The Work of Life

There is a well-known saying of Rabbi Yisrael of Salant: "A person is like a bird. A bird has the power to rise higher and higher, on condition that it flaps its wings without cease. The moment it stops flapping its wings, it plummets and falls." The demand of life upon a person is to improve constantly, to be the very best version of himself. And this requires the work of a lifetime, day after day. On the one hand, to remember that even if we have fallen it is possible to rise, and on the other, to remember and to remind ourselves that the work of our repair is a daily one, the work of a lifetime.