Obsession with cars, analyzed

Chassidus refers to something called רצון הנעלם בעצמותו, which translated into English means roughly that I can want something, but so deep down that I myself am unaware of my wanting it. OK, the obvious question comes up: if my desire is so repressed that I am not aware of it at all, then of what meaning is that desire?

The explanation I heard a few years back made use of a well-known Talmudic saying, that "a man who does not have a home is not a man". The meaning of this, Chassidut explains, is that essential to every person's is the existence of a private domain, where he gets to be himself. Not in any function or capacity (student, teacher, passenger, customer, client, worker, etc.), but just himself. This same idea goes to explain what we are trying to accomplish down here; to make this physical world a place where G-d Himself, as it were, could feel at home.

This need is implanted in the human existence; while not necessarily emerging for a long time, it is deemed to be hard-wired into the human psyche by definition. Fair enough; in the real world, we do indeed place much emphasis on a home. Someone without a fixed address is not simply deemed to be that much poorer than others; "homeless" is arguably the most pitiful label we can give a person.

That said, what of those who focus more on an expensive car, with every trapping possible, than on their home?

The difference between a home and a vehicle is primarily in their inherent purpose. A vehicle's purpose is by definition utilitarian: to get me from here to there. The meaning of a home, as said before, is not simply a place to sleep. In it lies a value that transcends utility; it is where one becomes himself. But a car has many of the same characteristics that make a home unique; it, too, is a private domain where more and more people are finding their expression. Why is a car that different from a home?

Because if one's whole passion is in something mobile, in something the point of which is to transport him somewhere else, that makes him someone who has no life in the present. One whose very being consists of getting somewhere else, anywhere and anything but here and now. בלשון החסידות, the quintessential חיצון.

Just a thought to reflect on before Rosh Hashanah...