An excerpt from the new book My Gulag Life: Stories of a Soviet Prisoner, as told by the Mashpia Reb Mendel Futerfas OBM:
Once a few inmates asked me why I was always so happy. I turned the tables and asked them why they were so unhappy. Each told a somber story: one had been a famous engineer, another a respected lawyer, the third a former general in the Red Army. All had been reduced to worthless prisoners.
They asked me again, “Now tell us why you are happy.”
I explained to them that their lives had centered on their professions and status, so their self-worth disappeared as soon as their careers were taken from them.
“My life is about much more than that,” I said. “It’s true that I was a successful businessman, but that was not the purpose of my life. I was a Chasid, and here too I am still a Chasid.”
Beautiful story!!!!!!!!!!
great story
If a person makes their main “goal” in life to be making a דירה בתחתונים, then since that’s a goal that’s reachable no MATTER what the circumstances around the person are (and the only thing that the circumstances determine is what would be ENTAILED in that person making the דירה), such a person can ALWAYS succeed in accomplishing their “goal”, and this ALWAYS be happy about it.
Photo taken by gedalia (Paul) Hoffman a”h in Chabad Berkeley, CA
This is so meaningful. Answered a question i had