The Meaning of the Mundane

MyLife Essay Contest

The Odyssey Years.¹ Millennial Searchers.² Much has been written to describe an emerging generation of adults that eschews commitments and permanence.³ These young adults meander between relationships and between jobs, consciously avoiding the stability and structure that these provide. The one notable exception to this lack of constancy in their lives is the character trait which stands at the center of the generation’s wandering – a quest for meaning.

In our postmodern environment the notion of personal meaning has been granted sacrosanct status.  There is a real fear of being trapped into a life which revolves around a tedious and dull desk job, as the pursuit of meaning can no longer be a mere nights and weekends affair. Despite the allure of financial independence and the security of a stable occupation, young adults will often drift through several professions, schools and continents in their journey towards finding a meaningful way to spend their days.

While many of these searches end in success, other are stymied by a simple yet fundamental problem – an amorphous and highly subjective definition of meaning. If people are searching but do not have a clear picture of the endgame, then their quest, no matter how noble, can doomed to end in frustration. Precious years can be squandered in a search for meaning that is as elusive as it is vague.

In this environment, the teachings of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe are paradoxically and particularly relevant. On the surface, it would seem that Hassidism would very much identify with this turn towards meaning.  After all, one of the revolutions of Hassidism was to arouse the masses from a state of “spiritual unconsciousness.”⁴ In truth however, while Hassidism does emphasize the significance of cultivating a sense of meaning and purpose, the Rebbe demonstrated that this is not the complete picture.  Rather, when properly understood and applied, Hassidism radically redefines the whole concept of a meaningful activity.

It is natural to divide our activities into two general categories, means and ends. We have certain goals that we wish to attain, objectives that we consider meaningful and therefore want to accomplish.  For many, these activities more often than not will involve making a difference in other people’s lives by doing everything from volunteering in an Indian orphanage to raising a family.  For religious people, acts of service such as prayer or ritual performance will also fall under this category.

And then there are the means to accomplish those goals. In order to volunteer in that orphanage, one needs to amass the finances necessary to pay for the flight and then take the time to fly.  If one wants to perform a religious ritual, there is a need to travel to the house of worship. We tend to consider these means as inherently meaningless, as a mere preparatory stage for the actual meaningful activity which comes at the end.

From the Rebbe’s opening address,⁵ he emphasized that this is not the case.⁶ Working within the Chabad panentheistic model in which all of reality is paradoxically included in God, the goal of creation is to illustrate that God is the underlying substratum of even our lowly physical world.  As we approach the Messianic era we have the responsibility to be involved in the lowest levels – the areas of life that seem to be completely bereft of God and spirituality and show how even there God is present.⁷

In this framework, it is paradoxically the items, people and activities that seem to be the farthest from God that can ultimately be the greatest manifestation of the His essence.  No longer can we look at any activity as simply a means to an end.  It is specifically the activities that seem inherently meaningless, when performed with the proper mindset, that have the ability to connect to the deepest levels of divinity.  Nothing in God’s world can be meaningless. ⁸

In one lecture⁹ the Rebbe applied these principles to the relative value of working for a living versus spending one’s time engaged in more overtly spiritual pursuits. The Rebbe opened with an analysis of his predecessor’s description of Elul, the month preceding the High Holy Days, as a time of a unique closeness to God despite the lack of a formal holiday. R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Rebbe of Chabad, explained that while on a holiday we refrain from our daily activities and metaphorically enter the palace of God, during Elul it is God who comes down and engages us on our own turf – “the king comes out to the field.”

The Rebbe then examined the value of the common farmer’s work in the field. While one might think that the farmer’s work is simply a means to satisfy one’s basic nutritional needs, a deeper analysis reveals a much greater role. The plowing, sowing and reaping are in fact what brings the king into the field in the first place.¹⁰ It is only the “secular work” that can create a home for God in even the lowest levels, which is the entire purpose of creation. It is in the mundane field of life that the ultimate meaningfulness can be achieved.¹¹

The young adults who are starved for meaning and purpose are engaged in a positive quest.  We should all live lives that we consider purposeful and meaningful.  However, with the Rebbe’s teachings in mind we should rethink the criteria through which we determine meaningfulness and see the significance of the seemingly small, mundane, details of ordinary life. It is not only the volunteering in a third world country or meditating that should be considered meaningful and significant. If God’s presence permeates all of the reality then He can be found anywhere and in everything.  Even the most tedious, dull, mundane activity, when performed with this mindset can be used as a vehicle for uncovering the single true essence of reality – God.

Footnotes and Sources

1.  David Brooks, “The Odyssey Years,” New York Times, October 9, 2007. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/opinion/09brooks.html.

2.  Emily Esfahani Smith and Jennifer L. Aaker, “Millennial Searchers,” New York Times, November 30, 2013. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/opinion/sunday/millennial-searchers.html?pagewanted=all.

