that we must never give up on the goodness of human beings, because it’s when we give up that we end up imprisoned in our own fear, in Mizrayim. That when we are able to see all human beings as good, as deserving love and we wish to be of loving service to their highest selves, then when we become free no matter what circumstance we are in.