Today I was reading a blog about this week’s parshah and came upon a teaching from Rav Kook, the former chief rabbi of Israel. He said the moment you were born is the exact moment that God decided the world could no longer function without you.
So, your moment of conception had to be predestined and, even though pregnancy takes nine months (usually), the decision about when exactly you should enter this world-that instant between being in the womb and out of the womb, was a decision made by God.
God determined, “The world needs you NOW.” And, boom! You were born.
This strikes me as an awesome concept. It’s as if God acts as the midwife, reaching in and pulling the baby out. (I visualize this as the Shechinah doing so lovingly rather than Adonai doing so forcefully.)
This same blog, brought in a teaching from my all-time-favorite teacher, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. The author wrote: “This has to be put into the lens of an obvious-yet-overlooked teaching of Rebbe Nachman. This moment right now? No moment like this ever has been. And now that it is gone, there will be a never moment like it. The power encapsulated in every single ‘now’ is irreplaceable. I NEED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE!”
Think about it. God brought you into the world at that particular time, because the world needed you more in that moment than at any other. Of course, your soul was housed in a tiny body. If the world needed you, you couldn’t do much about it. Now, however, you are in a large body that can act and speak and pursue your soul’s purpose.
Now, in this moment, which Rebbe Nachman says is like no other, how will you make the most of it? How will you do what it takes to serve God and the world? If the world needed you then, how much more so does it need you now? And what are you going to do about that? How will you take advantage of this moment, let alone this life?
More simply put, knowing that God pulls you out of the womb at the exact moment when the world needs your soul to come into physical form, how will you spend the moments of your life?
Pretty awesome thing to consider, no?
