The Lubavitcher Rebbe
When I was a young boy in Baltimore I had a rebbi, a Lubavitcher; [Rav Avraham Eliyahu Axelrod z”l]. He was a real Lubavitcher – he came from the town of Lubavitch and he learned there in the yeshivah for sixteen years. They sent me to him to learn and the cheder was supposed to pay him. But in the end they couldn’t afford it and I was a very poor boy and so we were never able to give him even a nickel. He knew he wasn’t getting paid and he learned with me anyhow a whole year. He learned the whole Mesichta Kesuvos with me for nothing and then we made a siyum in the Nusach Ari Shul in that city; a siyum – just he and I with the people of the shul. I look back with affection on him. He was my rebbi.
Now, sometimes he used to tell me stories and I remember he once told me the following. A chossid once came to his rebbe; he was having a lot of difficulties, a lot of tzaros. “Rebbe,” he said, “if I didn’t have to be busy with my sick child and if I had enough money to make a comfortable living, I could sit all day long in the synagogue and study Torah and serve Hashem. I wouldn’t have to waste my life on a livelihood and all the troubles I have.” He wanted a brachah from the rebbe.
So the rebbe said to him, “Who says Hashem wants your Torah? Maybe He wants your suffering?”
Pshat in the Story
That’s the end of the story, at least that’s how he said it to me, but even then I understood that it needs a peirush. Because you hear that and you’re surprised – Hashem wants our suffering?! And we know that it’s not true because most of our lives are filled with happiness. Hashem is giving us a good time; you can’t deny it. When we sink our teeth into a piece of bread, it tastes good; we enjoy it. Let’s not be ashamed to admit it, it’s a lot of fun to eat. Fun to eat? Maybe you wouldn’t say such things but I do say it. Because it’s true. It’s fun to eat! And who made it fun? The Creator! He gave you food to sink your teeth into; you sink your fangs into a morsel of bread and let your saliva run. It’s a lot of fun!
It’s fun to walk and to see and to talk and to breathe. It’s fun to sleep and to see the sun. Life is fun! You’re well? Everything in your body is functioning smoothly more or less? If someone would stop you, “Mr. So and So, do you have a headache?” No. “Do your eyes hurt?” No. “Do your teeth hurt?” No. “Does your throat hurt?” No. “Do your ears hurt?” No. “Does your stomach hurt?” No. “Nothing hurts?!” No. So what are you so glum about? You should be smiling! If you’re sitting here right now – you’re alive, you’re breathing – that’s already a big happiness.
Most of you are married. Marriage is a happiness. More or less it’s happiness. Most of you have children. Children are a happiness. I don’t think any of you here are homeless. You’ll go home tonight, not to a park bench; you’ll go to a warm house and you’ll probably have there a bed and a pillow and a warm blanket. So we’re living happy lives. We should admit that. Our lives, in general, are happy days.
Some Difficulties Too
But we know also that everyone is pressed. Some more than others but everyone is sometimes squeezed by Hashem. Who doesn’t have times when he feels he’s slipping? Everyone has his moments, his difficulties, his – I don't want to say ‘misfortune’ because it isn’t a misfortune – but who doesn't have in his life at least some occasions when he is in a vice, when he's being pressed by a crisis?
And people don't know what to do: “What does Hakadosh Baruch Hu want of me? Should I be bodek my tefillin or my mezuzahs? Maybe I should give more tzedakah?”
Nothing wrong in doing all these good things. Certainly, all those good things He wants. But among all those things what He chiefly desires is that you should cry out with all your heart. And not once! Pour out your heart to Hakadosh Baruch Hu again and again – vayetar means to do it excessively – and that's going to be a success that He wants for you.
And if subsequently He grants your request and you're redeemed from your tribulations and from then on you live a tranquil life, don't think that that's the purpose, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created you in order to live successfully and happily. No. The purpose was already achieved when you were in the midst of the tzarah and you responded by crying to Him. That’s when you became successful.
