On the Essence of Freedom
"Freedom is the ability to be truly and fully human. And to be human is to be restless. To be human is to be moved by the call of the infinite, by endless mystery, by boundless vision. ...[As] the infinite essence of reality, man's horizons are forever extending. ... A human being always senses that there is much more to life, to reality, to truth, and he/she yearns for it.
To live a free life, free to express your full humaneness and G-dliness, means never to be complacent and satisfied with your personal growth and your moral achievements; not to allow even a drop of water to slake your thirst and silence your quest; not even to allow a "pot" to contain and limit your inner fervor and passion to touch truth.
Your perpetual striving toward something greater and deeper than yourself ought not to result in tension and anger, but rather in celebration for the opportunity to mirror...infinity. You must learn to cherish the restlessness within your heart, to make peace with your peacelessness, to embrace your unwillingness to embrace convention.
A story:
A student, once visiting the Lubavitcher Rebbe in his Brooklyn office, saw the Rebbe erase a few words that he had written earlier.
"Why do you erase words that you wrote?" the student asked the Rebbe. "I am sure that if a mind as great as yours originally conceived these words, they contain gems of truth; why destroy them?"
"When I wrote these words," the Rebbe replied, "they might have reflected the truth of that moment. But as time moves on, truth of the past must be discarded for the sake of a deeper light that has emerged.""
~from an essay by Yosef Y. Jacobson, based on an entry in a private and undated journal of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
What do you think?