Finding Fulfillment that Lasts

A spiritual person understands that someone can have everything in the world, but all material possessions are empty and valueless if they don’t involve some essence of sharing, some energy of love. What use is a huge house if you have no one inside to love it with you? What’s the point of a lot of money if you have no one to enjoy it with? Aren’t vacations so much more fun when you can share the experience with a companion?

I bet our volunteers who went to Oklahoma on a working “vacation” with Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that builds affordable housing for those living in poverty, will remember the experience for years to come. The reason they will remember is because their “vacation” contained the essence of doing something for somebody else.

Now I’m not telling you, don’t go on vacation or don’t go and do things for yourself. Quite the opposite. The Zohar itself says that we should, in fact, have as much as we can have, but it also tells us to make sure that when we get something, we manage to give something in return. This “something” could mean many different things. It could mean volunteering our time on a building site or in a food bank. It could mean calling our brother. It could mean just sitting down with other people and talking with them.

The point is that it is this sharing—this communion with others—that brings real and lasting satisfaction into our lives.