Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: The Joy of Challenges in Avodas HaShem

I work in downtown Chicago.  I like working downtown.  In fact, when I had an occasion to seek new employment some time ago, I narrowed my search to the downtown area.  Why?  I ride my bike to work.  I really enjoy the ride and anything closer to home would not have given my a long enough ride.  There are lots of reasons for that, not least of which is that I like the exercise.  While I certainly could find other ways to exercise; I know myself and know it wouldn't happen.  With a bike ride to work, I get a nice bit of exercise in the morning and another in the evening.  To me, this is the perfect example of liking something that is good for me.  I didn't always enjoy this kind of workout, at it took (more than) a bit of work to get over my laziness and whining hump.  Now, thought, besides the fact that the bike ride it good for me (keeps my weight down, manages my cholesterol and blood pressure, keeps my heart healthy, etc), I also take some pride just in the fact that I have that ride.

The M'silas Y'sharim, in the chapter on Chasidus (scrupulous piety/saintliness) describes the way a person at that level experiences challenges in avodas HaShem.  Imagine a person working in loving HaShem and gets thrown a curve ball; loss of job, difficulty with children, cancer... not hard to imagine difficulties.  The M'silas Y'sharim notes that are two ways to deal with those situations.  The lower level (for just the run of the mill saintly person, I guess) is to tell oneself, "Everything that HaShem does is for the good and He loves me, so this must also be for the good.  Even though it hurts, I know it is good for me and so I'll thank HaShem for it, the same way I would thank a surgeon who had to operate to save my life.  The pain is due to the nature of the disease and its cure.  Baruch HaShem!"  (That's the lower level!?  Lord have mercy.)

What's the higher level?  The higher level is to look at any and every challenge as an opportunity to demonstrate in deed what he has been expressing in word.  He gets to "walk the talk", as it were.  He doesn't need to have faith that it will be good, he is excited that things are difficult!  Note that he does not say, "This feels good.", nor even "This is good for me."  That would defeat the purpose, after all.  This person looks forward to the difficulties because they are difficult.

Is it possible to imagine that level?  The first night of Sukkos I heard about a Jew who moved to Amercia in the late 30s.  Every week he started a new job on Sunday, and every Friday he was given a dismissal slip.  Week after week, month after month.  Each Friday afternoon, he would add this new dismissal slip to his collection.  Why was he saving them?  When Sukkos came that year, he built whatever kind of sukkah he could.  Then he decorated it -- with every single dismissal slip.  Each slip was to him an extra dimension of beauty added to his sukkah.

All year he must have been planning this.  He wasn't worried about losing his job each week; he was looking forward to getting another sukkah decoration.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
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 Sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more