3.  For a discussion of this generation in the Orthodox Jewish context see R. Asher Lopatin, “How Orthodoxy and Orthodox Synagogues Can Meet the Needs of the Odyssey Generation” in The Next Generation of Modern Orthodoxy, The Orthodox Forum Series, ed. Shmuel Hain and Robert Hirt (Yeshiva University Press, 2012), 220- 240.

4.  The Lubavitcher Rebbe, On The Essence of Chassidus, translated by Rabbi Y.H.Greenberg and Dr. Susan Handelman (Kehot, 1986), 2.

5.  Sefer Ma’amarim Melukatim Volume 2, 263-271. Available with the official Habad translation at  http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/115145/jewish/Basi-Legani-5711.htm

6.  An interesting parallel can be found in the writings of Rav Kook, Orot ha-Teshuvah 6:7.

7.  In fact, the Rebbe goes further than asserting the God, and therefore meaning, exists even in the lowly world. It is specifically in this world that the essence of the God can dwell and the ultimate meaningful activities and be performed.  The Rebbe differentiated between the indescribable and self-sufficient essence of God (azmut) and His manifestations (gilu’im) which are not self-sufficient and can be described as bearing spiritual qualities. All of the “higher” worlds that are described in kabbalah and Hasidism are manifestly spiritual and are therefore examples of gilu’im. Only this physical world, which hides God’s presence and seems to be self-sufficient, is rooted in azmut and can be the dwelling place for the “essence of the Shekhinah.” For an elaboration on the term azmut in the Rebbe’s thought see R. Feitel Levin, Heaven on Earth – Reflections on the Theology of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Kehot Publication Society, 2002), 145-149 and Alon Dahan, Dirah be- Tahtonim – Mishnato ha-Meshihit shel R. Menahem Mendel Schneerson, (submitted as a doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University Press, 2006), 16-17.

The need to focus on the “lowest levels” created an inverse hierarchy in which items and activities that were previously considered more overtly “spiritual” became secondary to specifically the less spiritual. For example, R. Schneerson changed the balance between the relative importance of the study of Torah and actional mizvot (see See Levin, Heaven on Earth, 114-122; Dahan, Dirah Be-Tahtonim, 185-188; Yizhak Krauss, ha-Shevi’i – Meshi’hiyut be-Dor ha-Shevi’i shel Habad [Yedi’ot Ahronot Books, 2007], 137-143) the soul and the body (Levin, 104-114; Dahan, 267-270; Elliot Wolfson, Open Secret – Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson [Columbia University Press, 2009], 131-160), men and women (Eldad Weill, “Tehilatah shel Tekufat ha-Nashim – Nashim ve-Nashiyut be-Mishnato shel ha-Rebbi mi-Lubavitch” Akdamot 22 (2009), 61-85 (available at http://www.bmj.org.il/userfiles/akdamot/22/Veil.pdf); Chaim Miller, Turning Judaism Outward: A Biography of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson [Kol Menachem, 2014], 485, note 181 and the sources cited within; Susan Handelman, “Putting Women in the Picture – The Rebbe’s views on women today” [available at  http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/161694/jewish/Putting-Women-in-the-Picture.htm], and especially note 5; Wolfson, Open Secret, 200-223) by repeatedly emphasizing the importance of the latter of each pair that was previously considered less important

8.  In one talk focusing on the role of ritual commands in the Messianic era the Rebbe differentiated between our world which is connected to the “tree of knowledge of good and evil” and the Messianic era which is characterized by “the tree of life” in which the presence of God can be seen to permeate all of reality (Torat Menahem 5751, Volume 3, 287). But it is important to note that the Rebbe very clearly avoided an antinomian stance and preached of the relevance of commandments even in the future times.  Regarding the role of specific ritual commandments in a time of all inclusive divinity see Elliot Wolfson, Open Secret – Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (Columbia University Press, 2009), 186-199.

9.  Torat Menahem 5750 Volume 4, 192-198.

10.  The Rebbe noted that the thirty nine labor activities that are necessary for the creation of food, clothing and our basic necessities are also the same activities that were crucial in creating the Sanctuary for God in the desert. The lesson is that even in the field, these activities can transform the entire world into one large sanctuary for God.

11.  For a similar notion in earlier Hasidism, see Toledot Ya’akov Yosef parashat Bo, siman 7. For parallels in Rav Kook’s writings see, Orot ha-Tehiyah perek 16; Kevazim mi-Ketav Yad Kadsho Kerakh 2 – Pinkas ha-Dapim 1. Also see Mei Marom to Pirkei Avot 1:10. For a similar notion regarding the physical world as a whole, see Likutei Sihot 31, 20-21.