I read a passage tonight in Horeb by Rav Hirsch that I feel compelled to share with whomever is reading this. The topic is how we should guard ourselves and overcome unbridled desire (ta’avah) and turn this base character trait into an instrument for happiness and growing close with God.
Value your life not according to possessions and enjoyments, but according to good deeds; and again value your actions only according to their relation to the means which you possess and acquire. It is not how much or how little you have that makes you great or small, but how much or how little you are with what you have, how much or how little you utilize what has been lent to you for action in the service of God - that is it which makes you great or small.
And if with your life you have fulfilled three-quarters of your duties while another with his plenty has done only one-quarter of his, even if this one-quarter were incomparably more than the three-quarters you have done, you are still greater than he. For your whole life is only a task, and your possessions and enjoyments means for performing this task; the provision of the means belongs to God alone, while the performance of the task according to the scope of your means constitutes your only greatness.
Certainly it is part of this task, where you have the power and where religion allows, to pursue those good things and these means of enjoyment, not, however, as an object in themselves but as a means of fulfilling the duties imposed by God. Only so will self-sufficiency and contentment, and with them happiness and virtue, be your lot; you will remain serene and good in every position in life, whatever be the extent of your possessions and enjoyments.
(Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Horeb, Chapter 13, translated by Dayan Dr. Isidore Grunfeld, Page 46)
As always, Rav Hirsch highlights his ideas with beautiful, elegant language (expertly translated by Dayan Grunfeld). The idea is one which seems obvious, and therefore is one which is very easy to overlook and forget in day to day life.
