Separating the World from God is Suicide !
The Ethics of the Fathers teaches that ‘If you are learning and meditating on God and you stop to look at a beautiful tree or a beautiful field you forfeit your life.’ That to me has always seemed a little harsh coming from the bastions of morality. Thankfully however, the great Kabbalist Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye explains this teaching slightly differently, he says:
‘If one is learning and meditating on God and one stops – that is, one makes a distinction and does not continue to learn – when one looks at a beautiful tree, or field then you forfeit your life. If you do not see the divine within the world you subsequently make a separation between the holy and mundain then the separation you have made, separates you from the source of all life.’ “
