Have you ever gotten frustrated? I mean really frustrated. Some people find that frustrating. Personally, I think that overcoming frustration is a pleasure. I’ll give you an example. Have you ever bought one of those picture puzzles? I’m not talking about the little ones that you do for the kids, or you put in the dog, or you put in the cat over there and it wouldn’t puzzle, and you’re done. I’m talking about one of those big jobs: 500 pieces, 1,000 pieces, the size of a family portrait. How do you put together a puzzle? You go through the box and pull out all the edge pieces, and first you do the entire edge. When you finish the edge, you see that you’re missing three pieces. You’ve got to go through the next 427 pieces to find the ones that you’re missing. Isn’t that frustrating? Let me ask you: who put the puzzle together to begin with? You do, because you love frustration.
I’ll give you another example. Remember Nintendo, the old game? You have to beat the giant and jump over him and zap him, and the monster comes and the flood comes, and you have to do all different kinds of things. What do we try to do? We try to go from the first level, second level, third level to the tenth level with the best Nintendo player that there is. How do you win? You zap him and you hit him. What would happen if they invented a game? What do you have to do every time the giant comes? Just press enter and he’s gone. Do you think it would sell? I don’t think so. I don’t think anybody would buy it. You know why? It’s not frustrating enough. People love frustration.
Last example: basketball. I can’t play basketball. I’m not good at basketball. But let’s say you’re good at basketball. You’re really one of the best. And you dodge and you dive and you drive into the basket, and you’re ready to take your shot. All of a sudden, somebody comes and puts his hand right up in front of your face. That’s frustrating. To overcome frustration, why can’t we deal with people who are dumber than dumb? Or when the kids won’t go to sleep and you just want to get into bed and you’re so tired. Or the guy on Ocean Parkway is doing 25 miles an hour and you miss every single night getting into the city. Or when the guy says, “Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow.” And you wait. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day. Those things are frustrating. Why can’t I cope with that?
I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you want to cross Ocean Parkway, and the traffic is back and forth and you’re in a rush. So would you ever think of flying over Ocean Parkway, you know, with your arms? Why not? It’s faster. You know why? Because you can’t do it. It can’t be done. But if you know something can be done but you can’t do it, that’s frustrating. What can I do? I was created this way. I’m always doing it. Angry. I’m always tired. I’m always lazy. I always love money. That’s the way I am. I can’t overcome that.
I’ll show you you can. I’ll show you how you can change in an instant. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you bought a new car. I’m not talking about a Honda Pilot or a Toyota Camry or something. I’m talking about you bought a new car, a Maserati or a Porsche or something like that. Now, you can’t really enjoy driving a car like that on Kings Highway, Avenue J. So what you have to do is, you want to take it out onto the Belt Parkway, drive towards Kennedy Airport. So you get into your brand-new car. You’re driving down Ocean Parkway. You’re ready to make your left to get onto the Belt right near Lincoln High School. You stopped at the light. A guy comes up behind you. You got 12 miles on it, and the guy comes and bumps you. Okay, you calm down. You move forward a couple of inches. Sure enough, the guy comes up behind you. He comes up behind you. He comes up behind you. He comes and bumps you again. So you pull up again. This time, you’re almost into the intersection. The guy comes in. Wouldn’t you know it? He bumps into your car a third time. What do you do? You put the car into park. You get out of your car, and you’re going to give this guy a piece of your mind. He sees you coming. You open his door. He gets out. He’s seven foot two. You go, “Sorry. I hope I wasn’t in your way. No, I’m moving. I’ll get out of here right away.” What happened? You changed your attitude right away because you felt it was a lot better to get in your car and drive away than to give this guy a piece of your mind. You can’t change. Overcoming frustration is a tremendous satisfaction.
It says in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) that there are 48 ways to acquire Torah, and one of them is Erech Apayim (slow to anger). The same way that we look to get to that 10th level on Nintendo, we should look to control our emotions with Erech Apayim. What is the reward? We get the wisdom of Torah.