The Vilna Gaon gave a mashal that can be applied to many areas of Avodas Hashem.Once there was a girl in the marketplace selling apples.
Some thieves came and started stealing apples.
She just sat and gaped at them.
Someone came over and said, "Don't just stare, Stop them!"
She said "Why should I? They're just continuing and doing it anyway."
"Don't be foolish" she was told "Save whatever you can!"
The same is when we are trying to daven and we didn't manage to have Kavanah for some parts of the Tefillah. We shouldn't give up; we should instead at least save whatever we can!
If you are in middle of davening and realized that you already said so much of it without any thought, at least grab on to whatever you still have-whatever is still left of your tefillah.
If you are in middle of bentching and spaced out a little, continue wherever you are up to with some extra thought and concentration! It's never too late-as long as you are still in middle you can have kavannah and think about the words you still have left to say!
The same is with anything we are working on, even if we fall a little, the key is to not despair, but rather to still hold on to whatever we do have and build on it more and more!
It's like you're in my head...
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking about that today... Vacation messes me up./..
Thanks
Thank you so much-I was just thinking about this today and here my answer is! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIt's so hard to not get discouraged sometimes...but you're right; we can't ever give up. There's (almost) always something to salvage and as long as we're alive, to make right what was done wrong.
ReplyDeletevery true
ReplyDeleteRD-I was just thinking about it this morning. This lesson can be applied not only to tefillah but to many other things too. The summer is the perfect time to take this message to heart-especially since it seems to be flying by so quickly and slipping through my fingers! Instead of noticing how much of the summer is gone, how many apples I may have lost, I'll try to focus on how much I still have left of my summer and take advantage and use it well. I'm sure you will too!
ReplyDeleteAnon-thanks, I'm happy this post was so timely!
SIR-so true. We never should give up and there always should be ways to correct our mistakes and fix that which we have wronged.
Why the almost?
L-thanks!
I said almost because not always can we undo what we've done. We can do teshuva and move on but unfortunately, not every situation, and the damage caused, can be reversed.
ReplyDeletewow.. thanks
ReplyDeleteSIR-that is true. There are situations in which there is nothing we can do to change the way things turned out. At least we have teshuva - we are so lucky Hashem lets us correct our mistakes!
ReplyDeleteluv-glad you liked!
i read something in relations to a diet but can also be applied here. you are holding some eggs and one falls. are you going drop the rest just because that one egg fell? so this is a mashal for the the diet because if you mess up once you're not going to just forget it and give up because of this mistake. this mashal can also be applied to our lives.when we do something wrong or make a mistake etc., we shouldnt just 'throw the eggs on the floor' pick yourself up and learn from what happened.
ReplyDeletenechama-thanks. I've never heard that mashal but it's another great way to take this lesson for life. A lot of times people use comparisons with diets to help us learn lessons about self control and the gain we have from waiting for things that are worth it.
ReplyDelete