The Baal Shem Tov taught that everything we see wether we perceive it as good or bad is a reflection of ourselves.
H”S in his infinite mercy made everything in a way that reflects where we are at that moment. When we see things we don’t like most likely H”S is trying to show us our own flaws so we can change.
“We are what we see and we see what we are”.
In the 1930’s the Jews in Europe could never imagine the atrocities that where going to befall them because they just didn’t have that evil mind in them, so for them it was impossible that something like the holocaust could ever happen.
It also goes the same the other way around. Sometimes we doubt of the goodness of someone else because we ourselves don’t have it in us.
Let’s try this upcoming year to see only the goodness of those around us and the situations that arise as opportunities to rise a little higher from where we are!
Taken from 60 Day Journey into the High Holidays by Rabbi Simon Jacobson
