Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Enjoying Life

When asked why HaShem created people, you get the strangest answers; all wrong.  The top two are: "To serve Him" and "To do Torah and mitzvos."  Puh-leeze.  First of all, HaShem doesn't need any servants.  After all, if there is a dirty dish in the sink, He must have created it, so I guess He wants it there.  Generally speaking its best not mess with  something complicated if you don't know what you are doing.  The whole of creation is pretty complicated, so my advice is to leave running it to the experts... er, Expert, in this case.  As far as Torah and mitzvos; those were created for you, not the other way around.

So why did HaShem create you?  To have fun; lots and lots of fun.  That's not my opinion, that's the second sentence in the first chapter of M'silas Yesharim:
Our Sages of blessed memory have taught us that man was created for no purpose other than rejoicing in HaShem and deriving pleasure from the splendor of His Presence; for this is true joy and the greatest pleasure that can be found.
Note that "rejoicing in HaShem and deriving pleasure from the splendor of His Presence" is the purpose because "this is the true joy and greatest pleasure that can be found."  That's awesome!  So... um... well... I'm waiting.

The problem is that, while HaShem really, really wants us to have more fun than a barrel of monkeys, we can't do that until we are healthy.  We are unhealthy because we made a mistake.  We all participated both in the mistake of Adam haRishon and then again at the cheit ha'eigel.  Those mistakes have brought and deadly disease into our being that prevents us from experiencing true joy.  It is curable, but it takes time and the one must undergo the prescribed treatment.  Knowing it is curable is a huge comfort; but the course of treatment must be completed.

What's the treatment?  Torah and mitzvos.  What's the best way to make the treatment as efficient as possible?  Have fun doing them.  (See M'silas Yesharim, the divisions of Saintliness/Chassidus).  The more fun you have, the more love for G-d you will generate, and the bigger Tzaddik/Chasid you will be, and the more fun you will have.

My chavrusa in M'silas Yesharim and I just saw that this morning, on the eve of the holiday know as "z'man simchaseinu"/the season of our joy.  What a coincidence -- and on the eve of the holiday that also celebrates hashgacha pratis!  Almost like Someone is running this show...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Shabbo
Post a Comment
Read more