not for me, who is for me, and I promise that after my daily toil I will also learn Torah. Because "the Torah is better with the way of the land."
The friends protested, the parents cried, the rabbis were frightened, but Yochai was ready. Yochai got married, had six children, and the pressure of making a living remained the same. What didn't he work in? A baker and then a waiter, a bus driver, a construction worker, an office cleaner and then... He did not see a blessing in his labor, the unsettling pressure that remained the same during the yeshiva days. He toils and toils, worships his hands and they barely produce him a narrow bread and a pressurized water. One morning, while he was standing as an assistant in a fish shop, his longtime friend, Avraham, came into the shop to buy fish. "Avraham?" asked Yochai. "Yochai?" answered Rabbi Avraham, who was the rabbi of an important yeshiva. Thirty years had passed, unbelievably. After a short hug, Yochai asked the store owner, Shlomo, for permission to talk a little with his friend. They sat at the back of the store, "Avraham, I remember very well how much you tried to coax me to refrain from going out to work... You were so right, just explain to me, why do I not have a blessing in my labor? Why am I constantly pressed and worried?" Rabbi Avraham looked at his friend from Naar with piercing eyes and said: "Yochai, my good friend, listen to the story that the intellect is on its side,
There was a wise and wealthy king, who established a spacious and magical garden in his palace that the eye was not satisfied with the beauty and splendor and the harmonious combination of springs and streams, trees and wonderful flowers. One day, the king, in his kindness of heart with his wealth and happiness, announced that he wanted to give a treasure of gold and diamonds to a citizen who would succeed in extracting the treasure from the depths of one of the springs in the courtyard of his palace. The king informed his citizens that it was allowed to dive only once and try to extract the treasure. The depth of the spring pool did not exceed 3.5 meters, so that a strong and healthy person could easily reach the box and become very rich. And they jumped into the water one after the other, one after the other. The treasure was right at hand, close and visible and even unbelievable... As they sank into the depths and felt it, they could only find stones and water plants, the crate simply disappeared from their sight. Who hasn't tried to pluck the illusion of happiness? Everyone, important people and commoners, old and black, was convinced that he and only he would be able to extract the legendary wealth from the depths and live the rest of his life without worries. The king sat disappointed that none of his subjects were getting the happiness they coveted. "Oh, Rabbi Avraham, I am convinced that I would have successfully accomplished this task, they just didn't plough well into the depths of the spring, the water creates a slightly misleading reflection, I wonder how it ended," Yochai was excited. It was only after almost all the citizens of the kingdom had given up that a simple Jew came to the place and asked the king: "Your Majesty, will you allow you to win your treasure chest, even without getting wet?" "Of course," replied the Jew. The wise Jew stood on the edge of the spring pool, raised his head upwards, jumped swiftly, climbed from branch to branch, and lowered the treasure chest from the tree's top. You see, Yochai, the crate was actually placed on a branch at the top. All that had to be done was to hold your head up, look up, up, up there is the treasure.
My friend's question and I answer you, the rich livelihood and happiness are not to be found in the labor of the hands, in the sweat, in the pursuit of the treasure in the depths, no and no. The livelihood is from heaven! If you looked upwards, to the Father in Heaven, prayed to Him, asked Him, you would be privileged to receive your livelihood with dignity without worrying about tomorrow, you would become rich and happy in part, depending on where you look, Rabbi Yochai, to the depths or to the heavens, that's all the difference.