The Wrong Address
And so the man who is tormented by yissurim – big yissurim or little ones – should realize that he has a life of opportunity before him: to cry out. Of course, you have to know the address; when a man mails his petition to the wrong address he can't expect to get any kind of credit. If he’ll bellyache and grouch to his wife, then he’s addressing his petition to the wrong address. It's like taking an envelope with a letter inside and you put the wrong address on it and you throw it into the mailbox.
It's a waste of effort to cry out to the wrong people. Especially if you pay a man, a bareheaded man, to listen to your troubles, that’s absolutely the wrong address – and you're going to be more and more troubled. It's well known. I spoke to a man who has been going twenty-five years twice a week to speak to his psychiatrist.
I asked, “Did it solve your problems?”
“No,” he tells me.
I said, “Why are you going?” – he's still going – so he said, “He’s helping me understand my problems better.” After twenty-five years, you're still understanding them better?! That’s called the wrong address.
The Right Address for Love
However, when a man understands how to complain, how to cry out for help, and he has the right address – Hakadosh Baruch Hu – then you’re making use of your troubles for exactly what they’re intended. If you respond to the squeezes and pinches by calling out to Hashem then even though you don’t do anything except that – you don’t gain in your estimation any high madreigos of Torah; you don’t become a gadol b’Yisroel – but you can become more beloved to Hakadosh Baruch Hu than the greatest gaon. Because the constant application of a person's thoughts to Hashem, that’s what makes a person beloved by Hashem!
That’s what this rebbe was telling his chossid, his adherent. “You’re making a big mistake,” he said. “Do you think Hakadosh Baruch Hu needs your Torah and this or that? It’s your troubles that He wants. He wants to make something out of you; and in trouble, that’s when you have an opportunity to become something that you wouldn’t become with just your Torah and mitzvos.” That’s what the story means, that the greatest achievements of a person are sometimes borne upon the wings of his difficulties, on the wings of his crying out to Hashem in the midst of his troubles.
Utilize Every Squeeze
And so when a man has trouble, he’s being threatened with bankruptcy, or with illness, or some other peril, he has to understand that this is sent from Heaven as an incentive to become great. But not only great perils, big troubles; the person who understands his function in the world knows that every squeeze should be utilized. And so, if he’s sitting in the dentist chair and they are drilling down and down, deeper and deeper, instead of useless agony, he sits there and he cries out to Hashem. Even if you can’t open your mouth, but there is a prayer in the mind: יƒ‚יƒ‚ֲה הָינƒּב, Dovid said to Hashem: “Understand my thoughts.” Sometimes a man is too sick to pray; he should pray with his mind.
You can think in your mind to Hashem that it shouldn’t hurt so much. You should pray that the dentist should succeed, that the dentist shouldn’t ruin the next tooth over. Sometimes a dentist botches up the next tooth; you didn’t know that’s why you have to come back for a second time. Teeth on both sides might become ruined because of this one tooth that he saved. So you have a lot to pray for; a lot of crying out you need at the dentist.
Golden Troubles
And so when you’re pressed in any way – if you feel that old age is catching up with you; you’re losing your grip, you feel you’re not as beautiful as you used to be, you see that you’re turning gray, or you feel that you’re not as successful as you wanted to be. Or sometimes worse troubles – sickness and poverty, chas v’shalom, trouble with children or with a spouse – it’s a golden opportunity. Just the opposite of what you think! You think it’s a dark hour of your life. You should know that’s a bright light in your life.
Only that you have to seize the opportunity; if you experience pain and forget this function, then you’re losing out on its most valuable accomplishment. You shouldn’t just sink into despondency; you should respond! You should rise to the opportunity and call out to Hashem! And not once – again and again; days, weeks, years, whatever it is, never give up! You should squeeze out all that you can, and that’s what will transform your time of falling into a time of real success. And even if you continue to fall, chas v’shalom, you have already succeeded thereby more than at any other time in your life. Because no matter what happens, the result will be good because there’s no greater result than the achievement of reishis da’as, the highest form of understanding.
Broken Hearts and Successful Lives
If you take your broken heart or your half-broken heart and call out to Hashem, that’s your success in life. No matter what happens you lived life for a purpose – you became Aware of Hakadosh...
