Assembly Required | Rabbi Chaim Dov Stark

Dovi is a seven-year-old kid, pudgy cheeks, cutest kid in the world. Dovi's dream is to have a remote control airplane. Boy, does he tell his father about this day and night. Well, finally came the day, his father comes into the house with a big box, wrapping paper, Dovi knows what it is. He's so excited. He rips open that wrapping paper and sees the picture on the box. Dad, you're the best. And he gives his father a big hug. The father feels so accomplished. He walks into the other room and Dovi opens the box. Suddenly, Dovi starts weeping. His father gets alarmed. He runs back in. Dovi, what's going on? He says, Dad, it's terrible. How could you do this to me? He goes: Dovi, what do you mean? I just got you the dream, the remote control airplane. He says: Yeah, Dad, but I opened the box, and there's one wing over here, the propeller’s over here, the engine’s over here. It's totally broken, Dad. What am I going to do with this? Cute little Dovi. His father picks him up, gives him a kiss, and says: Dovi, it's assembly required. We're going to build this together and it's going to soar all around town, and you're going to take pride in this. You did this. Simple story. However, a lot of times we're like Dovi. We want to work on ourselves and we want to make progress, but we just look at ourselves and we see parts of ourselves are all over the place. We got one wing over here, we got a propeller over there, we got an engine over here, and it's daunting and we just feel like this is broken. This can't be the way it's supposed to be. And we don't realize that Hashem chose us to be assembly required, to build ourselves, systematically. The world was created with ten מאמרות, ten sayings. It's not a coincidence that Avraham Avinu had ten Nisyonos, ten challenges, where he systematically built himself to become the father of our nation. The Ramchal writes that Hashem could have given us everything for free, as a present, completely assembled, but what would have happened? We would have had נהמא דכיסופא, the bread of embarrassment. We would have felt shame in Olam Haba that we didn't do it ourselves. Like Dovi's airplane, we could soar, but it's so much more geshmak, when we build that airplane. We're assembly required. We were born broken, the world is a broken place, and the whole purpose of this is not to be daunted or scared from that brokenness, but to build ourselves, systematically. Every time we go into the street, there are ups and there are downs, and there's a process over here, there's a building process. Sometimes we put the pieces together properly, sometimes we have to recalibrate and start again. A person accomplishes staying away from something that he shouldn't see, being able to push away his head, he's installing the engine. Another time, propeller. Wing after wing and soaring above. This is the ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש. We are a nation that can do this. We can build ourselves. There are going to be ups, there are going to be downs, but we have to enjoy the process, appreciate our achievements, and at the end, we’ll soar high, עד השמיים. אשרינו, מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו.