Poof!

We’ve all been down the same path. Life was more or less routine until we decided to strengthen the spiritual side of our lives. Then, the trouble started! We beg Hashem in daily personal prayer to help us overcome a certain habit or negative trait, and it gets twice as bad. We pray that our worst-case scenario won’t come true, and suddenly we’re hit with a challenge that’s worse that our worst-case scenario, something that we never expected. What’s going on here? Is this Hashem’s idea of humor, Heaven forbid? We turn to Him with all our hearts, and boom, we get hit between the eyes? Is this the product or our prayers and efforts?

No, it’s not. Since this world is a realm of equal choice between good and evil, we don’t get a red carpet rolled out for us each time we pray or do something of merit. Hashem allows the evil inclination to attempt to discourage us, to test our emuna. Many people don’t pass the test; they’re more than ready to throw in the towel the minute life gets a little bit sticky. That’s unfortunate. If they had only held on a little bit more, they would and could have seen big miracles.

Rebbe Nachman tells a parable about a brave soldier. Against all odds, he fights his way to the enemy king’s castle. He has overcome enemy artillery, cavalry and countless perils. He reaches the walls of the castle and his heart drops: they look impregnable, twenty-feet high, concrete-reinforced and 3-feet thick. The soldier, about to collapse in utter fatigue from days of nonstop combat, thinks at first that all is lost. He can’t breach those walls. He can’t capture the enemy. He can’t possibly win the war. Suddenly, a little voice pops in his head, ever so briefly; it whispers, “Approach the walls – touch them. They’re nothing, only a mirage.” The voice then leaves.

The war-weary soldier approaches the walls. They look formidable, but they’re not. Nor are they brick and concrete. They’re just a wall of solid cobwebs. All the soldier has to do is to blow on the wall! So he takes a deep breath and with a big “poof”, he knocks the wall completely down, walks right in the palace, captures the enemy king and wins the war.

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Do you remember how as children, we’d love to pick the dandelions after their stems grew into those white puff balls with the little floret parachutes? We’d inflate our cheeks and give a great big poof sending the wispy feather-like florets flying all over the place. Rebbe Nachman tells us that we can do the same thing to all of our obstacles – just poof them away.

How?

A few weeks ago, a young women wrote me a tearful email telling me that after six years of marriage and countless hours of praying, she finally became pregnant. But, four months into the pregnancy, she lost the baby. “Why is Hashem tormenting me?”, she asks.

It’s tough to console a once-expectant mother who now finds out that she won’t be a mother in the meanwhile. There are a myriad of reasons as to why women miscarry and who the souls of the unborn were, connected to Kabbala, reincarnation and soul corrections. But, that’s not the focus of this article. In short, it’s all from Hashem and all for the very best, whether or not we understand why.

At any rate, I sought my beloved teacher Rav Shalom Arush’s advice as the best way to answer the young woman who had miscarried. He said, “First of all, her pregnancy shows that she and her husband are able to have children naturally, with Hashem’s loving grace. Second, her pregnancy shows that her prayers are working. Resistance to the exact thing we’re praying for is a sign that the prayers are making a big impression above. Tell her not to give up. Let her keep praying, and she has my blessing that she’ll be the mother of a healthy child soon. The only obstacle between her and being a mother is just a few more prayers…”

Added troubles despite our prayers are a wonderful sign that our prayers are working. The “enemy wall” of our tribulation might look impregnable, but maybe our next prayer just might be the “poof” that knocks it down. Don’t give up!