Sure Win, No Loss
Sometimes I can hear the Yetzer in my head saying: “Wake up, moron, this is the real world! Stop with the mambo jambo. You used to have a big house and an Alfa Romeo…”
I want to share with you and your readers my personal story of a sure win and no loss. This exemplifies everything I’ve been reading in Rabbi Arush’s books and listening in your English CDs about emuna.
I made aliyah with my non-Jewish wife and two children after closing my company in Mexico. I am a computer guy, technician; network manager and programming are some of my abilities. After working for 6 months in a small computer shop, a friend of mine offered me to open a computer shop in a big city, like partners. He was going to be the investor of money and contacts, and I would provide the work and the know-how. I was assigned a salary of NIS 7,000 plus 50% of the earnings of the company. At that time I thought “This is going to be a win-win situation, no way I can fail!”
Money for advertisement, contacts that included several big private and governmental organizations, and my 25 years of experience on marketing and computers plus the help of a wealthy local guy surely meant that I would hit big. A piece of cake!
To make a long story short after three years the company was losing money and I was working 15 hours a day. No matter what I did the ends never seemed to meet. My life at home was hell, because even we had enough money for surviving, we were not able to do the same things that we were used to doing in Mexico City – like 5 stars vacation in Acapulco, domestic help in the house, two cars, and all the rest.
I started to see my wife’s dark side. I was living with the enemy!
At some point I asked my partner to close the company, because I could not see any future and I wanted him to stop losing money. So we agreed. To make things worse I was divorcing my wife after discovering that we just couldn’t get along.
So, here I am, alone and scared to death.
I’m a strange country, my contacts burned, with no money but no debts, without a job, and divorced. Some loser…
I thought again “It does not matter, I am very clever. This is an opportunity. I am going to write some new software program and I am going to sell it, I have done this before…”
But the laws of emuna that work in Israel are not the same laws of “nature” that govern the rest of the world.
I was blocked.
I got to the point where no flesh and blood could help me.
That was when I started to take interest in my spiritual life.
I went to some Torah’s lesson in Spanish at first. I started with tefillin. And then one of my customers gave me the link to Breslev Israel website and the word “Emuna” started to have a place in my vocabulary. Rabbi Shalom Arush’s book Garden of Emuna made its effect on me and gave me a new life.
Now I had two choices: Get a job or try to repair computers from my house.
So I opened my MS Excel spreadsheet and I made statistics of the last two years of my company’s life to see how many computers I received to repair. The average was 2.5 computers a day.
So I assumed that if a shop in a good location with advertisement and contacts, I was receiving 2.5 computers a day, then working from my house and with almost no advertisement I could expect a maximum of one computer a day.
Not enough!
So here I am again depressed, thinking that my life was a failure, not seeing how to provide for myself and my kids. I decided to give a chance to the “house project” while looking for a job.
I was sure that everything would get more complicated.
Again, to make a long story short, from the very first day I was receiving three computers a day to repair, and without the infrastructure costs of a shop! This was more than enough to pay my expenses and even save some money. It made no sense! But I was happy!
This is it, I thought mistakenly after one year of these blessings. Now I know how to do business in Israel. I am going to double the advertisement budget and I am going to grow.
And again I was receiving more computers, working more hours and making the same amount of money than before.
So I kept going, some miracles happened and instead of investing in advertisement I started to invest money on books, CD lessons, and charity. At one point, while talking to Hashem, I had a revelation.
“If by no earthly means I can make more money by working more, I am not going to make less money by working less.”
I was now investing from 1 to 2 hours a day on talking to Hashem and hearing CD lessons and reading the teachings of the tzaddikim.
And here I am, looking without fear to my next challenges and asking to Hashem to keep helping me.
Sometimes I can hear the Yetzer in my head saying: “Wake up, moron, this is the real world! Stop with the mumbo jumbo. You used to have a big house and an Alfa Romeo and a wife and thanks to your personal invisible deity, if it exists, you lose it all. And now, big shot, you have the guts of giving charity and you don’t even own a house….. What are you grateful for? Geraldo, you’re a loser! You are the one who needs charity!”
And you’re a liar, Mister Yetzer! What you call “success” with the big house and the Alfa Romeo came with the price of popping pills to be able to sleep, smoking substances to feel happy and well, and any occasion was good reason to drink, remember?
And I also remember the fear, and the emptiness…
And with Hashem’s help, I surely will get my real soul mate soon, and a house with shalom bayit, and regarding the sport car, you can keep it I am not interested anymore… It only gave to me bad feelings from other people.
With the help of my emuna books and cd’s, I have the strength to tell the Yetzer to shut up. It’s still a narrow bridge but I am not afraid anymore!
I haven’t learned so much Torah yet but I know one thing: Emuna is a sure win and no loss!
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