We all experience the world as an indivudual self. In Jewish and Torah wisdom, the self has enormous importance. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, each of us has our own unique relationship with the Creator and with creation. However, each of us also experiences the pain of exile and the sense that we are far from ourselves and from our Creator. But there is good news! The Creator is always close even if we dont feel close. The Torah and the Jewish Tradition teach us how to return to our True Selves. It is a journey from Egypt to the Promised Land and it goes on thoughout our whole lives and and over the many generations of human history. So where is our free choice in this story? It really comes down to whether we are trying to connect to what is good and true or whether we have been swallowed by the Matrix that constantly tells us the self in meaningless. I wantto bring you two quotes from the Oral Torah. The first is from trhe Talmud where it says “Every person is required to say to himself “The world was created just for me”. This surprising directive is obviously the opposite of what many of us feel and that is excatly the point. Our distance and our smallness fool into thinking our lives dont have meaning but in truth, each person is totally unique and has a totally unique and deeply intimate connection the Creator and the Creation.