The other day we were at the zoo.

There’s one image that always comes to mind when I think of the Jerusalem Zoo the first sight you see as you walk in an island in the middle of a beautiful pond. On the island live families of monkeys.

The monkeys spend their day picking at each other hanging from ropes climbing trees or just lying around. Maybe some are inside their hut-like houses sleeping or peering out but we don’t see them.

Every so often there’s a seemingly introspective one just sitting by the side of the lake.

I always wonder Why doesn’t he just swim across that water and try to get out?

It’s a little pond only 30 or 40 feet between captivity and freedom.

But when I asked I was told monkeys are afraid of water.

Sometimes when I get worried or afraid — like in the morning when I wonder which item on my to-do list for the day I’ll do first and how I’ll ever get to the 20^th item — I think about what’s stopping me what’s holding me back.

What’s keeping me unmoving and trapped.

I picture those monkeys in the zoo and those 30 to 40 feet between captivity and freedom.

Maybe there’s an ironic freedom in feeling trapped. A feeling of safety even. Like these are the perimeters I live my life within.

The monkey is trapped by a perimeter. He sees only the water that stands between freedom and captivity.

A Jew sees the limitations of the laws of Torah as a freedom and a safety net that keeps him within the perimeters of Hashem’s palace.

Many times someone will ask me deep philosophical questions. But sometimes I can’t go into deep philosophical reasons for “Why and how does G-d and This World work?”

I’ve come to the simple conclusion that these are the rules. If we keep them the world works.

I always imagine Shabbos as having this invisible electric-spiritual wire that somehow envelopes the house and if someone breaks Shabbos one can actually feel the break in that spiritual fence.

Maybe this is what the eiruv is about a little piece of string that says “You’re within Hashem’s borders now safe.”

If you’ve ever driven to the Golan you’ve seen the road that runs along a fence. And on the other side of this little metal fence isJordan.

Jordanis a completely different world a completely different state of being fromIsrael yet it’s a hairsbreadth away.

I know someone who got through a trauma in his life by simply turning one letter in one word around.

Tzaddikim do this.

They say “It’ll be okay” and somehow it is okay. It might not be easier but now you know you are in the right place and you don’t feel trapped even if you’re doing the same exact thing as you were doing before because your status has changed to “free.”

I don’t remember who but someone once said freedom is a constant struggle.

Say for example you know one of the halachos of honoring parents — that you can not answer back or contradict a parent — and you also know your parent gave the wrong information regarding a sale. When you hold yourself back from correcting them you are not imprisoning or lowering yourself by not revealing the “truth”; you are freeing and raising yourself above the perimeters of nature and in that very moment attaching yourself to G-d pledging allegiance to His perimeters.

The monkey sees the water and stays on his island trapped.

The Jew sees how waters parted for him and is free.