When you obey G-d, your G-d, safeguarding His
commandments and His rules written in this
Torah scroll, and when you return to G-d, your
G-d, with all your heart and soul.
Deuteronomy 30:10
“Returning to G-d” throughout our lives does not only mean repenting for past misdeeds. Even if we were to succeed completely in erasing all the negative effects of our past, maintaining constant Divine consciousness from that point on, we would still need to “return to G-d.” Since we exist in physical bodies, we are bound by the conceptual limitations of time and space. We conceive of everything we think of in terms of the categories familiar to us, and thus, it is our ongoing challenge to rise above these categories when we think about G-d and attempt to enhance our relationship with Him.
Our awareness of this inherent challenge, coupled with our yearning to unite with G-d, inspires us first of all to study the Torah and fulfill its commandments as much as we can, since these are the bridges that enable us to cross the divide between our finite lives and G-d’s infinity. And secondly, this awareness inspires us to do all we can to hasten the ultimate Redemption, when “the world will be filled with the knowledge of G-d as water covers the seabed.
—from Daily Wisdom