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48 | A New Light 2 Chapter Two:
Torah—regarding which the Torah writes, ‘It is very
close to you’—weren’t you given understanding and
knowledge?”
Immediately, he groaned, raised his voice and wept.
I told him: “My son, do not feel bad. Other people too
reply in the same way that you replied to me. But their
abilities [in other areas] are proof against them [and
show that they are capable of learning Torah].” (Tana
Devei Eliyahu 14)
Everyone has a long list of excuses and rationales for why he
“cannot,” and why it is “hard for him”—to serve Hashem, to learn
Torah, to pray and to rectify his character traits. With these excuses,
he attempts to assuage and soothe his conscience, and to continue
to sleep away his life. He thinks that with this list, when he rises to
the heavenly court, he will make an impression. But they will tell
him, “The work of your hands testifies against you, because in
other things that you wanted, you succeeded. Even when you faced
a multitude of difficult obstacles, you strove, you were stubborn
and you succeeded—because you wanted something. When it came
to something that you wanted, you strove and succeeded. And if
you didn’t succeed at something, that is because you did not want
it.”
No More Excuses
When a person comes to heaven (after 120 years), they will
ask him why he did not perform various particular mitzvot. Why
didn’t he manage to learn the entire Torah? Why didn’t he succeed
in becoming completely holy? Why did he smoke? Why did he
gamble? Why did he look at pornography on the internet? He will
offer excuses: “I couldn’t; it was too hard; I was addicted…” and so
forth. They will answer him severely: “You didn’t want to!” He will
say: “Listen, that isn’t exactly the case. There were obstacles in my
way. I had a strong evil inclination; I didn’t have time; my father
didn’t permit me; my wife opposed me; I didn’t have money; I was
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sick; I didn’t have a study partner; I had no one to help me,” and
so forth and so on. They will tell him: “Everything you say is true,
but we do not accept any of these excuses, because they are not
the real reason that you did not succeed. You did not succeed, you
did not accomplish, and you did not prevail for one reason only:
because you did not want to! ‘I can’t’ means ‘I don’t want to,’
because a person who wants does.”
A person must constantly remind himself: “What a person does
expresses who he is.” Think about this and consider it well: when
you want to do something, you are able to do it. If something
is important to you, you find the time, energy and ability for it.
From this, you may realize that with the help of a strong will you
can reach high attainments in your life. Consider your ways and
deeds, consider your life, and you will see that you can reach every
goal. Seeing this, you will realize that everything that you do in
life is precisely what you want to do, because if you truly wanted
something else, you would have reached another place in your
life. Your personal circumstances are irrelevant. The principal—the
sole—factor is your will. Therefore, the first question that a person
will be asked in heaven is about his will. The principal judgment
will be in regard to his will. That is the simple meaning of Rabbi
Nachman’s statement that “what a person wants, he does.”
I have discussed this principle at length in order to inspire you to
utilize your abilities. In most cases, when a person applies even a
little bit of will, he finds solutions to every obstacle and difficulty,
and he receives the strength and energy to do everything he needs
to do. But sometimes a person faces obstacles that he absolutely
cannot overcome, and in such a case his excuses are completely
justified. In heaven, he will be told that everything that he claims
is true, and that he really did face overwhelming obstacles. But in
the same breath, they will ask him: “But why didn’t you want? It
is true that you could not actually accomplish. But you were able
to want—so why didn’t you? If you would have only wanted, you
would have been helped, because ‘in the way that a person wishes
to go, he is led.’ If you had only strengthened yourself to want—
and you certainly could always have done that—heaven would have
guided you. You would have seen and found a great many paths