Every year of a tree life is counted by a new circle appearing inside of its body and man has his "rings" — knowledge of life, world, God and himself. And may be one of the meanings of the Talmud's wisemen's words "The world stands only on the breath of students" is that we study as long as we live. On the eternal questions we never give up searching the answers for Alexander Boroda, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia President, the chief rabbi of Russia, General Director and founder of Jewish Museum and Center of Tolerance, Russian religious and social activist.
The human life has an end and it makes us look at it searching for the meaning as a justification of our being. But time we are given for life is relatival. Same as in a one-day Mayfly story when it sat up on the many years living cowberry's branch and started to admire the beauty of the world around:
— Sun is so kind and beautiful! Dew — not a single gem can be compared to it! The field is so green and the sky is so blue! I just can thank God for everything!
"Wow, I never noticed it, living for years!" The cowberry thought and said aloud:
— It's OK, tomorrow you'll get used to it.
— There's no tomorrow for me — said the Mayfly closing her eyes forever with sorrow.
And the cowberry felt ashamed and told the truth to herself — it didn't notice and estimate during almost a hundred years what the Mayfly managed to discover just in one day of its life.
One-day Mayfly caught time to understand that the main thing is to love life. And then time is not important and doesn't end. I am sure that human base is love to creation, to life as a mission and joy and pleasure to live as well. And for sure it is not an aspiration to live longer which can be good only in case it is not taken as a quantity characteristic but a quality one. The quantity of things done to the benefit of those whom we love or those who need our help. And it's important here to fell apart with your instincts, of consuming and switch to the process of creating something. We try to be better through all of our live and this process is impossible without spiritual reference points, while the main of them is faith to your spiritual power.
Being sure of absoluteness of one's principles forming the moral code is of life importance for every man. This is his inner kernel which doesn't let him bend or break. They are principles our understanding of world and relationships with other people are based on. The physical power may not have any reference to spiritual strength, that's for sure. It happens very often that physically weak people are winners in many battles being spiritually strong. Spiritual strength is formed by principles which can't be flexible when a man gives up on some things because of the circumstances or being tired. But if he has a coordinate system with steady principles then for sure this is a base of strength. Anything bad can happen if there is no base, no source. Especially when there's no faith.
Moral tenets are impossible without faith in God. If we say that the base of morality is Him who defined what is moral and what is not then consequently faith in God as a base, following His Law is a criterion of morality. Because if you are not sure about that you can break the coordinate system and come up to corroded forms where killing is moral and help is not. Society can easily come up to the opposite criteria in our days as well. That is why upbringing the moral criteria should be first of all based on faith in God and love to God.
You can come to God by different roads. I remember that I was eager to find out the essence of my religion and traditions. I started to visit Synagogue after my army service. I searched for the answers to my questions and inner filling, sense and quality of life. I always had many questions. First of all I was determined to find out what was right and what was wrong. It often turns out that the fruit of man's intellectual reflection is not enough for defining truth. A man with sophisticated mind can build a construction of conclusions enough to show that a villainy is right. Let's take as an example Nazi Germany, Hitler with his assistants, confusing the minds of people who were considered to be highly intel-lectual. They were sure that they do right things according to morality. I was after things right and wrong not from the point of view of a mind flexibility or sophisticated presentation. I wanted to touch the true thing and while searching for it I found God. And myself. Absolutely. Referring to this I can say that I am a happy person, enjoying life and my life is filled, interesting — a high quality life.
As far as people live they search for something. And when they have many questions then the answers bring them to religion. This is logical because a man can't think out answers to all questions. Eternal questions are eternal for man not for God. Because God is embodiment of Eternity. Millenniums for us are moments for Him. The rest is a product of sophisticated minds of different scientists and philosophers but not a Divine wisdom. And people search for answers, for faith to be more patient, self-sure and live mindfully. People need faith. They need it not less than God does. We give our souls to God, God gives our souls strength. Strong enough to live, love and create.
