How Can One Strengthen When Constantly Failing?

Shlomo asks:"Hello. I know young people who find it difficult to strengthen in observing the commandments because they know there are many mitzvot in the Torah, and halacha requires many details and exactness like in the laws of lashon hara, keeping purity, etc., so they despair and give up because they see they keep falling again and again and cannot meet the demands of halacha. How can we help them?"

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Dear Shlomo, you ask a very important and common question in our generation. Many who are trying to strengthen themselves ask, what is the point of continuing to observe mitzvot when you still fall and commit sins? This is a question one can ask about any mitzvah, even about starting a new study, because how many of us have already tried and failed in the resolutions we took upon ourselves, and if we do not succeed, then why not give up on everything?

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, zt”l, in his book "Chafetz Chaim", explicitly describes these dilemmas and explains how the evil inclination distances us from the service of Hashem: "It says to him (the evil inclination): What benefit will you gain if you learn and delve into this matter (in the prohibition of lashon hara), will you be able to reach its end and keep your mouth guarded all your life?" (Chafetz Chaim, Day 5, 5th of Nissan).

In the next page, the Chafetz Chaim responds to all the claims of the evil inclination with an amazing and simple parable. Since I read it, I find myself repeating it to anyone in a similar situation. It is highly recommended to recite it and tell it to friends. And here is the parable:

Imagine a tired person after a hard day at work, walking along the beach when he suddenly discovers that the sea has brought ashore hundreds of thousands of pearls, gold, and precious stones. He can now work all night and become extremely rich! But the difficulty seems too great for him. "There is no chance that I will succeed in collecting all the gold and pearls on the beach," he says to himself "there are too many and the work is too hard." The hour is already late, and the man is tired and exhausted, he does not have a cart big enough, and there is not enough time to collect everything - because the sea will sweep everything back into the ocean, and by morning light, not a single pearl will remain on the beach. It is too hard, and only a heroic and resourceful person would manage to devote all his strength and energies to collect it all. "It's a lost battle!" the man says in despair, and so, with great sadness and a bleak look, he leaves the shore and returns home empty-handed...

"What are you doing?" we cry out to the man on the beach "it's absurd! Collect as much as you can, every pearl will enrich you for many days and years!"

Who would believe that the man on the beach could be any one of us? This is how the holy Chafetz Chaim describes the person in this world, who sees in front of him all the difficulties and sins and despairs from them.

One tells himself "only a great tzaddik is capable of never speaking lashon hara. I have no chance, so why bother trying to guard my tongue?" Another person says "why even try to delay the sin or overcome it occasionally? After all, I always end up back in the same state," a person returning to teshuvah thinks to himself "I can no longer learn the entire Torah at my age, I don't have the strength for it, so why set times for Torah study and make an effort? I will never be a scholar..."

All these people are identical to the person walking along the beach full of gold and pearls and they despair, not collecting anything and leaving their pockets empty of everything. Every mitzvah is a diamond, not just any temporary diamond; it elevates a person to an eternal level in the world to come. This is gold and pearls without measure and end.

One day that you collect diamonds and pearls is better than a thousand days in which you collected nothing... even if you performed one mitzvah out of many opportunities or refrained once from committing a sin out of many that you failed in - you have gained in that one time what you did not gain in a thousand times!

A wise person collects as much as he can, or at least what is easy to collect, because he understands that every small progress is a tremendous success. Every mitzvah is a diamond, every time we overcame a sin, every time we tried something, we managed to fill our bag for the world to come. After we leave this world, only the mitzvot we did will remain in our hands forever.