Assuming Responsibility

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

Assuming Responsibility

Consider this: A newborn baby is responsible for nothing. How can it be? Because it cannot think about things and process . them, because it cannot understand the world it experiences, a

baby cannot be held responsible.
But an older child is already responsible for something, even
if it’s just to remember to put the sandwich in the lunchbox or
to take the dog out at the end of a school day. A youth is already
responsible for many more things, and a young adult is expected
to take full responsibility for his or her life.
When we grow and have kids, we become responsible for
others, too. But what if we were responsible for every single
human being on Earth? What if that responsibility was not only
to the people alive today, but also to all the people, animals,
plants, and minerals that have ever lived since the moment of
creation and to all eternity? This is the meaning of spiritual
responsibility.
Now, this responsibility may sound like a heavy load, but
what if that responsibility was not the result of some mean
schoolteacher wishing to torment his students with an assignment
they can’t perform? What if it were simply the result of love?
We love our children, so responsibility for their well-being is
not only natural, but welcome. What if we felt the same kind of
love and care that we feel for our children toward the whole world
and everything in it—toward all the creatures that ever lived, that
are alive today, and that will be alive at any time in the future?
That immense love is spiritual bliss. Kabbalah helps us experience
this immense love, and make it inherent in our nature.