John F. Kennedy declared, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chassidism, said something similar to a self-absorbed disciple seeking blessing: “Until now you have focused on what you need from G‑d; it’s about time you asked, ‘What is needed of me?’”
It is this fundamental question that cuts to the heart of the difference between two words and worlds that are often linked together—namely, Spirituality and Religion—ideologies that in reality could not be more different.
What drives spiritual seekers is the pursuit of meaning and transcendence—a search that is increasingly proving to be a basic human need. However, it’s not the desire to find and live by ultimate truth that fuels most spiritual quests, but the desire to experience the ethereal over the corporeal.
Ironically, spiritual explorations often have little or nothing to do with selflessness. In fact, they sometimes bring their seekers more in touch with their egos.
Spiritual Man wants to feel—to perceive and sense—the intangible, infinity and beyondness. The operative words are “feel” and “sense,” which describe the assertion of selfhood rather than its abnegation. The quest’s departure and arrival points can often be the same: an expanse called Me. Not you, or even we.
Religion, conversely, in its ideal form can be defined as the search for and uncompromising commitment to Truth, regardless of its accompanying challenges and demands.
Central then to religion is the notion of Service. “I am here to serve, not be served,”is the mission statement of Religious Man.
It was the world’s first Jew, Abraham, who personified and powerfully articulated this idea in his humble response to G‑d when he was called on to make a superhuman sacrifice.
“Hineni,” he said simply but unequivocally. “Here I am.”
It is this fundamental question that cuts to the heart of the difference between two words and worlds that are often linked together—namely, Spirituality and Religion—ideologies that in reality could not be more different.
What drives spiritual seekers is the pursuit of meaning and transcendence—a search that is increasingly proving to be a basic human need. However, it’s not the desire to find and live by ultimate truth that fuels most spiritual quests, but the desire to experience the ethereal over the corporeal.
Ironically, spiritual explorations often have little or nothing to do with selflessness. In fact, they sometimes bring their seekers more in touch with their egos.
Spiritual Man wants to feel—to perceive and sense—the intangible, infinity and beyondness. The operative words are “feel” and “sense,” which describe the assertion of selfhood rather than its abnegation. The quest’s departure and arrival points can often be the same: an expanse called Me. Not you, or even we.
Religion, conversely, in its ideal form can be defined as the search for and uncompromising commitment to Truth, regardless of its accompanying challenges and demands.
Central then to religion is the notion of Service. “I am here to serve, not be served,”is the mission statement of Religious Man.
It was the world’s first Jew, Abraham, who personified and powerfully articulated this idea in his humble response to G‑d when he was called on to make a superhuman sacrifice.
“Hineni,” he said simply but unequivocally. “Here I am.”
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