If avodas Hashem were our business, we would do our best to make it flourish
The Jewish world is reeling from the wave of tragedies that began on Lag B’omer. Even the biggest apikorus would have a hard time blaming it all on chance. Hashem is sending us a wake-up call. We all know that. But what does He want from us?
We all have plenty of shortcomings. Almost every area of our mitzvah performance has room for improvement. But when Hashem takes the lives of dozens of people, it’s not a gentle nudge to make a marginal upgrade. It’s a demand for major change. We have to find the areas in our avodas Hashem that need serious repair, not just fine-tuning.
But even after we identify the problems, just saying “I’m going to work on X” won’t lead to lasting change. We need to make a kabbalah — a concrete, tangible step to address our area of weakness. The yetzer hara wants us to choose something grandiose, because he knows it won’t be sustainable. A good kabbalah has to be small and achievable.
But then we’re back to square one. The point is to really change, not just tweak our halachic performance in one area. How can we give our small kabbalah real transformative power?
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