Aspirations – The Spice of Life

Translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody

Aspirations are the spice of life. They are what enables a person to fly out of bed in the morning. People who aspire have smiles on their faces – they’re never depressed or disappointed. A temporary setback doesn’t damage strong aspirations. A champion athlete won’t be discouraged by temporary defeat – he’ll simply try harder to win the next game. Since he’s always trying harder, he’s always improving. Tzaddikim and Torah scholars weren’t born that way. They became great because they aspired. Do you think that Rabbi Yehoshua Cohen learned all the Gemara by heart because he’s intelligent? No way; as a young boy in yeshiva, he would wake up at dawn during vacations, pray at the earliest minyan, then learn for eight hours straight from 6 AM to 2 PM. And that was only his morning session, and while on vacation…
 
Idleness and boredom are the opposite of aspirations. They lead to sadness, depression, and many other physical ailments too. Idle people do unproductive things and waste the most valuable, irreplaceable commodity on has – time.
 
How can one strengthen aspirations? You can do that by setting goals for yourself. Decide on things you want to accomplish. Create challenges for yourself. People ask me if those challenges should be realistic or not; the answer depends on your level of emuna. To accomplish something, you have to couple really hard work with lots of personal prayer. But once you create that challenge in life, wait and see how fast you fly out of bed in the morning; you’ll be like a rocket because your aspirations are your after-burner.
 
So many Yeshiva kids and Kollel young men are bored and unproductive in their Torah because they lack aspirations. Create challenges for yourself! Pick a subject, like “joy” or “charity” and learn everything that the Gemara, Midrash, Zohar, and Shulchan Aruch say about it. Become an expert in your field of interest. Decide to write a book, too. Wait and see how these aspirations will fuel your learning, your praying, your hitbodedut, and your entire service of Hashem. You’ll be so much more energized and happy, and you’ll achieve so much more.
 
With challenges in life, you’ll see blessings in life. And conversely, no challenges bring no blessings. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the ultimate blessing…
 
Don’t forget, though – you must be realistic about your starting point. Don’t try to run a marathon before you’ve walked around the block. Even if someone gives you the very best, detailed map there is, you can’t reach your destinations if you don’t know where you presently are.
 
People who have aspirations don’t have time to look at other people’s faults. They also don’t have time to listen to lashon hara or to gossip on the phone. If we could turn this entire concept into a mathematical equation, we could say:
 
Aspirations = Personal Productivity
 
Do you know why so many men don’t guard their eyes? It’s simple – they either don’t believe that they’re capable of doing so, or they don’t aspire at all. Don’t forget – the Torah commands us to guard our eyes. One who aspires to fulfill the Torah’s commandments and truly aspires to get close to Hashem will also aspire to guard his eyes. And, when he realizes that a connection with a true tzaddik will help him close his physical eyes and open his spiritual eyes, then he’ll seek a connection to a true tzaddik.
 
By the way, one who sees the world through spiritual eyes does not see faults in other people. This is a one of the gauges of true holiness.
 
To strengthen aspirations, one must strengthen emuna, of course. Hashem can do anything; therefore, the more a person is connected to Hashem, the more he overcomes his individual limitations and the more he is now able to achieve. Yet, there is no achievement without prior aspirations.
 
May we all aspire for the day when all of mankind lovingly accepts Hashem’s rule. Yes, we can spread emuna all across the globe – we simply must have strong aspirations to do so, with constant prayers, may Hashem answer all of the, amen!