I will never forget the feeling that gripped me the first time my wife was pregnant and the doctor called me over to hear the baby's heartbeat. Tick-tock or whatever the sound was. It was incredible to believe that this tick-tock would need to continue without fail for the next century in order to sustain life. Many things can break down along the way but this tick-tock that I heard now was not negotiable. It could not stop and it could never ever rest. The tick-tock is the essence of life. It defines life. It is the first thing that signals life to its mother and the last sounds before life ends.
We were all created in the image of Hashem. Our bodies are a reflection of our neshama. Its various parts are not arbitrary, each limb is connected to a spiritual part of our neshama. Just like our physical life is totally dependent on our heart beat so is our spiritual life. Our arms can flail and our legs can kick, but if our heart is not ticking we are no better than chickens without heads.
Similarly we can lead our lives just going through the motions. We can add davening, chesed, and learning into our daily schedule in generous doses. But if there is no heart then we are doing our best dead man impersonation and it doesn't mean much. Hashem gave us a heart that is the most efficient workhorse in our body. Let's use it and put a little heart into everything we do, and make it alive.
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