Struggles Are Signs of Growth: The Jewish Perspective on Faith and Resilience

My beloved, I press you to my heart and whisper in your ear: if your letter had told me about your mitzvot and good deeds, I would have said that I received a good letter from you. But now, since your letter tells me about your struggles, your downfalls, and your obstacles—I say that I received from you a very good letter.

Your spirit storms with the longing to be great. Please, do not picture in your mind the greatness of our sages as if they and their good inclination were one and the same. Rather, picture their greatness as a fierce war with all the lowly and base impulses within them. And know this: in the very moments when you feel the storm of the evil inclination within you, it is precisely then that you resemble the great ones—far more than when you are in that state of perfect calm that you so long for. It is exactly in those places where you discover within yourself the greatest failures that you are standing to become a vessel for God’s greatest honor.

(from a letter of Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner to his student)

Struggles Are Part of Life

Struggles are not signs of weakness, but signs of spiritual life. Who says that God wants only your spiritual achievements? Perhaps He wants specifically your growth through the struggles — your battles, your falls, and your rising again. If you are fighting, it means you are alive. In that effort, you bring delight to God.

When one climbs upward, there are also falls. Falls prove you are climbing, because only one who ascends can stumble. As it is written: “Seven times the righteous falls and rises again.”

Rabbi Yechezkel of Kuzmir wrote: “Then sang Moses” is a hint to the resurrection of the dead in the Torah (Sanhedrin 91a). Why is resurrection connected to the splitting of the Red Sea? Because the entire life of man is built on faith. At the sea, faith was so clear and revealed that the Divine Presence was seen by even the lowliest maidservant in radiant clarity, that there was no need to “exercise” the muscle of faith. It was too easy, almost like death itself. Therefore, resurrection was needed — because true life is bound with struggle and the strengthening of faith through darkness.

The Essence of the Jewish People

The essence of the Jew is to withstand trials. The Talmud teaches that Abraham became a true Jew at the fiery furnace of Ur Kasdim at age 52. How is this possible, if he had already discovered God at age three? The Satmar Rebbe explains that it was only then that he faced his first real trial. A Jew becomes a Jew when he faces a test with self-sacrifice.

The Talmud states: “Ten generations from Noah to Abraham” (Avot 5:2), and then: “Ten trials was Abraham our father tested with” (Avot 5:3). Why “Abraham” in the first phrase, but “Abraham our father” in the second? Because until he stood in those trials, he was just Abraham, but once he passed them, he became Abraham our father, the father of the Jewish nation. From then on, the merit of his deeds stands for his children to this very day.

We inherited from Abraham this strength to withstand trials. At Mount Sinai we declared, “We will do and we will hear!” — accepting to carry the yoke without conditions.

Life Is Not a Playground

Being a Jew means accepting that life is not a picnic. I will be given spiritual training, even if it is hard, even if it is uncomfortable. I trust my Trainer not to place upon me anything beyond my strength, and not to do anything harmful to me. He forces me to wrestle and to fight, but always for my benefit.

At Sinai, we did not ask what was written, but we accepted it all as one package. Unlike the nations of the world who abandoned the Torah when it became difficult, we knew that difficulty itself is part of the deal, and we did not give it up.