Small tidbits and Sparks of wisdom

Paragraph 1 – Hashem’s Presence and Free Will
God is everywhere, but His presence is concealed so that man can have real free will. If Hashem’s reality were fully visible, choosing good would be automatic, not earned. The concealment is not because God is distant, but because He is too present — His infinite reality must be hidden for humans to exist with independence. The 613 mitzvos and the guidance of the Sages are the tools that train a person to pierce the concealment and recognize that “ain od milvado” is not a slogan but the structure of reality. Forgetfulness is the default state; avodah is the struggle to remember.

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Paragraph 2 – Cheshbon HaNefesh and Total Devotion
Chovos HaLevavos teaches that if a king gave us a mission, we would throw in everything — strength, intelligence, emotion, rhetoric — and hold nothing back. So why do people serve God with half-attention? The intelligent person makes a cheshbon hanefesh to see if he serves Hashem with the same total energy he would give to a human ruler. Every act of avodah falls into one of three categories: service of the heart (faith, love, trust, awe), service of heart and action together (Torah, tefillah, praising Hashem), and service of the limbs (physical mitzvos like sukkah, lulav, tzitzis). Real avodah means engaging all three, so that the mind, heart, and body all point to the same Master.

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Paragraph 3 – The Result: Illumination and Joy in God
When a person does this self-accounting honestly and directs his heart fully to Hashem, he becomes illuminated with inner clarity. The doubts fall away, the intellect shines, and the soul stops being pulled by the noise of the world. He begins to rejoice in God the way Tehillim describes: “Let the righteous rejoice in Hashem and take refuge in Him.” This is the highest level of knowing God — not philosophy, but lived awareness. As Yirmiyahu says, “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom … but in this: that he understands and knows Me.” At that point, serving God is no longer a burden or a checklist. It becomes eagerness, joy, and a constant state of gratitude — the very purpose of man.

THE BLENDED THOUGH ON THE ABOVE 3 PARAGRAPHS.

How to See Everything

Avraham sits at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day beneath the trees of Mamre — a simple scene, but loaded with the paradox of Divine presence. The Torah shows us a man who is both painfully human (fresh from the flint of the covenant) and sharply awake to the needs of others. There, before the door of his tent, God appears — yet not in a way that undoes human choice. The episode teaches the central truth: Hashem is everywhere and utterly present, yet concealment is the condition that allows man to serve Him willingly.

This is the tension: if God were obvious, free will would collapse. The entire system of reward, growth, and moral responsibility depends on a hiddenness so complete that we can plausibly act as if we are in charge. But concealment is not absence. The world’s design, the mitzvot, and the discipline of חשבון הנפש are the instruments that pull back the veil. The 613 mitzvot are not random commands; they are training in awareness. Each mitzvah is a tool for puncturing forgetfulness, a way of saying: אין עוד מלבדו — there is nothing but Him.

Chovos HaLevavos makes this concrete. If a human king sent us on a mission, we’d pour everything into it — mind, speech, body — with full urgency. Why then do people give Hashem half-effort? Real avodah demands the same total engagement. That sefer divides service into three layers: עבודת הלב (faith, love, awe), עבודת הלב והאברים (Torah, prayer with kavvanah), and עבודת האברים (the physical mitzvot). The goal is alignment — mind, heart, and body serving the same Master without fragmentation.

When we blend Avraham’s posture, your insight about Hashem’s hidden presence, and the framework of Chovos HaLevavos, we get a clear method for “seeing everything.” Avraham’s greatness wasn’t theoretical belief; it was trained perception. He sat in pain, in heat, still searching for guests — because he saw every event as a place where God could be found. That is חשבון הנפש in action: constant evaluation, constant correction, constant awareness.

And once the discipline settles in, the result is not tension but clarity. The fog lifts. The intellect brightens. Joy replaces the illusion of self-rule. A person stops living as the center of the universe and starts functioning as an инструмент — the highest creature, but still a servant.

That is how you see everything: not by demanding miracles, but by learning to notice the Presence that never left. The world hides God so man can earn the right to find Him. The mitzvot show where to look. The heart learns to remember. And when the remembering becomes natural, the concealment was never concealment — it was training.