A chance for individuality

I tried not to make all these articles to be based too much on particle physics, but this idea was taught to me last week and I had, what I think, a perfect comparison for it.

Every single person is different, an identical twin has different fingerprints to his brother at the bare minimum and it becomes even more evident that they often have completely different characteristics as you spend more time with them. Two blond people never have exactly the same shade, one person’s taste never reflects that of another. However, there is something extraordinary about each and every one of us, we are all composed of the exact same things. Scale a person back to the proteins we are made of, we all share the same basic constituents, some may have different ratios to the other, to look even deeper at the compounds and elements in a person the differences reduce by a fair amount. But at the sub atomic level, there is no difference between me or you, we are all atoms: protons, neutrons and electrons floating in space (so much empty space that it is said Rutherford was worried his foot would fall through the floor the next morning).

Atoms can be differentiated by the number of protons and neutrons; the same elements can have different numbers of neutrons, giving different nuclear interactions. Although we are made of the same composites, it is how we are put together that sets us apart from each other, it is our compositions that manifest distinctions so that we can be our own people. If we were to lack any vitamins, minerals or sources of protein we would be weak and unwell, with a healthy amount of the essentials, together with the additions we add and the specific way our body was created to sort food creates us, as an individual.

This is the comparison I would like to build on which is relevant for all those who go through a daily grind of work, supporting themselves and families, anyone who feels like they are robotic, following the same routine as everyone around them. But this is also important for (and I heard this lecture tended towards) Jews who don’t connect to the 613 commandments, they feel like it is dry, the routine praying, mundane daily actions the same as everyone else does; as a way to connect to everything they do and feel it is special and catered towards them.
My Rabbi, Rav Heller, told us that the way to connect to practising Judaism, with all the details that may seem to get to us, is to “find something, one area, that speaks to us, and to delve into that topic.” When a person feels like an expert, better than everyone else (not in an arrogant way) in something, they feel that they have something that makes them special, and stand out from the crowd that they know more about. Coupled, with the fact that we are a species that were created to share information through our power of speech, and to grow as a group - people weren’t made able to remember libraries of information, one person learns their topics and another in a different area, when people come together to discuss discovery increases exponentially through the overlap of topics. This is how tosafists in the middle ages would learn, each taking one section of the talmud to study in depth and then discuss it, finding seeming contradictions which get settled by new understandings of the talmud.

A person is still obligated to do all the commandments, to carry on the necessities in life. After all, if a person were to remove iron from his diet he would become severely malnutritioned, his blood would have fewer haemoglobin and less oxygen would flow around the body. Everyone needs a staple amount of what is healthy, but what a person focuses on more, what he finds excitement in, which fuels his day is something a person should strive to find and achieve excellence in. This is not only good for one's self esteem, but means an increase in the overall development of information and creation in this world as we begin to share our new ideas.

We are all made up of the same subatomic particles, atoms, elements, compounds, proteins and tissues, but our compositions are slightly off and the way we use them is different again. It may seem our tasks are similar, our destination looks as if it is the same place, but the passion and excitement we put into what speaks to us sets us aside from another. This is what we have been tasked to do, the 7 Noahide laws or the 613 commandments are not the same to each person as they each speak volumes in a different way to every different person.

To answer the question we started with, is there individualism in Judaism? Yes, but it comes from the inside of a person. It may seem like everyone in a synagogue is saying the same words, but if you listen carefully, each one is saying something completely different to the other. No one prayer is the same, even one person on the same day, from morning prayers to afternoon’s. Since the previous prayer many events have happened that have shaped a person in a different way, and they feel this is the prayer. While I may be praying for children the same as another, the feeling I put into it is different due to my different experiences up to this point. Contrary to physical things where the closer you look the more similar things are, with that which is spiritual, the closer you look, the more different everyone is.