Just Start Walking

A group of friends once made a trip together. On the way to their destination, they saw someone standing with a backpack on a desert crossroads. Seven days later, on their way home, they encountered the same person with the backpack standing on the same desert crossroads in the hot sun. The group of friends asked the backpacker, “Why are you standing here?”

“I want to go to Jerusalem,” responded the backpacker. “I’m waiting for a ride.”

“How long have you been waiting?” they asked.

“More than a week,” he answered.

They laughed. “Jerusalem’s only a two-day walk from here. If you’d have started walking, you could have been there and back four times already!”

Many of us want to change, yet we expect it to happen automatically, with no effort on our part. Life doesn’t work that way. An old Hebrew expression says, “Even a journey of a thousand kilometers begins with a first step.”

The first step toward teshuva and character perfection is establishing a daily 60-minute session of personal prayer and self-evaluation. Once we take the first step on the road to spiritual gain, Hashem helps us the whole way. Dovid Hamelech (King David) describes Hashem’s constant guidance along the journey to self improvement when he says to Hashem, “You held my right hand” (Tehillim 73:23).

Our most important personal prayers are requests for enhanced emuna and that Hashem should open our eyes to what we need to correct. Such requests coupled with daily self-evaluation and teshuva invoke a marvelous illumination of the soul that bring a person to true happiness and inner peace.

Prayer, especially personal prayer, doesn’t come easy. Since prayer brings a person so very close to Hashem, and one’s entire soul-correction is dependant on prayer, the evil inclination tries everything in its power to impede prayer. Once a person decides to invest his or her daily 60-minutes in personal prayer, the evil inclination will present a long list of obstacles and impediments. Therefore, we should pray to Hashem that He help us pray; particularly, we should ask Hashem to enable us to speak to Him in personal prayer every day.

Once we succeed in establishing our personal prayer session, it’s a good idea to devote the first few minutes in praying for prayer, as follows: “Hashem, please give me the words to express myself. Help me think clearly and verbalize my thoughts. Help me thank You for all the wonderful gifts You give me daily, and help me evaluate myself and make teshuva properly. More than anything, please give me the faith that You are with me and that You listen to my prayers.”

Any worthwhile endeavor begins with prayer. Adding prayer before whatever we do gives life an indescribable sweetness. With prayer, a person is granted a passport to success.

Reb Natan of Breslev said, “Wherever I see deficiency, I see lack of prayer!”

Reb Nosson’s above remark is the secret of a good life: Since lack of prayer is the cause of deficiency, with prayer, we can attain literally anything and fulfill all of our needs, both material and spiritual. Yet amazingly, most people don’t pray at all! They claim that they lack the time for prayer. Earlier in this book, we told the story of the disheveled and ragged prince sleeping on the park bench; when one of the King’s ministers found him and asked why he doesn’t turn to his all-powerful father for assistance, the prince answered that he didn’t have the time…

The fortunate person that discovers the secret of the good life can’t go for a day without prayer. Indeed, those who discover the power of prayer can’t go for a few hours without feeling a thirst for prayer. The more one prays, the more one attains proximity to Hashem. The closer we are to Hashem, the more He illuminates our souls. The more He illuminates our souls, the happier we feel. That’s the secret of the good life in a nutshell.

Practice makes perfect. Now that you’ve gone through this book a first time, try reviewing it again from cover to cover. The more you internalize the principles of emuna, the easier you’ll be able to apply them in everyday life.

Emuna is the axis around which the world rotates. As we strengthen our cognizance that Hashem runs the universe, does everything for our ultimate good, and has a specific purpose in everything He does, namely, to assist us to correct our souls and to cling to Him, we find ourselves happier and more successful in everything we do.

May Hashem bless you always and help you attain all your heart’s wishes for the very best, Amen.