What’s the difference between dust and dirt?
If you think about it, dirt isn’t just the stuff that defaces our clothing and muddies our carpets. Given the right conditions, dirt sprouts forth the agriculture that is the stuff of life. Much of our nutrition comes from the dirt.
So what’s dust?
Dust seems useless. Dirt’s spatter.
In life, we encounter lots of objects and situations. Some seem to have an immediately-appreciable positive purpose. Some are like dirt, where you have to consider how to extract positive from apparent muck, but can produce growth.
But what’s with life’s dust?
How do we deal with that part of life that seems to have no positive input and just sullies life’s veneer?
How do we deal with the mental haze that prevents us from appreciating life with its fullest potential and beauty? That coating over life that screams lethargy and inactivity?
It’s a challenge.
So let’s look at a classic Biblical episode.
Jacob is walking alone, when he is accosted by a strange “man,” who is actually an angel. They wrestle each other, “kicking up dust,” until dawn.
Finally the angel tells Jacob that he will receive a new name, Israel, which means: “You have wrestled with G-d, and with man, and have prevailed.”
Jacob was challenged and he responded. He grappled and he struggled; ultimately, by the grace of G-d and the power of his soul, he was able to persevere.
But what is the challenge? What does Jacob’s wrestling match represent for me and you?
While there are many beautiful lessons learned, it’s interesting that Jewish thought puts a large focus on the “dust”, as a pivotal part of Jacob’s struggle.
From this perspective, Jacob was struggling to elevate – to “kick up” - the dust of life. Jacob struggled to handle life’s big challenges, but perhaps more insidious was the seemingly small challenge of ‘dust.’ Jacob struggled to elevate the ‘stuff’ that doesn’t allow us to find peace in the here and now, with ourselves and with G-d.
And he was successful.
We are Jacob, and we can be successful at this too.