People are basically smart. So what causes us to do the dangerous, the foolish and the wrong? People have basically what they need. Why do we feel empty inside?

It is the things that turn our heads.

Primary Values vs. Secondary Pursuits

A person knows deep down the primary values of life – it’s good to get married. It’s good to have children. It’s good to give them good values. It’s good to live a wholesome lifestyle. It’s good to live healthy. It’s good to be clean. It’s good to be clean from sin. It’s good to be productive and not waste time. It’s good to pursue spirituality – closeness to Hash-m. It’s good to learn Torah.

But many people go off the path. We spend our times pursuing nothingness. Until the lightness of being wakes us up.

A baby cries. He feels a lacking. He wants to be fed, changed or to be held.

Give him a toy and he will be distracted for a moment, until he realizes his need was not met. He is still hungry, he is still cold, he is still wet.

So you give him another toy -until the toys no longer satisfy him.

It’s the same for us. We feel a basic need. We get a toy – let it be an ipad, a smart phone, a tv, facebook, internet, xbox, whatsapp, news, amazon. You name it. It turns or heads. We focus on the secondary and leave behind the primary.

So when we get tired of our toy, we get a new one.

But we cry inside because the toy doesn’t serve our primary need. Some become depressed. Some quit life. Unfortunate – because the answer to their lacking was in their grasp.

As a youth, I personally was on the secondary track. Following beauty and banality. Till G-d sent me a painful message. I feel lucky to have listened to the message – to return me to the primary track. Some learn about the primary life through pain, some through feeling the incredible lightness of being, some through a moment of truth, some through gratitude to Hash-m / G-d. Some never find the path for following the handsome is tempting.

Observing Torah – the only divine law whose giving was witnessed by millions of people – helps us keep us on the primary track rather than pursuing secondary toys.