Want Proof That Life is Worth Living?

Meir asks: "I feel that my life is difficult, disappointing, and sometimes even discouraging. Despite moments of tranquility and happiness, I've felt recently that life is not important and that had I understood everything, I probably wouldn't have chosen to come to this world. Can you prove otherwise? Thank you."

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Hello and blessings, dear Meir. I feel your pain, and I'm sorry for what you're experiencing. It seems you're going through a tough time in life, and you're speaking from your pain.

Yet, try to understand nonetheless, that Hashem understands your reality and your well-being better than you do. And this can be proven easily.

Have you considered that your body contains countless ingenious systems created and operated by Hashem? Your body is made of billions of atoms that work in coordination. Even the smallest cell in your finger is more complex than the entire transportation system of New York City. Your hands are complex levers filled with coordinating joints that allow you to function in life. Your body employs 200 different muscles every step you take. In each of your eyes, there are over 120 million light receptors, allowing you to receive a sharp and colorful picture of the reality around you.

Your heart weighs only 300 grams but pumps around 8,000 liters of blood throughout your body each day. This means your heart can fill a swimming pool in just three days! But so many liters of blood require constant detoxification, and thus, every minute your liver filters two liters of blood from toxins. In a single drop of your blood, there are over 5 million red blood cells, and more than 200 billion red blood cells are created in your body daily.

The brain in your head is a wonder of creation, and there's no more sophisticated computer created in the entire universe: Your brain weighs only 1.5 kilograms, yet it operates 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) — a number greater than all the stars in an average galaxy, and all of them work in perfect coordination to allow you to process 100 million pieces of information per second, so you can see, hear, move, speak, remember, and think. There's no room here to detail all the amazing and complex processes that operate within your body. "How great are Your works, Hashem; in wisdom You made them all" (Psalms 104, 24).

Can there be any doubt that whoever created all these has great purposes for you?

And all these amazing systems are merely the external tool given to you in this world, so that your soul can operate the physical body like a driver in a car. And if this is just the outer shell, then imagine for yourself how great and important your soul is!

You are the driver, but what path do you choose for yourself in life? Do you trust the One who created you or, God forbid, reject His goodness?

There's no doubt that the One who created this whole amazing and ingenious system is wiser than you and me and knows what we do not know and could not understand in this world. Only an infinite Creator can create such a vast universe, a sophisticated body, and a wondrous soul.

Are you not sure that He knows what's good for you? And everything you consider good in this world, every joy and pleasure you have ever felt, all came only from Him. He knows exactly what will make you happy, what will make you sad, and what will benefit or harm you.

(Photo: shutterstock)

If this life truly wasn't good for you, then the Creator wouldn't have made you. For He knows the past, present, and future and everything happening in the world. He created all your soul's traits, intelligence, talents, your deepest desires, your thoughts, feelings, and everything in your world. He, in His wisdom, chose to create you and bring you to this world and gave you this body, this life because He knows the personal path He set for you will lead to your benefit, and He knows that in the end, you'll thank Him. The sages said that in the future, even for the negative, people will thank and bless "the Good and Benefactor," as they will understand the benefit in everything that happened to them in this world (Pesachim 50, A). Just like a sick person healed by a surgeon thanks the doctor with all his heart for the dedicated treatment. We will understand that everything happening to us in this world is meant to correct us from all the blemishes that clung to us, for the greatest good there is, which is spiritual benefit — the closeness to the Creator.

You just need to trust Him and believe that He does everything for the good. Like a one-year-old child must trust his father and mother that they know what's good for him — even if it hurts him because he needs an injection from a doctor and doesn't know why, or when he's forced to give up on an object he wants to put in his mouth and doesn't understand why it's taken from him. He can't understand, but he knows that his father and mother love him because they care for him and do good to him continuously.

Let me tell you a parable about the twins:

Two twins were developing in their mother's womb. One baby said to the other: "Who said we have a mother? Can we see her?", the second baby replied: "Our mother is everywhere around us, she gives us life every moment, and we feel her warmth. Every moment we receive oxygen, blood, water, and food through the umbilical cord — and all these come from her, so I know she cares for us and loves us."

Said the first baby: "But I'm unhappy here, and the space is becoming more and more cramped, and the moment the umbilical cord is disconnected, we'll die immediately without oxygen. Is this a loving mother?" The second baby replied: "I can see with my own eyes that mother cares for us, feeds, and gives us drink. I have no doubt she hasn't brought us into the world to suffer. I'm sure there's a purpose behind everything happening to us. And even after the umbilical cord is disconnected — I believe there's life after birth!"

Believe also that Hashem loves you and cares for your soul, and there are lives after death. The purpose of this world is to benefit you in the next world. Even the suffering you experience are merely birth pangs meant to correct defects in your soul and bring you to your spiritual completeness.

Continue to strengthen, and never give up or despair. Do not let your inclination defeat you. From your experience, learn how great your soul is, as the sages said: "The greater a person, the greater his evil inclination" (Succah 52, A), and they said: "According to the pain, so is the reward for the commandments" (Pirkei Avot 5:23), they taught us that one mitzvah done in pain is greater than a hundred mitzvot done without pain.

Now I'll ask you an important question: What are your true goals in life?

It may be that the goals you've set for yourself do not reflect your spiritual reality, and therefore cause you distress and despair. The sages said, "The soul in this world is like a king's daughter who married a peasant, and the peasant tries unsuccessfully to make the king's daughter happy. He buys her chickens, and she cries, he buys her goats, and she cries, and even if he buys her an expensive cow, she still sits and cries." Likewise, all the desires of this world cannot truly satisfy and delight the soul, for it is from the upper realms. Only Hashem's closeness can make her happy, a true engagement with Torah and mitzvot. The emptiness you feel may very well come from internal conflict between the material world and the spiritual world. Your soul cries out for greater things than life itself and despises the excessive materialism of this world.

This is why Hashem gave us the Torah, the manufacturer's manual for humans. So that we can learn to integrate the spiritual into the material world in the right way and achieve our spiritual perfection.

The only way to go through life in this world is through faith. When you choose to live for something greater than life itself: "Love Hashem your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Hashem gave us the Torah, and it is our spark of happiness in this world; it is our only gateway to the next world. When you study Torah and perform mitzvot with faith, you're not doing it for wealth, food, or the desires of sight or hearing, but from a true inner strength within you. It is your soul that merits to cling to its Creator. This is priceless and boundless.

Do you regularly watch the lectures presented on the Hidabroot website and channel? If you watch a different lecture each day — even just one hour each day, you'll discover a new world, and your world will open to new channels of spirituality and understanding of reality. Wishing you much success, my friend, may the good Lord be with you.