QUESTION:
By becoming more focused and connected to a spiritual goal in our life, will this also help solve other issues in one’s life, such as problems in marriage, raising children, earning livelihood, and other areas of life?
ANSWER:
: This is only a question when one is living superficially, where a person is experiencing life from “outside” of himselfherself, and not from the inside. When a person lives inwardly, all of these aspects mentioned (marital peace, children, livelihood) are placed in secondary focus to the main point that he is directed towards. When one is not directed towards any one inner point in his life, he will go through the motions, and sometimes his focus will be on his marriage, sometimes on his source of livelihood, and sometimes on his children. But when there is one inner point that he is directing himself towards, none of these things will take over his focus, because he is heading towards a larger picture than any of these aspects.
QUESTION 2: Can the Rav give me specific questions that I can ask myself in order to get clarity in what my main point is that I should be focused on in life?
ANSWER: This is a very fundamental question to ask, which is hard to answer in a brief amount of time. To put it forth in general times, every person needs to know: (1) The strongest positive quality that he possesses, (2) and after that, he should know what the “deepest” thing is that he experiences in his soul. (3) After a person knows both of these factors and he has the combined knowledge of both of these factors together, he should then reach a third stage: the deepest part of himself that he currently recognizes. (4) After that, he can slowly reach deeper experiences.
However, this is really a very big question, and it is like the request of the person in the Mishnah [in the times of Hilel and Shamai] who asked, “Teach me the entire Torah on one foot.”
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