A Closed Door or a Solid Wall?

Opening There is a famous saying. You can hear it everywhere, in every language: “When one door closes, five other doors open.” It sounds nice. It sounds brave. But we need to tell the truth: it does not reach the root of the matter. A door, by its very nature, opens and closes. That is what a door is for. If a door closes in front of you, don’t run to other doors. Take hold of the handle and open it. But a wall? A wall is not a door at all. Push it, pull it, slam it, and it will not move. And yet, with the right tools, even walls can be taken down. This is the root of the confusion in a person’s life. The Tragic Mistake There are two kinds of failure. In the first, a person stands before a door that has closed. He assumes it is a wall and gives up. He runs on, searching for “other opportunities.” He wastes years searching, while the original door stands there beside him, waiting for him to come back and take hold of it. The second failure is harder and more painful. A person stands before a wall and decides it is just a stubborn door. So he starts to bleed himself dry. He pushes. He tries again and again. He loses time, strength and the health of his inner self, until he breaks. Neither of these is a failure of laziness. Neither is a failure of too little effort. Both are failures of diagnosis. They come from lacking the awareness to see what the obstacle really is. The Question: How Can We Know? But right away a question comes up. Every young married man and every working man knows this question well from his own life. Both of them look the same! A door and a wall are both a blockage. In both cases, the road is not open. When should I insist and keep going? And when is this a clear sign from Heaven that I should let go? The fear of giving up too soon, set against the fear of blind stubbornness: this is the very heart of our daily struggle. Hannah and Balaam The Talmud holds up the prayer of Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel, as the model of a prayer from the depths of the heart. Hannah knew she was standing before a door. It had closed, yes, but by its nature it could open. She did not give up. She did not look for “other solutions.” She believed that this door was hers and that it could open. So she stood and held on to its handle in prayer until it opened. This is how we work with a door: more strength, prayer, a holy stubbornness. Compare Balaam, the prophet hired to curse Israel. Hashem placed an angel in his path, an unmistakable wall from Heaven. But Balaam was full of himself, and he did not see a wall. He saw a stubborn donkey. He beat it, he pressed it, he kept going. Only when his eyes were opened did he see the angel standing there. This is the tragic mistake about a wall: treating a sign from Heaven as a personal obstacle to be conquered. Setting the Self Aside: The Key to Seeing Clearly The great question is this: what allows a person to tell the difference correctly? The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains in chapter 26 that heavy sadness and despair are among the hardest obstacles in serving Hashem. In chapter 31, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, adds that when a person is sunk in bitterness and heavy sadness, his eyes are closed. He sees everything through his own self-importance, through his ego, through his wish to win. When a person is full of himself, every obstacle feels like a personal challenge. Everything looks like a door he has to break through. The wall does not look like a wall. It looks like an enemy. But when a person sets the self aside, things change. He stops asking, “How will I win?” He asks instead, “What do You want from me right now?” Then the awareness to tell the difference begins to appear. Setting the self aside is not weakness. It is the only vessel through which we can hear the message of Hashem’s personal providence, the way Hashem guides every detail, in every situation. A Note: With the Right Tools, Even Walls Can Be Cut Through Here is an important point that we must not miss. Even a wall is not a decree that lasts forever. This is not a teaching of fate: “You saw a wall, so you gave up.” The point is that changing your tools changes reality. Pushing on a wall will not help. But a prayer from the depths of the heart, a heart-to-heart talk with a great Hasidic master or a spiritual mentor, a deep change in your inner approach: these are “tools” that can work on a whole different level. Our Sages teach: “Everything that Hashem created in His world, He created only for His glory.” That includes the wall. The wall is also a message. Our work is to hear the message. Then, sometimes, the wall moves away by itself.