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Superhuman

We have already become accustomed to augmenting our innate human abilities through various technologies. Computers have greatly enhanced our speed of calculation and our memory storage capacity. Communications devices allow us to keep in touch over a far greater range than we could ever reach with our voice boxes alone. Telescopes and microscopes give our eyes a focusing power they never had before, for very huge and distant objects as well as the very close and tiny.

Now there is a new development: a dream coat that will transform you into a true superman! Put on this coat, and you will be able to lift a hundred-kilogram weight 500 times in succession without getting tired. With more development, this cloak will enable an average soldier to carry over 100 kilograms over long distances and to hike for a full day without fatigue; to carry wounded soldiers on his back from the battlefield and to run at unimaginable speeds. Even amputees or the paralyzed and wheelchair bound will regain some of their functions with a full-length or half jacket.

 This coat is actually a computerized machine made out of a steel skeleton and robotic limbs. It adjusts itself to the dimensions of the wearer, and a computer records every movement the person makes and instantly translates it into movements of the robotic limbs. These limbs are exactly coordinated to the person's own movements, except that they intensify and strengthen them more than ten times over.

A cloak like this serves as a perfect analogy for the spiritual augmentation we receive through the Torah. There are 613 mitzvot in the Torah, corresponding to 613 limbs, veins and  sinews of our body. Each mitzvah that we do intensifies the flow of spiritual energy from the soul to the physical limb that corresponds to that mitzvah. For this reason, the Lubavitcher Rebbe often recommends that in cases of physical weakness or illness, one should compensate by strengthening in a specific aspect of mitzvah observance. To one person, the Rebbe advises checking the tefillin or mezuzot, and to another, extra care in keeping a kosher diet.

The teachings of Chassidus call the mitzvot the "garments of the soul," which are thought, speech and deed related to fulfillment of mitzvot. We can choose to either put on or take off this garment--we have free will. It is in our hands to intensify our spiritual powers or to weaken them; to strengthen our connection with our source of spiritual energy, or to cut it off, G-d forbid. In the times of Moshiach, however, the body and soul will be united with an eternal bond that will never be broken. Then, fulfillment of mitzvot will be natural and instinctive, and we will not be able to imagine any other type of existence. The dream will become reality, forever.

 

 


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Rabbi Ephraim Carlebach
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