Start Enjoying Life!

Translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody

A person who realizes that as long as he still breathes, Hashem wants him to continue performing his task on earth. As such, Hashem will continue to fulfill all his needs – food, clothing, and shelter. In short, Hashem will continue to “grease his wheels,” as we see in the following story.

A person once came to Rebbe Nachman, requesting a blessing for ample livelihood. Rebbe Nachman answered with the following parable:

Once, a village textile merchant made his periodic trip to his wholesale supplier in the big city to purchase rolls of fabric. After he loaded his purchase on his wagon, the wagon couldn’t move properly because of the heavy weight it carried. The village merchant returned to his supplier and asked, “Would you possibly have some axle grease so I can grease my wheels?” The supplier nodded with a smile, offering the merchant all the grease he needed. The wagon then moved smoothly and swiftly, and the wheels no longer squeaked.

In the middle of his journey home, the merchant encountered a neighbor, a peddler with his own horse and wagon. The neighbor commented, “I saw from afar how swiftly your wagon moves. It’s an old wagon just like mine – what’s your secret?”

“No secret,” answered the merchant. “Simply, my supplier in the big city gave me some excellent grease for the wheels.”

The peddler didn’t think twice and made a beeline to the wholesale fabric supplier in the big city. He asked for some wheel grease. The supplier scoffed, “I sell wholesale rolls of fabric – I’m not a grease dealer! You can’t purchase wheel grease here!”

The peddler protested: “Then why did you give wheel grease to my friend the textile merchant?”

“That’s different,” laughed the wholesaler. “He buys from me all the time. He needed the wheel grease in order to get home and sell what he bought from me, so I made sure he got the grease. But I don’t keep grease in stock, and I certainly don’t give grease to people that don’t do business with me.”

Rebbe Nachman then explained to the person that asked him for livelihood, “My disciples devote their lives to Torah and prayer. They can’t serve Hashem if they and their families have nothing to eat, so I bless them with livelihood. But in your case, since all you are interested in is livelihood and you don’t devote yourself to Torah study and prayer, I’m not a grease dealer!” (Siach Sarfei Kodesh 5:48).

Start Living
 

People’s lack of emuna prevents them from enjoying life. They could be enjoying every day – reveling in the growth of their children and trying their best to be a little bit better every day. They had plenty to eat yesterday, yet they opt to worry about the future. They sees the world through the dark-colored glasses of no emuna and fret about what will be tomorrow. Maybe they won’t have a job? Maybe the economy will go bust? Maybe there will be a war? Maybe they won’t have food to eat… These negative thoughts invoke the type of stern judgments that make people suffer. In other words – with their worry, they’re their own worst enemy.
 
We onlookers implore the worry-wort: stop your ridiculous worrying! Hey, man – you have everything going for you! Enjoy life! Be happy with what you have and get on with your life! You’re making yourself crazy with all your worries about what will be tomorrow. Meanwhile, you’re wasting today!
 
Why be concerned about future problems? With emuna, we know that if Hashem gives us a problem in the future, He will also give us the tools to deal with that problem. But today, we don’t have the problem so we don’t need the tools. Who is silly enough to carry a car jack when riding the bus or train to work? The worried commuter might say, “But maybe I’ll have to change a flat tire?” We tell him that he doesn’t need to worry about changing a tire until he’ll be behind the wheel of his own car.
 
We laugh at the above example, but many of us are proverbial worriers who carry heavy car jacks of worry in our emotional brief case when we’re not even driving a car. You don’t need to worry about tomorrow’s flat tires when today you’re riding the subway. We also don’t need to worry if the moon will fall out of the sky tomorrow. Let’s focus on our task at hand and leave all the worrying for the Creator. Rashi implores us to live our lives with simple innocence and not to preoccupy ourselves with future worries.