'Rabbi, you need to evolve. We live in a modern day and age and you have to progress with the times. What worked in the shtetl, just isn't working for us in America today'. This rebuke I heard from a fellow Jew after telling him that we had missed him in shul for the previous few weeks. Phew - the life of a rabbi!
"Agreed," I said. "We must evolve with the times, but our values must always remain constant."
Think of a beautiful flower in a field, swaying in the breeze. We are overwhelmed with the instinct to pick it and take it with us. It will undoubtedly enhance the beauty of our homes, but this is only temporarily. Because within days, the beautiful flower will wither and die.
Like the flower, all other living things can only survive as long as they are connected to their life source. Once severed from it, they slowly start to die.
Of course we Chabadniks don't live in the past. No one can accuse us of ignoring modern technology or science. (Your weekly email is a case in point.) But if we Jews were to evolve too much, we run the risk of severing our organic connection to the Torah. If we do that, like the flower we wither. There can be no future in such an approach.
Think about how hard we work in Palm Beach to ensure our homes are picture perfect. Could you imagine entering an exquisite home to find a plain earth or stone floor?!
The weekly Torah portion speaks in great detail of the Ark of the Covenant, which was the focal point of the Jewish nation for thousands of years. This magnificent vessel made of two layers of fine gold and one of exquisite wood, housed the magnificent Tablets given by G-d. And they were made of plain stone?!
One of the pre-eminent scholars of the nineteenth century, Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, explains that within the simple stone of the Tablets was a powerful message to mankind: Though you will be tempted to grow through the ages like wood, the only way to endure the vicissitudes of time is by remaining steadfast to unchanging values, like stone.
By all means let's evolve and grow, but at the same time remember that the moment we lose contact with the laws and values of the Torah, the life force from whence we originate, we run the risk of losing all that we have worked so hard to achieve.