The Pace of Life

There are times when we know exactly what within us or around us needs repair and change, but life itself advances more slowly. The thought already sees far, the will already seeks depth, and reality and the capacity for repair have not yet caught up to the pace. Here a gap is created, and out of it pain is born. A gap between what a person knows he can be and what he actually succeeds in being. And here a double danger hides: one can lose oneself in an exhausting pursuit of a perfection that does not arrive at once, and one can dim the light in order to stop hurting. Rav Kook proposes a different way – to hold the demand with courage, and not to flee from it. And at the same time, not to measure ourselves only by the result, but by faithfulness to the inner will. When a person holds the gap without breaking from it, he ceases to be a source of bitterness and becomes an engine of growth.