A Balanced Life

Question

Hi Rabbi, how can I be successful at enjoying the physical pleasures in the world but not be influenced in a bad way? Thanks!

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Answers

  1. The Just Ask! - AskTheRabbi.org Team

    Yours is a question that I think virtually everyone has but some don’t have a person they trust to give them good advice and keep their confidence.

    I wish that I had an easy-to-follow answer for you but I don’t feel that there’s one way that is best for everyone. However, there is a path that we are taught to follow, and if we do so in the correct way it will lead us to moral, meaningful and contented lives. The Torah is our instruction manual for life. What this means is that if we study its ways and fulfill its teachings we will find the “balance” needed to live in the physical world but not to be “seduced” by it.

    Of course, that is a lot easier to write than to do! Why is that? Rabbi Chaim of Velozhin (1749-1821, Lithuania) explained that the body and the soul are diametrically opposed realities and they do not coexist very easily. The only way that we can make that happen is to follow the words of our Torah Sages by recognizing that this world is a passageway to the Next World and we have to treat this world properly in order to be able to reap the eternal rewards in the World to Come. It is not an easy thing to do, but when a person is successful, it grants them a wonderful sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in this world that eclipses all else.

    Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team