There are so many things I would like to do but don't because I don't have the time or resources to do them. I hear myself so often saying, if or when I have the time and the resources I will do such and such. Some of the things I postpone or even eliminate from the realm of possibility are important to me, they are things I want to do and believe I should but just don't have the time or resources. So often I feel trapped by the limitation of resources.
I have a sense that I am not the only person trapped in the limited time and resource conundrum. Many of us eliminate exciting opportunities and possibilities because we assume we don't have the resources. Why don't you take time off to study for a new career, pursue a new interest, learn Torah, go traveling etc.? Our answer will most likely turn on the impracticality of the idea due to limited resources. This is the way we are conditioned to think and to eliminate "crazy" ideas. Sometimes I go further and comfort myself by thinking that if Hashem wanted me to do these things, He would give me the resources with which to do them. This line of thinking relieves me of responsibility for the things I have not done.
Preparing this week's parsha I was shocked into reality. Hashem doesn't give me the resources to do the things He wants me to do. Hashem gives me the resources to do the things I want to do. No, not the things I want to do, the things for which I have a burning passion in my heartto do. Passion and desire are the enablers of accomplishment much more than time and resources. Passion and desire have to come from us, time and resources - and sometimes, even talent - can come miraculously.
Think about it: In the beginning of the Parsha, Hashem gives Moshe the shopping list of raw materials he will need for the building of theMishkan. The list includes not only the items of hardware one would expect for a building project. It also includes some exotic and rare materials such as gold, silver and precious stones. How many of us, living in the most prosperous age of history, would be able to contribute to a shopping list like this one? From where was this nation of escaped slaves trudging through the desert going to get these exotic materials?
The question bothered Moshe, and he asked G-d: Does Yisrael have the resources to do this? (Shemos Rabbah 33:8) G-d answers, even a single member of the nation of Yisrael could do it. And the Midrash adds: Because it says, (Shemos 25:2) from each individual person whose heart moves him to generosity. The only resource necessary is a heart burning with the generous desire to contribute. The rest is miracle.
The Midrash continues to relate how the clouds that brought in the Mannah each morning, also carried with them precious stones which the great people in the community gathered and stored and later gave for the building of the Mishkan.
When I had previously learnt this Midrash I wondered why the people are even described as generous if they were miraculously given the riches they later donated? Surely there is nothing heroic about that? But now I understand. Generosity is not measured by the amount of resources we have to give. Generosity is measured by the passion in our heart to want to give whatever we have, to a cause or to another. If we have the passion to give, if we are nidvei leiv, the capacity to give comes miraculously.
So now when the thought of an opportunity comes up I ask myself if I really have the fire in my heart, not if I have the resources. When I choose not to pursue an opportunity I probe my own heart for the reason, not the resources G-d has or hasn't given me. Just as I am responsible for the things I have chosen to do, I am equally responsible for the things I have chosen not to do. The reason I haven't done these things is not for lack of resources, but for lack of passion.
What do you really want to do and to accomplish? Can you hear your heart's voice, or is it stifled with the clatter of the mind telling youI should, I must, I have to, I can't? If there was nothing at all that you had to do, should do or could not do, what would you truly want to do? It can be shocking to discover how hard it is to unpeel the layers of assumptions and reveal what you truly want. Try it. And rememberein davar omeid bifnei harotzon; nothing stands in the way of passion.
