Loving What You Do: Starting The New Z’man

aaron — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 05:45:14 +0000

Let’s face it: Most successful people love what they do. It’s almost impossible to throw oneself into something that you hate doing. And its almost impossible to be successful without throwing yourself into it.

What is success? It’s not measured in dollars or fame. Success is defined by Chazal as being the ultimate blessing – Shalom. It is the last word in Birchas Kohanim, and Rashi explains that without peace nothing else counts.

If you see someone doing something and he is truly at peace with it, then you know he is successful. Whether or not that person has money is not the issue. They have achieved success at what they do – and therefore they are at peace.

Yehudah Green is a great example of a man at peace. Watching him sing at a performance is truly a sight to behold. He LOVES what he does. When he sings, he infects the crowd with his contagious spirit. As the performance goes on, he doesn’t lose intesity, but instead gets more and more involved. He truly throws himself into his singing and his audience, which underscores his passion for what he is doing. It doesn’t matter how many times he has performed that day, each one is with the strengh and freshness of the first time.

Now we’re off to a new z’man. As you enter the doors of your kollel for yet another year of learning, the question you face is very simple – Do you really love what you do? If you do, you will be at peace with yourself, and you are in the right occupation. But if your learning is a struggle, day in and day out, maybe its time to face the hard truth that you really don’t love learning. And if you don’t really love learning, it will be impossible for you to be successful in kollel. Which means that you – and your learning – might just be better off if you leave kollel.

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Lost in Kollel » yehuda green

Loving What You Do: Starting The New Z’man