I hardly ever get a chance to tour Manhattan, but two weeks ago I found myself at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum with 10 wounded IDF soldiers. It was fascinating to see how life-like the wax statues appeared and we all posed with the Obamas in the White house.
I stepped to the side for a few minutes because I needed to make a phone call. I was trying to reach the Israeli embassy in Washington, and like any embassy you have to listen to at least half a dozen long messages before you can even dream of speaking to a real person. So I leaned against the wall for a few minutes, lost in my own thoughts, while I waited for the recorded messages to end.
Well, when I finished daydreaming I noticed a group of tourists taking pictures of me! I guess they’d seen me, dressed in my Chassidic garb, unmoving, and mistaken me for a wax statue. I didn’t want to disturb their fun (or my own!) so I stayed in position for another half minute or so.
Imagine their surprise when the Chassidic wax statue started moving—they got the shock of their lives! And they sure were embarrassed.
According to the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement, there is a lesson for us in everything that happens. So I thought to myself, what is the lesson in being mistaken for a wax statue?!
I started noticing that as real as the statues look, they’re all missing something. I have eyes, ears, a nose and mouth, and so do the wax replicas. Arms, legs, hands, feet—they’re all there. In fact, they’re so life-like that they almost look real. Almost, but not quite. They’re missing life; vitality.
We may not realize, but many of us live our lives like wax statues. We wake up in the morning, drink our coffee, read the paper, check for Facebook updates, catch up on overnight emails, go off to work, then to a party and a function. We’re moving, we’re doing, but in a zombie-esque, wax-statue-like manner.
The High Priest is instructed to light the seven-branched menorah in this week’s Torah portion. The menorah was lit every single day in the Temple and its purpose was to illuminate the physical world and imbue it with spirituality.
Our mission, in this oft-gloomy and mundane world, is to illuminate our surroundings as we go about our day. We need to permeate the world, and those around us, with goodness and kindness. We need to infuse the world with holiness and prepare it for the Redemption.
When we live our lives with a sense of purpose, and a mission, when we do a mitzvah to help another, that’s what differentiates us from the wax statues in the museum. When we write a check to charity, help a wounded soldier or enrich the life of a stranger, then we are really living. Try it – it’s easier than you might think!