It's Up to You! | Rabbi Joey Haber

I'm going to give you an interesting perspective on how to view your world and your life. The Ketav Sofer says that How does it make sense? When Hashem gives a Beracha to the whole Klal Yisroel, how could everyone be equal and everyone equally deserve it? When Hashem says it's going to rain, everyone deserves the rain? Some people have better intentions, some people have worse. So he says, what it means is, is whenever Hashem is giving a general Beracha, it's not a reward. Rather, he says, I'm going to read you the words, It's a set-up to serve Hashem. And in this way, everyone could be equal. Since everyone equally wants to serve Hashem, Hashem gives you the opportunity, each person, according to his level. What the Ketav Sofer is saying is that there's nothing that's a reward or punishment. It's a set-up that depends on what you do with it. And you could either turn the life that you're living into incredible reward, an incredible blessing, or you could turn the life you're living into something that's incredibly painful. It's up to you. So when you look around at the world and you see other people that you don't have and you say to yourself: Oh, my life is so frustrating! You did that. Your life isn’t actually frustrating. You decided that it should feel like a curse. And it could be the same life that you're living, with the same people and the same wife and the same children, and you could see it as an incredible blessing. I said this a few months ago, in a Shiur, and the next day, I got a text message. I'd like to share it with you. The text message said, And then he says his name and he says he's the head of a Yeshiva, a prominent Yeshiva in a Frum community. I sent him back, And then he sends this back. He says, Sometimes you can make your life miserable by looking at other people's lives and automatically, you see someone else's life or how someone else looks and automatically, it makes you feel like your life is miserable. Or you could look inward and see how your life is incredible. It's really totally up to you. And that's why the pasuk says, I'm putting before you both ברכה and קללה. Your life is up to you to determine whether it's bad, or whether it's incredibly good.