Why wouldn't a life without struggle make me happy?

Rabbi Landau teaches that the life you keep praying for, one with no struggle, “would bore you to death.” Imagine buying a game, opening it, and the screen says right away, “Congratulations, you won.” You would ask for your money back.

Why? It says you won, but you never got to play. You wanted to get stuck, figure it out, try again, and when you win, start another game, “actually, a harder one.” Nobody ever won a game and stared at the screen for a year. “Winning gave you a reason to play, but playing was what you came for.”

The pasuk in Iyov says, “Ki adam le'amal yulad,” a person is born to toil. “The struggle is not the price of your life, it's your life!” Life is a game, he says, and playing it is the fun.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

A life with no struggle would bore you, just like a game that opens with “you won.”

Underlying need or longing

What a person really wants is to play: to get stuck, figure it out, try again, and then take on a harder game.

What may be behind it

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau tells of a man who said keeping Shabbos was hard because of a basketball game, and answers that without the blocking there is no game. The obstacle does not interrupt the inner work; it is the inner work.

Deepest human truth

“Ki adam le'amal yulad,” a person is born to toil. The struggle is not the price of life; it is life itself.