“Rabbi Jacob taught: One who is reviewing his Torah studies while walking along the way and interrupts his study to exclaim, ‘How splendid this tree is!’ ‘How fair this field is!’ — Scripture considers this as if he has forfeited his soul.” (Avot 3:9)
The material world in which we live is so beautiful and so easy to experience that the sight of a tree tempts us into the trap of thinking that it’s the real world.
The reason why Rabbi Jacob teaches that a person who interrupts his study of Torah to admire a tree forfeits his soul is because forgetting that the spiritual world is the real world, is the greatest danger facing mankind.
Considering the material world to be real and forsaking the real world, the spiritual world for the imaginary world will cause the destruction of the world.
The purpose of Torah is to emphasize to mankind that the spirit is the real world and to warn us against the mistake of considering the material world as the real world.
Greek philosophy and most modern scientists promote material as the real world. The material world is beautiful and the source of joy and pleasure.
There is nothing wrong in enjoying the material world, on the contrary not enjoying it would be a crime. The Torah admonishes us to enjoy the material world and to bless God for each and every part of it that we enjoy.
The reason why we are ordered to study Torah is to continuously be reminded that the spiritual world is the real world. “And thou shalt delve into it (the Torah) by day and night” is the Biblical aphorisms. Put another way, “remember day and night that the spiritual world is the real world”.
We need to study Torah to appreciate the danger of considering the material world as real and how to guard against it..
The Torah isn’t saying that we must live in the spiritual world. That is impossible because we are part of the material world.
“The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth has He given to the children of men. “Psalms 115:16
Something which is material can’t return to being spiritual.
The Torah begins with “God created the heaven and earth”. The spiritual world created the material world That means the spiritual world is the real world.
Anything that can be experienced by one of the senses, sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste is the material world.
It is this ease of experiencing it that makes the material world seem real. Wisdom, joy, love, sadness, disappointment, hope etc. are all spiritual phenomena which we cannot experiences by our senses and therefore we make the mistake of considering them unreal.
Idolatry is one of the most serious sins one can commit, according to the Bible because it promotes the idea that the material world is the real world and in so doing endangers the existence of the real, unseen world.
The Greek philosophers began the destruction of the real world by applying science to the material world.
From the moment that they elevated the material world to the pre-eminent position it holds to this day the real world has been undergoing a process of annihilation.
Every bad thing in the world happens because the real world has been pushed aside.
Man’s destruction of himself is finally in sight. The real world waits patiently for man to call it to rescue us.
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