If I keep hitting obstacles, does that mean I'm on the wrong path?

Rabbi Landau answers with a story. A man told him he couldn't keep Shabbos because the Knicks were playing. The Rabbi asked him what the point of the game was. “They throw a ball in the basket better than the other team.” So the Rabbi said: give me a ball and a basket, and I'll throw it in. “Rabbi, no,” the man said, “the other team blocks you.” That was exactly the point. If nobody is blocking you, it isn't a game. “The Knicks don't become champions by throwing balls into an empty gym.”

Rabbi Landau teaches that life works the same way: “you don't become great by serving Hashem when nothing blocks you.” Nobody quits basketball because the other team is defending. So why quit life the moment something blocks you? The resistance is the game. He quotes the Sages, lefum tza'ara agra, “according to the pain is the reward.” Without resistance there is no victory.

He also turns the question around. If nothing is blocking you right now, that is not a sign that things are going well. It means “you aren't playing the game of life. You're just sitting on the grandstand.” (And the man in the story kept Shabbos that week. The Knicks won.)

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

Surface claim

Resistance is the game, not a sign that you are on the wrong path.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

When obstacles, setbacks, or rejection come, people assume something has gone wrong. Rabbi Landau says nothing went wrong: you're finally playing.

Underlying need or longing

In A Soul at Peace, he writes that the size of the reward grows out of the pain itself. Without opposition, a victory means nothing.

What may be behind it

Hashem did not forget to clear the barriers from your path. In the book, Rabbi Landau writes that He put them there.

Deepest human truth

The obstacle isn't proof you're failing. It's proof you're participating.

More questions from this teaching

• What does “lefum tza'ara agra” mean?