Integrative Avodah Work and Life and Uva L'tzion

The Chayei Adam (Chapter 143) writes, “It is appropriate that a person accustom himself daily to reciting the prayer that Dovid HaMelech himself recited (Tehillim 86:11) ‘Horeini ...etc (see above)”. Indeed, the Mesilas Yesharim concludes the entire introduction to his Sefer, by quoting this Pasuk-- with the prayer and brocha that we fulfill its very words.

Let us look at a typical day. We sometimes feel an abrupt break upon leaving Shul in the morning and evening, or upon closing a Sefer either after a shiur, at home, or while traveling to and from work. With the closing of the Siddur or Sefer, with the getting up out of our seat, as we walk out the door, we seem to be suddenly leaving one world and about to enter another very different one! Suddenly, cell phone calls have to be returned, important needs and tasks have to be fulfilled, and duties must be accomplished, in many cases immediately. How can we bridge the large expanse between the Olam Haba of Torah, Tefillah, and spiritual endeavors to the world of clients, customers, employees, shopping, carpools, and “rat-race” type activities? Perhaps this very Pasuk, taught to us by none other than Dovid HaMelech, provides that bridge.
Here is how. As we are about to leave Shul in the morning and before taking out the cell phone, after we have closed the Sefer before getting off the bus or train to begin a day’s work, or even just before you begin a menial, mundane, arduous, or unwanted task, try reciting this very Pasuk. Through this prayer, you are asking that whatever you do be purposeful to Hashem, and consequently to you. It can help to bridge that gap--to build that important bond--between the otherwise diverse parts of your daily life.

(http://www.hakhel.info/Nov06DailyEmail.html)

Bereishit Chapters 1 & 2: Separation vs. Unification

(from a commentary by Rav Shimon Klein, Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash)

“In the beginning God created…” – the root “b-r-a” (create) is related to the word ‘bar’ (meaning ‘a son’), or ‘outside’. The beginning point is defined as “son” or as “outside,” in relation to God’s primal existence. It is as if the text were saying, “In the beginning God ‘extracted’, ‘brought out’, ‘produced’, the heavens and the earth.” Like a son who emerges from or is produced by his father, separate from him, so the world “emerges” from God, separating from Him. Accordingly, the fundamental movement at the heart of the first chapter is one of separation. At first, God creates the heavens and the earth; the direct result of this is “formlessness and void,” a jumble of everything or – existence that is all a jumble. The action that is obviously required here is separation. And indeed, a process is set in motion that is essentially one separation after the next: “And God saw the light, that it was good, and God separated the light from the darkness” (1:4). The light had been mixed up with darkness, and God separated them. The naming of these two contrasting states – “light” and “darkness” – is also a sort of separation: “And God called the light ‘day’, and the darkness He called ‘night’.” The water is likewise separated: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it separate water from water.” And once again they are separated: “And God made the firmament, and He separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so.” There is water above, water below, and a firmament separating them. “And God said, Let the water under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so (1:9). At first, water covered the earth; now, the water is gathered together/separated. And so the chapter continues on the path of separation.

...It is remarkable that nowhere in the entire first chapter is there any description of any connection or reciprocity between different creations. There is no “Garden of Eden” to serve as a living space, nor any life system. ...

[In the second chapter...] we see the opposite movement: at the point of departure the elements are separate, and the basic act is one of connecting, weaving life, and in broader terms – the reciprocal relations between the different elements that together form a system of life. For example:

“And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet grown, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground” (2:5).

...

What is embodied in this transition from separation to connection? We might point to a simple place, existing in reality, in the nature of the world. The second chapter invites man to create, to join, to forge connections with the world outside of which he exists. This is not a simple step, for who can guarantee that the encounter with the other will not lead him astray from his faithful path? Perhaps he will lose his identity in the encounter with a foreign world? Indeed, there can be no successful formative encounter unless a critical previous stage has taken place. Only after man can answer his own question, “Who am I?” will he be capable of a genuine encounter with the other with no fear of losing his own personal world. This spiritual principle is expressed in many different ways, and it would seem that the Zohar formulates it well: “The side of holiness starts with separation and concludes with connection.... (Zohar, part II, 95a,)."