The method of the “middle line” between extreme opposites
An article in The Jerusalem Post:
My comment:
It is true that the Jewish experience has always been between the two extremes of life and death, happiness and despair, and progress and survival against the threat of annihilation.
While others also can say that life is always between such contrasting opposites, Jews actually have a unique method for balancing and uniting the two extreme opposites in a way that they start complementing one another.
Our sages call it the “method of the middle line,” accepting and using the contrasting states purposefully and proactively towards a single and unchanging goal.
This goal is incessant self-evaluation and self-correction until we refine ourselves to such an extent that we become similar and connected to reality’s single life-creating and governing force.
This purposeful and active process of human development leads us to become truly “Adam” — a Human being — which becomes similar to the source of life.
This method is practiced between people, balancing the instinctive, selfish, and destructive egoism and hatred of others with a methodically acquired “love of others” we learn and draw from the single life-creating source.
The Torah — and all other related writings and sources — gives us the actual and practical method on how to rise above the inherent “unfounded, egoistic hatred” and achieve the “love of others” that makes us similar to reality’s single governing force.
This has nothing to do with blind faith, it is a practical and natural method of human development we have to fulfill.