Even the closest human relationship can’t approximate the cleaving of the soul to its Maker
Rav Yisroel Yaakov Lubchansky, the mashgiach ruchani in the Baranovitch yeshivah and son-in-law of the Alter of Novardok, was about to depart from the yeshivah late one night, when a bochur approached him. “Rebbi,” he said, “please forgive me, but Torah hi v’lilmod ani tzarich, I want to learn from how you conduct yourself. Don’t Chazal say a talmid chacham shouldn’t walk alone outside at night?”
Reb Yisroel Yaakov looked at the young man for a few moments. “I don’t walk alone. Wherever I go, the baal davar is with me,” he responded, using a term referring to the yetzer hara and making an incisive point about the ubiquity of the “baal davar” in our lives.
Yet, counterbalancing the Evil One’s omnipresence is that of its Master, He who created it and implanted it within us. After all, Hakadosh Baruch Hu dwells not only amongst us, but within us.
The Nefesh HaChaim quotes Chazal as teaching that when the pasuk commands the construction of a mishkan or mikdash with the words, V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’socham, this means that the ultimate purpose of a mikdash is as a means for Hashem to be shochein b‘soch kol echad v’echad, for Him to reside within each and every one of us.
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