Who do you know who isn’t searching for something to enhance their lives? We are all living for the next best thing – that thing that will give us some kind of fulfillment. I’m not just referring to the next version of smart phone or XBox. We are constantly hungering for the better job, school, relationship, magical diet, remedy, etc. Have you ever started a relationship thinking, “This IS the one!”? In the beginning, everything is magical and you are so sure you read all the signs right and you made the right decision. Skip ahead into the future and what do you discover? It definitely was the wrong decision. Maybe you even berated yourself for that (temporary?) lapse of judgment. Don’t blame yourself.
As the Zohar teaches, the Light wants to give us EVERYTHING. In fact, Kabbalah in Hebrew means ‘to receive.’ Receive what? EVERYTHING! What does that mean for you and me? It means that every blessing we want in life is waiting for us to reveal it. One of the most important areas in which we seek fulfillment is our relationships. Most of us want to be with our soul mate. But how do we accomplish that? How can we create fulfillment in all of our relationships for that matter?
In this week’s portion, titled Chayei Sarah, we are introduced to the secret of soul mates and what it takes to develop one.
After Sarah, the wife of Abraham, left this world (she didn’t die, but that is a topic for another article), Abraham sent his faithful servant Elazar to find a wife for his son Isaac. Abraham instructs him to go to a certain town to look for her.
Elazar, being a spiritual man, did not use his logic or a checklist of desired qualities as a guide, nor did he seek out a well-connected professional matchmaker. He acted in the most illogical way. He prayed to the Light to give him a sign.
In his book, Becoming Like God, Michael Berg shares with us the secret of soul mate relationships in the continuation of the story:
Elazar took ten camels with him and, when he arrived at the town, he made them kneel down at a well at early evening, the time when women came out to draw water. He prayed to God, “May you arrange it that the maiden to whom I shall say, ‘Please tip over your jug so that I may drink,’ and who replies, ‘Drink and I will even water your camels,’ shall be the appointed daughter-in-law for my master.”
No sooner had he finished praying than a beautiful maiden, Rebecca, appeared with a jug upon her shoulder. She descended to the spring, and Elazar ran to her and said, “Let me please sip a little water from your jug.”
She replied, “Please drink your fill,” and when she had finished giving him to drink, she said, “I will draw water even for your camels until they have finished drinking.”
Immediately, Elazar understood that his prayer had been answered and that he had found Isaac’s soul mate.
The secret to a happy, long-lasting and fruitful relationship is represented with the content of this story. Rebecca is a representation of transformative sharing.
As Michael Berg explains:
“It’s easy to offer water to a stranger; it’s absurd to offer water to his entire camel herd – unless the action has a conscious intent behind it, the intent to awaken the Light Force energy within oneself. Then the sharing is done for oneself, not the receiver. Rebecca was operating on the level of conscious intent to act like the Creator and was thus found to be a worthy partner for Isaac.”
What distinguishes transformative sharing from ordinary sharing is that this kind of sharing awakens our divine nature – which radiates above and beyond the logical.
So what’s that got to do with a soul mate relationship? How can we apply this wisdom? If you have ever attempted to live with another human being, you may have discovered that it is very challenging (to say the least). The rate of divorce in our society is almost catching up to the rate of marriage! People in disintegrating relationships all have something in common – they complain that their needs are not fulfilled by their partner.
Now imagine a relationship where both parties’ priority is to share outrageously with each other, and work together for a cause that is greater than the two of them. Imagine that each partner knows that through their own acts of sharing, they find fulfillment.
This is not only the secret of living a soul mate relationship.
This is also the secret of world peace!
