A man once observed two workers on the street in front of his house. One was digging a hole in the ground, and the other was filling it up. The men kept repeating this puzzling procedure every couple of yards.
“What are you doing, wasting your time like that?” the man asked.
“We were hired by the Parks Commission to plant trees along this street,” answered the first worker.
“So where are the trees?!” the man exclaimed.
“Oh, we are a team of three,” the second worker answered. “The third guy, the tree planter, is not here today. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do our jobs…”
There are times when we feel like those workers, plugging away, day in and day out, doing our part in Avoda, Mivtzoyim, Chinuch, etc. Yet, we do not see our work taking root. Sometimes we feel like we lay the groundwork from which we expect something special will grow, only to see the ground get filled again; nothing seems to have come out of it. Despite our hard work, we do not see results.
There are times when we feel like those workers, plugging away, day in and day out, doing our part in Avoda, Mivtzoyim, Chinuch, etc. Yet, we do not see our work taking root. Sometimes we feel like we lay the groundwork from which we expect something special will grow, only to see the ground get filled again; nothing seems to have come out of it. Despite our hard work, we do not see results.
But then we remember that our Tafkid is not to yield results. Our Tafkid is to keep working. Hashem alone knows when the fruits of our labor will show. Only He knows the true purpose in our work and which results are the true objective of our investment.
The Posuk says: ושמתם את דברי אלה על לבבכם, You shall place these words (of Hashem) upon your hearts. Should it not have said בלבבכם, in your hearts?
The Posuk says: ושמתם את דברי אלה על לבבכם, You shall place these words (of Hashem) upon your hearts. Should it not have said בלבבכם, in your hearts?
The Kotzker Rebbe answers: There are times when the heart is not open to accept or yield to the words of Torah, yet, this does not absolve one from placing them, at least, upon his heart. For the time will come when the heart will open, and the words of Torah that were painstakingly laid upon it, will seep into the heart and have their effect.
The Yetzer Hara tries to discourage us by the seeming lack of results of our hard work. He tries to convince us that we are like the two workers in the story who are accomplishing nothing. He makes up and shows us “proof” that our work is pointless and therefore unnecessary. Furthermore, he tries to debilitate us by pointing out our right to be angry, frustrated, disillusioned, cynical and disinterested because of the lack of results.
We must remember that in Hashem's eyes we are not like those two workers. Doing our Tafkid is the only part of the project that Hashem wants us to do; it is a “fruit of our labor” in and of itself. We need to remember not try and measure the success of our Tafkid by looking for results (the profit) to justify our investment.
We must not withdraw from our investment due to the Yetzer Hara’s lack of interest.
We must remember that in Hashem's eyes we are not like those two workers. Doing our Tafkid is the only part of the project that Hashem wants us to do; it is a “fruit of our labor” in and of itself. We need to remember not try and measure the success of our Tafkid by looking for results (the profit) to justify our investment.
We must not withdraw from our investment due to the Yetzer Hara’s lack of interest.
The profit is our Avoda itself.
In yiddishkeit, its not only the end result that Hadhem looks at, He appreciates, loves and cherishes our journey - the process of getting "there". Let's make the process meaningful!
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