Limit the Sky
"When you build a new house, you must make a fence for your roof…so the one who falls doesn’t fall from there."
(Deut. 22:8)
Note that the fence is not for the house’s roof, but for your own roof. Meaning: Around your own greatness.
(The Maggid of Mezritch)
Sometimes you might build a beautiful new structure. A palace of creative ideas couched in original words that intrigue, amaze and dazzle their beholder.
You did good. You should feel proud you did good. But you need a guard rail to limit that pride.
Because pride is a high place, and the human ego comes with a long history of falling from high places. The human ego is “the one who falls.”
Originally, it fell from the World of Tohu, a non-physical world that precedes our own space-time.
Tohu was a world of ultimates, where nothing left room for anything else but its own perfection.
And so, that world fell, and out of that fall emerged the ego.
That is why an untethered ego will fly as high as it can imagine and then some, leaving no room for any other ego in the world. And from there it will fall with a great, messy crash.
Rather than taking a fall, build a fence around your ego. Remind yourself that, yes, I did good, but who gave me the talents to do good? Did I create myself?
And what about my friends who helped me along the way? Can I truly do anything good by myself?
Keep your ego close to the earth. You’ll fall less often.
(Ohr Torah, 176)
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