The Story of Bats - They Fall not Fly

Did you ever try hanging yourself upside down? It’s fun for a few seconds, but after a while it will become difficult because the blood will rush straight to your head. There is one mammal, one animal, that sleep upside down: bats.

The reason is fascinating. The only mammal in the world that can fly are bats. But while bats can fly, they can’t take off. Technically they are mammals and not birds, or insects, so they can’t just take off and fly. Birds can take off from a dead stop by simply flapping their wings, and raising themselves, but bats can’t.  Birds’ wings are long and feathered and can generate enough thrust to achieve liftoff, but bats’ wings are basically large, webbed hands. Once airborne, a bat can use these webbed hands to sustain the flight over long distances and steer seamlessly, but they have a problem: they can’t do the necessary flapping to take off.  Bats also cannot run so it would be almost impossible for them to take off from the ground.

So what do bats do if they can fly, but can’t take off? The answer is they don’t take off -- they fall down!

Bats sleep upside down. Their claws effortlessly “click on” to the branch they want to hang from, and they enjoy a peaceful, relaxed rest. (Because they are so compact, the circulation is also not a challenge.) When they wake up and want to begin their “day,” bats do not need to generate lift to begin flight. They just drop out of their bed, open their wings and off they go. In fact, the momentum generated by their fall becomes the impetus that allows them to fly!

Creating the Thirst

Now we can understand the words of the Talmud about repentance. When I repent out of fear, my sins are considered mistakes. Because as it turns out, I did not understand the implications, hence I transgressed. So it is considered an accidental fall. I hurt myself, but it was an accident. It was not malicious. It was ignorance. G-d forgives mistakes.  

But if I do teshuvah with love, with enthusiasm and excitement, when I find a passion in my relationship with my soul, my G-d, my spouse, my authenticity—says the Alter Rebbe—then I discover that the very falling down is what allowed me to fly!

Because the very downfall creates a thirst, an honesty, humility, yearning, authenticity, pining, that allows me to connect with my own truth, with other people, and with G-d, in a way I could have never achieved before. Knowing the pain of darkness, is what fuels my passion for the good and the true.