Charlie Harary on The Six Constant Mitzvos: Mitzvah #3

[Music] The six principles of God awareness are the building blocks of establishing a real relationship with God. To be part of any relationship, you need to understand who the other person is. So in having a relationship with God, we need to not only know he exists, but we have to understand the extent of his presence in the world. Every day we say the following prayer is God is the master of the world and he is one. What does that mean? He is one. How many are we talking to? We refer to God in the singular. Why clarify that he's one? We need to understand the concept of oneness of God. Oneness of God means that he is everywhere and a part of everything. God created a unified world without fragmentation. Every aspect of our lives is connecting to something even greater. You see, sometimes we look at the world and we see things that are separate. We see good and evil. We see holy and mundane. You ever get that feeling inside of us like there's two diametrically opposed forces? The good angel and the bad angel. You know, we're all familiar with that classic imagery, right? Some guy's walking around minding his own business. When the good angel pops up on his right shoulder, on his other shoulder pops up the bad angel. The good angel whispers in a sweet melodious voice, "Let the old lady go in front of you. Give charity. Be more sensitive." The bad angel retorts, "Cut her off. You shouldn't be driving anyways. Keep the money for yourself. Get angry. Listen to the good angel." And we feel him nodding in approval. Listen to the bad angel and he slaps us five with pride. That's not true. There aren't two forces, only one. The bad angel or evil inclination works for the good side. He works for God. He doesn't want us to listen to him. He's trying to challenge us. So when we don't, we grow even stronger. But it goes even further. Oneness of God changes how we relate to our everyday lives. Let me tell you a story. I have a friend who's training to be a commander in the Israeli army. He told me that when he was going through training, he was given a specific mission. As he got close to completion, one of his men got injured. He was devastated. He was determined to finish it right the next time. Then, as he was about to succeed, the tire of his jeep blew out. He didn't know what to do. The night before his next assignment had hit him. He wasn't being tested on getting to that specific location. He was being tested on how he dealt with challenge. What would he do if one of his men went down as he got close to his location? As he grew in his ranks, he realized that each moment of his test was carefully crafted to build him into the soldier that he could become. Nothing that happened was coincidental and each aspect was as important as the other. We all have moments that are holy. Prayer, Torah study, holidays, charity, and we have moments that are mundane. Going to work, exercising, fixing a flat, or waiting in line. Oneness of God means that each moment of our lives is there to help us achieve perfection, to help us to get closer to God. Every detail, every curveball, every pleasure, every challenge can be holy or mundane based on our response to it. When we live this way, we live a life without fragmentation. Godliness is everywhere if we look for it. Oneness of God means that there's no such thing as an unimportant task or an unimportant person. Being the president doesn't make you more important than being the person holding the door for the president. Each person, each moment is infinitely valuable and infused with the potential to be holy. Living with God's oneness changes the way we look at life. We transform ourselves from being worried, angry, or jealous to being excited, happy, and ready to see what comes next. Knowing that the world is a mechanism for God to convey his messages to us to be who we can be. Living with God's oneness means that there's no reason for fear because God's in control and anything he sends us can lead to our ultimate benefit. The third principle of awareness, God's oneness, changes how we look at everything. It's the awareness that he is everywhere and connected to everything. [Music]