The nature of water has certain qualities that are uncommon among its colleagues in the mineral world.
Living in Malibu, in such close proximity to the water, and in keeping with my teacher's guidance that everything we see can serve as a lesson, I decided to take an intellectual journey to learn more about water. And since tonight marks the beginning of the holiday Sukkot, the holiday where we show our gratitude for the gift of water, I am sharing with you some of my findings.
"As in water, face answers to face, so is the heart of a man to a man." —Proverbs 27:19
The simple understanding of the above verse is that just as when you look into the water and smile, the reflection on the water reciprocates by smiling back at you. The heart of another human being is the same. When we are truly joyous toward another human being, the nature of the other's heart is to reflect the joy right back at us.
One need not be a scientist to accept this truth. Surly, we all have personal stories where someone else's joy toward us was so infectious that it was capable of drawing out from us—even at a time of pain and anxiety—the hidden joy that always exists within the inner chambers of our hearts.
Certainly, there are many ways to understand why this is the case. In my quest to understanding more about water, I have come across teachings that observe a deeper connection between the human psyche and water.
To begin with, everything in nature has its unique qualities. And when we peek at the vast world of minerals, the nature of water has certain qualities that are uncommon among its colleagues in the mineral world and on a certain level are somewhat superior.
The ancient sages of Judaism take note of the fact that water is the source of life. It is flexible, for example, in how it is distributed. Water will adopt to work with you. Bring it a cup, it will offer you a cup. Bring a large bowl, it will adopt to the large bowl. Because water has no color, it adopts to that color that you place it in. There are so many other facts about water, and when we observe them up close, there seems to be an ever flowing narrative of the beauty of the quality of "water."
Our journey from a seminal drop to a full-blown body is one where we are always surrounded by water, and even as we emerge into developed beings, a significant fraction of the human body is made up of water.
This is the reason why in the teachings of the Torah, water plays such a vital role as in the spiritual cleansing process known as the Mikvah, which literally means "gathering of waters." The immersing in fresh waters is used as a way of bringing us back to the drawing board, to our very beginning—when like a fetus in the birthing process, life was still fluid and flexible.
How can even the most unhappy person become a vessel for joy
When we surrender from our rigid ways and become humble, we naturally become more available to the positive energy that is already in our midst.
In this introspective humility, we share the amazing qualities that exist in water, and we begin to emit and thus reflect our own joy.
In 2007, a 10-year-old boy from our community, Moshe P., won his school's science fair by showing the deep connection between our thoughts and words and the ever fluid molecular structure of water.
On Sukkot, we take note of the special qualities of water, and we give our gratitude to G-d for giving us the gift of water on our planet. Happy Sukkot!