We’re not telling you to refrain from doing things. Yes, sometimes you have to stop doing certain things – sometimes you cannot do certain things if you want leshem Shomayim – but in general almost everything that we do anyhow, we can make great.
It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life! Enjoy! You can be happy! You can make a lot of money! Nothing wrong! Where do you find in the Gemara any place that it’s wrong to make money, it’s wrong to be rich, it’s wrong to be happy? It’s a fundamental error to think it’s wrong. A man can marry a pretty wife. He doesn’t have to take the ugliest wife he can find and say, “I’m marrying only leshem Shomayim.” It’s a big mistake people make in pshat. You can marry a pretty girl. You can make money. You can eat a big lunch and fall asleep on a comfortable pillow. Why not? Only that you should add some intent. While you’re doing it, you shouldn’t waste your life. You add the intent leshem Shomayim.
Fake it till You Make it
So you say, “Well, he’s a faker. He’s not doing it for Shomayim! He wants to make money. He wants to eat a good lunch. He likes making money. He likes to nap”. No! That’s a mistake! It’s a big mistake! That’s what we’re saying now. You can add an intent even though it’s not your sole intent.
It’s not hypocritical. Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn’t expect you to give up your livelihood, your good life, but while you’re busy living that life, why not add the intention of doing it for some noble purpose, for the service of Hashem. And that’s how everything you do becomes ennobled; it becomes sublime and your life is packed with accomplishment. You can change all the copper of your life into gold just by the alchemy of adding this thought, “I am doing it leshem Shomayim”.
