…Say Hashem is “ONE”?
Every Yid knows that Hashem is one. But what does that mean? The meforshim explain that a person can only think or feel one thing at a time. Sometimes we feel a mix of emotions, like we’ll be kinda angry, but also excited, or happy but a little sad. But we can’t fully feel happy and fully sad at the same time. It’s impossible. Now we don’t know how Hashem feels, but we see what He does in our world. And at the same time, at every moment, people are born, and people die. There are people suffering, nebach, and people who are very happy. All of these things would be impossible for a person to feel at one time, but all these things are a part of Hashem. When we say Hashem is one, it means Hashem is literally everything – the good days, the “bad” days – they are all from Hashem! There was a Yid who survived the Holocaust who said, “I saw Hashem EVERYWHERE in the war. Some people died, some people survived. Some people escaped to the forest, some people escaped from the train, some people were sick, and some people stayed healthy. Isn’t that the most amazing example of Hashem? Who else could do all that at the same time? Only Hashem could.”
In a deeper way, when we have kavanah to connect to Hashem when doing mitzvos and going about our day, we can bring the parts of our life – that in our minds are “not connected” to Hashem – close to Hashem. When we do this, we “expand” Hashem’s One-ness in the world. We say that this too is a sign of Hashem running everything in the world. It’s a sign Hashem is the only power. It’s a sign that Hashem is one!
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 25.
