Going Nowhere 

God took you and brought you out of the iron crucible, out of Egypt. (Devarim 4:20) 

The Lubavitcher Rebbe referred to “going down” as pressing down on a spring. On the surface, things are getting “worse.” It feels like everything is just going down.  

However, the lower you go, the more energy is added to the spring. Every downward movement adds to the power of the spring to propel you even higher when the time comes.  Hardships are there to prepare you for the next move upward.  

I knew a family that struggled for years. They got into the habit of going to multiple grocery stores every week to find the best deals for simple items like tuna fish and sliced cheese. Instead of luxury cruises to European destinations, they discovered hiking and camping all over Israel.  

They learned to cheer on their friends as they closed new business deals, received promotions at work, and dined at high-scale restaurants on luxury cruises.  

One day, the father got a new job.  In a few years, they had accumulated a nice amount of money.  The spring had uncoiled in their life.  

The Great Bounce 

I visited them recently. They had a bigger car and were living in a nicer apartment, but their lifestyle didn’t change. They still went hiking and collected coupons.  

The extra money went to college funds and pieces of real estate to help their children for when it’s time to build families of their own.  

The father said that money is called zuzim, something that is always moving. He personally experienced money moving to and from his pocket, so he stays conservative. The lessons he learned when times were tough carried with him to more prosperous times, making his rise even greater — and longer lasting.  

The years his family spent with less income were his “Egyptian exile.” They spent years in the iron crucible, being burnt from below to eradicate all their lives so they could shine their brightness.  

It was the time that he was sinking, and sinking, and sinking — on top of a spring that kept contracting and building up energy.  

Such is the case with us.  

Running in Place  

We all have times when it feels like we are going nowhere. Our careers are frozen, our relationships feel stale, and prospects for improvement appear helpless.  

Those are some of the best times! 

We have the opportunity to serve Hashem under difficult circumstances. God rewards us according to our effort, and if we have to maintain ourselves while carrying a heavier weight, that requires more effort.  

At the same time, we are getting better.  

Maintaining the best qualities we have under duress is like being burned in a crucible. Those qualities we value most, we will hold onto and even strengthen. Things that weren’t that important are often discarded—like dross in high heat. 

Will a lull in excitement in our lives cause us to sleep 18 hours during Shabbat, or will we dig in and recite more Psalms?  

Will watching others achieve cause us to hate them? Will we resist the urge to speak loshon hara about them simply because the big influencers on social media are now their personal friends?  

If we can hold on to what is most important to us under the hardest duress, it may look like we are going nowhere by just maintaining, but where it counts, we are pushing the spring lower, positioning ourselves to blast off to the heavens.  

Some Simple Tips 

It’s easier said than done.  

When you are in a rut, it can feel like the inertia pushing you down will keep you there forever. You can feel helpless and submit to bitterness and hate. Hashem tells us that the worst sin is despair, in which you feel it’s hopeless to try and do better.  

Our biggest enemies are Mitzrayim, which is Hebrew for those with narrow limits.  Our existence is based on always striving to break boundaries, especially those imposed upon ourselves. That’s why we are called Yisrael, Hebrew for straight on the path to God.  

God is infinite, so our path breaks all boundaries.  

My favorite hack is to make a to-done list. Think about everything you want to do today. Include a lot of victories that you can have and will feel good about. Add to your to-done list for the day not speaking loshon hara, not listening to loshon hara, learning Torah for a set time, praying to Hashem. 

At the end of the day, give yourself a point or a check for everything you did.  

For sure, add the things you want over the long term – those big goals that will help you out of a rut. But start with the short-term goals you can execute quickly that take you closer to these bigger ones. 

Make sure there is enough you can do today where you can look at this list and quantify all the ways you burnt your dross, pushed lower on the spring, and positioned yourself to propel to even higher on your path to Hashem.  

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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, 300 Marketing Solutions, 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.