Life with Hashem is a Life 

I had a friend who was the most intelligent painter you could ever meet. 

We grew up together. He was not the smartest among us, nor was he the most charming. He  barely passed his classes in school – we thought he passed only because he was captain of the lacrosse team.  

After we graduated high school, we went off to university and my buddy became a painter. When I visited home, we went out for football and French fries.  

He was always the life of the party.  

Years later, I landed a nice gig with a Wall Street bank. One day, there was a huge computer crash in our investment department. Our IT team couldn’t fix it so they hired a few consultants, and they couldn’t fix it either.  

Then, out of nowhere, my old friend walks in. I thought he was there to paint the hallway.  

We hugged, agreed to have lunch together. Then, with a look of focus that I never saw from him before, he says, “Excuse me.” He walks over to the Senior VP of Global Investments, calls him by his first name, and by the time everyone on the floor stopped gasping, he figured out what was wrong.  

By lunchtime, everything was up and running.  

How Lunchtime became Happy Hour 

We sit down for lunch, and he is joking around as if we were still kids in school. Every time I try to ask, he starts talking about football and the Rolling Stones.  

Suddenly, he gets serious.  

“It was mom. I was satisfied to keep painting when she had an “intervention”. Intervention? More like she took out her belt and drew tread marks all over my back. She knew I could go as far as you guys.  When I tried telling her that I had problems focusing, she really started swinging. She screamed that if I just stopped eating so much sugar, I could focus.” 

I tried to keep from laughing.  

“You can laugh all you want. I have access to your bank’s systems, and I know it takes you three years to earn what I make in one. Lunch is on me.” 

I stop laughing. He smiled and motioned to the waitress to bring us both steak meals.  

“The moment I stopped eating sugar, I discovered that I could focus. I took a computer networking course, and everything just clicked. Once I kept away from the sugar, I discovered abilities I never knew I had.” 

Greatness from God 

There are countless stories of people who take on the commandment of shmirat habrit (guarding the covenant, personal holiness) and gain what can only be described as superpowers.  

King Solomon warns us not to give our power over to women. By doing so, we stunt our abilities and thus never realize what we can do.  

The most powerful substance in our body has the power to create someone with 100 trillion electrical connections, over 100,000 km long (more than twice the circumference of the earth) vascular system, 37 trillion cells, and 3.16 billion pairs of DNA in each cell.  

When we waste this material through sexual misconduct, we throw away our spiritual and physical energy. The result is that we start to think and act in a droopy way, at least compared to what we are capable of.  

The moment we stop, we retain this powerful energy. People in their thirties who stopped for the first time in 20 years went from waking up at 8:30 AM to waking up at 4:30 AM. They went from spending 90% of their free time on screens that scroll entertainment to learning Torah, building skills, and working on specific goals in life – and achieving them.  

Just like my friend who changed one bad behavior and discovered the greatness that was always buried inside, when you take on a life of mitzvot, you are forcing yourself to stop doing all the things that kept you from your own personal greatness.  

You break your nature and leap beyond it.  

The Life-Giving Power of Shabbat 

Even on vacation, we get stressed out.  

We must hold to our itinerary. The car we rent could be smelly. The room we reserved could be dirty. We are constantly surrounded by people we don’t know, and we are still connected to our devices.  

On a good day, after experiencing things you never saw, you could be flying high – only to open your phone, check the news, and be instantly dragged down to earth. 

To guard Shabbat, Hashem forbids us anything that might cause us stress.  

You cannot read the news. You cannot check your emails. You cannot see how your stocks are performing. You cannot touch money. You cannot touch machines. You cannot talk about politics, finance, or business.  

God forbids you to do anything that can raise your blood pressure.  

You go to Beit Knesset where you know everyone. You know what to expect in the prayers. You have a meal with your family. You see friends. You are surrounded by your brothers and sisters.  

You pray to Hashem Who lovingly accepts you into His embrace.  

This is the type of rest that arms you with vigor and strength to handle anything the new week throws at you.  

The better we observe Shabbat, the stronger we become. We can tap into more internal powers when taking on every challenge of life. 

Hashem is the giver of life. He gives us our life and gives us the Torah on how to live to its fullest.  

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, Center Stage Marketing, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.