One Step Closer | Rabbi Mordechai Stern

Sometimes we're disturbed by the question, Why does it have to be so hard? Why does it have to be so challenging? And it is so difficult. The Gemara tells us, Reish Lakish teaches us, A person is faced with the challenges of the Yetzer Hara every day, without specific help from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, he’ll fall into the hands of the Yetzer Hara. It's simply too difficult for us to beat the Yetzer Hara on our own. We need help from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Why would HaKadosh Baruch Hu rig the game like that? Why would HaKadosh Baruch Hu give us a challenge that we cannot win, and then when we try very hard, the Ribono shel Olam helps us vanquish our foe? Why didn't the Ribono shel Olam put us in a game, in a challenge that we can win, and allow us to do it on our own? We see this in the original Vayimaen moment with Yosef HaTzaddik. He pushed and he pushed back, and finally, according to one מאן דאמר, he was at the brink of failure, and just then, HaKadosh Baruch Hu עזריה ליה, HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent him the דמות דיוקנו של אביו, the face of his father at the window to save him from the חטא. He needed that help. The Dubno Maggid, in Sefer Ohel Yaakov, says something unbelievable. He says that when a child learns how to walk, you stand him up, he can walk one step. That's not enough. So his mother stands a half-a-step away from the child, and holds out her arms, and the toddler goes and reaches out his arms, and he takes one tottering, faltering step beyond this comfort zone, into his mother's embrace. And then what does she do? She moves two steps away. Says the Dubno Maggid: It says, The Ribono shel Olam is always teaching us. He wants us to grow. He wants us to outgrow the limitations of what we naturally are capable of. We're an אדם, a human being, with an unbelievably Ruchniusdiker צלם אלוקים, that can raise us higher and higher. So the Ribono shel Olam says: Here, I'm going to give you a Nisayon. It's just beyond your ability to overcome it. And it's hard, but He helps us. We strain and we stretch ourselves to the maximum of our capability, and we take that extra step, and with Hashem’s Siyata D’Shmaya, we're successful. And then tomorrow we're faced with a bigger Nisayon. Why does it have to be so hard? Because the Ribono shel Olam doesn't want us to be complacent. He doesn't want us to remain the same. The Ribono shel Olam wants us to grow and keep on becoming more than we could before. So when we ask ourselves: Why does it have to be so hard? Remember, Hashem's holding out his arms to us, and he's saying: Mein Kind, take one more step. Come one more step closer. Push yourself, you can do it. And we'll do it. And when we feel his arms around us, know that tomorrow, it's going to be another hard step, so we can come that much more closer.