A person must understand what he’s doing in this world. What are you doing in this world? A person says, “What are you doing in this world?” No, I’m asking really: what are you doing in this world? What is the essence of this world? You know what it is? The Ramchal teaches us: to do mitzvot (commandments), to serve Hashem, and to stand up to challenges.
Now every single one of us, and the only one listening, is going to have different challenges in his life. Your challenge will never be my challenge. Your test will never be my test, and my test will never be yours. In general, everybody has almost the same test, but there are certain pinpoints where Hashem is going to put you in a situation. He wants to see if you’re going to pass, and only you have the ability to pass it. He’s not giving you a test that you can’t pass. It could be any situation in your life. It could be anything. It could be any situation in your life. It could be a test of having bitachon (faith in Him).
He’ll put you in a position. Now you have no choice, but are you going to have faith or not? Are you going to have bitachon or not? What’s going to be your reaction? Nobody in the world has your test except you. And through life, you have to take the cards you were dealt and pass with flying colors.
And therefore, it says in Shamayim (the heavens), if the 120, when we go up there, there are going to be different—actually, different chuppahs (wedding canopies). Meaning to say, different: you have your own mansion, he has his own mansion; it’s completely different. Why is your mansion different from my mansion, and my mansion different from yours? The answer is that what I had to do was different from what you had to do. And therefore, it’s the cards that Hashem deals you that you have to overcome and face as a challenge, and He’ll never give you cards that you can’t overcome and face as a challenge. You got it?
So what are you here for? To do mitzvot, to stand up, to keep the whole Torah, to learn Torah. This is what it is: to stand up to any challenge that comes your way. Mitzvot—everybody has the same mitzvot, right? You have 630 mitzvot. How many mitzvot do I have? 630 mitzvot, right? Taryag (613) mitzvot. So what’s the difference? First of all, the difference is that there are also going to be different challenges in your life, and you have to overcome those challenges. And don’t ever, ever say, “You can’t; I can’t.” No, you can.
You know, there was a famous Shlomo HaMelech, Gam zeh ya'avor. You ever hear of that before? Gam zeh ya’avor. You ever hear of it? Gimel Zayin Yud (the Hebrew letters gimel, zayin, and yud)—what does it mean, Gam zeh ya’avor? In the good times, right? Everything’s going great. Sometimes it might get to a person’s head. “Look how successful, it became famous. The whole world knows his name.” Everybody’s running: “Wow, what a guy! What a guy! Unbelievable! Wow, wow, wow!” So get the head. Shlomo HaMelech didn’t want to get a day’s head. Gam zeh ya’avor. It could pass, you know, eventually, right?
Same thing with challenges. There’s a wave. There’s a wave that came into your life. Where is it? A tornado—like, where’d it come from? Calm it down. It’s going to pass. Gam zeh ya’avor. Calm it down. Let’s see how you can act in this situation. Let me see. You know what’s going on over here? This is what He’s telling you over here. You hear? Is that clear?