Intention: an ongoing discussion
From the beginning, every thing was created as half of a pair, each half relative only to its other half. Even the physical space that we inhabit exists in parallels–above and below, light and dark, night and day, wet and dry, physical and metaphysical–before even flora and fauna were created, themselves a pair. Of all of the creatures, only the human was created originally as a single being, not yet separated, and the human was singly given choice.
Paired with this condition and to this gift, is that, in order to be complete, the human is merciful, kind, just. Accordingly, awareness of the necessity for these qualities is brought about only through awareness of another, another viewed equally but with differences to remind the intender to act for other than self.
Choice is what separates us from other creatures in our world. Choices can be intuitive, an immediate knowing, which I believe are moments of parity with the spiritual plane to which we aspire. Other choices are reasoned within the physical of the here and now.
Intuition and reason brought together properly should propel us to recognize when we feel rightly, and then to act as we are intended. The world is as it is in order to motivate us to choose, to choose to act with intention, to bring about the simultaneous existence of the physical/now world and the spiritual/always world.
We have a guide by which to choose. Halakha is the way we are to go, but it is only the way, it is not the act by itself, and to follow it without intention in the greater sense actually choice blocks that path.
