One of the greatest ways—if not the greatest—to build a feeling of joy is by remembering that Hashem adores, venerates, and admires the mitzvos that we do, and every time we withstand and hold ourselves back from doing an aveirah, Hashem admires it.
There was once a man who had made a kabbalah to learn from a particular sefer each Shabbos as a zechus for a particular yeshuah that he wanted. He did so for eight consecutive years but didn’t see the yeshuah. One week, he realized his kabbalah wasn’t working, so he decided he would give up learning from that sefer.
That Shabbos, while he was in shul, an unfamiliar boy came in looking for something. The boy asked him, “Do you know where I can find such-and-such sefer?” After the man helped him find it, the boy asked the man if they would be able to learn together. As they sat down to learn, the man started to cry, eliciting the wonderment of the boy.
The man explained to the boy how he’d been learning the sefer for the past eight years and only gave up on his kabbalah a few days prior. He thought Hashem didn’t care about his learning the sefer because he didn’t get the yeshuah after eight years of learning it consistently. And now, by Hashem turning around the world and bringing this unfamiliar boy into the shul seeking a chavrusa to learn this particular sefer, he saw how Hashem really did care about his learning. That is what brought him to tears.
Hashem was showing him that although he hadn’t yet been zocheh to the yeshuah, it shouldn’t leave him with a feeling that Hashem doesn’t value what he’s doing. Hashem has His reasons for withholding the yeshuah, but that doesn’t detract in any way from the value of the mitzvah that he’s doing.
ZICHRU TORAS MOSHE
