Starting again
When a person falls
from his level he should know that this is sent from Heaven. The purpose of the
apparent rejection is to draw him closer. The reason for the fall is to spur the
person to make even greater efforts to draw closer to God. The thing to do is
to make an entirely new start. Start serving God as if you had never started in
your whole life. This is one of the most basic principles of serving God. We
must literally begin all over again every day.
Likutey Moharan I, 261
*
One of the great
rules in serving God is: Never allow yourself to fall completely.
Even if you feel you
have failed in some devotion or prayed without proper attention or fallen in
some other way, you must still try to keep as strong as you can and make a
whole new start. Act as if today you are only beginning to serve God. No matter
how many times you fall, pick yourself up and start again. Do this over and
over again. Otherwise you will never come close to God.
Pull yourself to God
with all your strength, regardless of whether you go up or down. No matter how
low you fall, make a determined effort to yearn and long to draw
closer to God. Cry out, pray and plead with God! Keep trying to do whatever you
can to serve God with joy. Without this inner determination, you will never be
able truly to approach God.
Keep on trying and
trying until you are unable to do anything but serve God at all times every day
of your life, even without any guarantee of a reward. Sometimes you may think you
are so far from God that you will have no reward in the world to come. Even so,
you must be willing to serve Him as best as you can even without a reward.
Even if you think
you are bound to go to hell, you must still do your part in serving God as best
as you can. Grab a mitzvah! Learn some Torah! Say a prayer… and God will do
what is good in His eyes.
It is impossible to
come to true service of God without facing all these trials. Every time you
fall, you must make a determined effort to pick yourself up and start all over
again – even many times each day – until eventually you will advance steadily
in God’s ways. Amen.
Sichot Haran #48
Taken from The Essential Rabbi Nachman.
Edited by Azamra Institute.
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