2024-03-08

Necessity to Press Olives to Extract Oil from Them

I still remember being quite tired of hearing "success" almost everyone wished me on autopilot when I told my friends and acquaintances in Jerusalem that I would leave Jerusalem for some personal mission in the Diaspora. I didn't ask each one of them what they exactly meant by "success", but I have good reason to assume that "success" for many, if not all, of them, means realization of what the ego wants.

The ultimate purpose of our life, or the reason why the soul "descends" to this physical world by borrowing a physical body and being coupled with the ego, is not to continue to "success", that is, to keep realizing what the ego wants but to accomplish spiritual growth.

Muscles of not only the body but also the soul can't grow if they remain in the comfort zone. Experiencing life challenges is one of the best ways to get out of the comfort zone. Chassidus teaches that each one of us is born with the necessary resources for getting over every life challenge we encounter.

When we only remain in the comfort zone, we often end up not noticing and making use of these resources that are buried inside us and are waiting to be used by us just as it's necessary to press olives to extract oil from them.

My "olives" are being pressed again since I left Jerusalem for my new personal mission. I wonder what kind of new "oil" will be extracted from this experience of encountering new life challenges and hopefully conquering them one after another.


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