As normal people, we see things from our individual worldly perspective. That perspective is driven by the desirability of emotional and physical pleasure and the avoidance of emotional and physical pain. As a result we pursue everyday pleasures like enjoying good food and emotionally lifting entertainment. We also avoid situations that produce emotional pains, like seeing ourselves as lower and inferior to our friends.

Pursuit of pleasure and avoiding feelings of inferiority seem like reasonable goals, except when we realize that they generate negative traits, such as anger, jealousy, desire and the pursuit of honor. The Torah teaches us that if we work on diminishing those negative traits we enhance our very being, our eternal soul.

We experience the eternal nature of an enhanced soul when we feel connected to a loved one who has departed. When we work on enhancing our souls we are expanding our perspective beyond this world to include the spiritual next world.

Diminishing our self-centeredness makes it possible to develop deeper relationships with our fellow humans and with Hashem, the Master of all existence. Hashem’s End Game is for us to perfect ourselves and unite together to become one world, serving Hashem, with joy and liberty for all.

Hashem blessed us when He revealed the other world through the Exodus and the giving of the Torah. We can access that world every time we say Hashem’s name in a blessing and think that He is “Master of All”, as we’re taught in the fifth chapter of the Shulchan Aruch. When we go beyond our nature to focus on Hashem in our blessings, we build our beyond nature existence in this world and the world to come. Enjoy your blessings.