A few years ago a story went around of a man that went under his jeep to get a spare tire to change a punctured tire. The problem was the jack slipped and the jeep fell down trapping the man. The man’s daughter hearing her father’s shouts of pain came running and without thinking too much simply lifted the jeep (3 tons) and got her dad out.
These stories aren’t isolated events. They do happen. As a matter of fact the first time such a thing happened that was documented is in our own weekly Torah portion Vayetze (Genesis 29, 10): “And when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Lavan, and the flock of his uncle Lavan, Jacob went up and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of his uncle Lavan.”
The portion talks about Rachel who wanted to give water to her sheep but couldn’t because a large rock covered the well’s opening. Normally this rock needed many young men to lift it off. But when Jacob saw Rachel he just lifted this heavy stone by himself. The impossible became possible.
Rashi explains that Jacob not only lifted the heavy rock he lifted it as if it was a lid on a jug almost effortlessly and this tells us he was very strong.
That being the case, we should recognize the mightiest power which exists both in the realm of the spiritual and the physical, the power of love. This power is supernatural, beyond our imagination and it enables every man to take the impossible and turn it into reality.
Love can overpower the laws of nature but someone can only reach the epitome of love by first loving himself. True love doesn’t include self-flagellation, endless self-criticism and torture. Rather it has tolerance for others and one’s self and connection with one’s inner self.
Rabbi Akiva said “Love your neighbor as yourself is the main principle of the entire Torah. This means loving someone else can only happen after you love yourself and connecting to the G-dly soul inside you. Obviously loving yourself can’t be superficial; you may need guidance and may need to acquire tools to deal with life’s ups and downs and not take it out on yourself. You want to break the self-imposed barriers that stop you from success.
So in order to take the impossible and turn into reality and uncover the treasures hidden inside us we must first love and accept ourselves unconditionally. When we do that our reality we create can be better than we imagined!
