Perhaps you’ve been there. After many many years of Torah observance, you’re still committed to improving your davening. You review Derech Hashem on the Shema, where the Ramchal explains in a fairly straight forward manner that you should have in mind:
1) Hashem’s existence is not dependent on anything, which is unique in all creation
2) Hashem is the One Unique Authority and nothing can function without His giving it the authorization
3) In His Goodness, Hashem relates to us as a king relates to his subjects, and our job is to accept the yoke of His Kingdom and subjugate ourselves to Him
It’s only 6 words and it will take a mere 10-20 seconds to have in mind
1) Shema Yisroel – Hashem is teaching the Jewish people, including myself
2) Hashem – only His Existence is unique
3) Elokenu – He is the One Unique Authority
4) Hashem Echad – I accept His Kingship and one day everybody will accept His Kingship
You’re committed to doing it, after all it’s only 6 words and 3 thought’s: G-d’s Existence, G-d’s Authority, G-d’s Kingship. You’re all set…and then it happens…a stray thought enters your head…and before you know you’ve said the 6 words without the intended intentions.
You think, “How did I blow that? I was ready to go. It seemed so much easier back when I started. After all, within a few short years I was keeping Shabbos, keeping Kosher, davening three times a day, observing the laws of family purity and much much more. And now, I’m having trouble consistently focusing on 6 words.”
But we have to tell ourselves: Don’t despair! The reality is continual spiritual growth is difficult. Hashem wants us to keep on growing and we are constantly hitting our walls. We hit our davening wall, our learning wall, our emunah wall our “insert mitzvah here” wall, but walls we will hit.
Even the greatest generation that received the Torah hit their walls. They ran away from Sinai like school children, they rejected the spiritual bread from heaven, they complained because it was difficult to accept the requirements of continuous spiritual growth. We’re not alone – spiritual growth is hard. If it was easy, the reward for higher levels of growth would not be so great.
The solution is that we need to keep on trying. Growth happens slowly and if you try to say the 6 words of Shema with intention everyday, you will fail often. But over time there will be less failures and more successes. You don’t scale the wall in one shot, you climb up in inch by tiny inch. Eventually you will succeed and you will be faced with a new group of walls representing your higher spiritual level. And the climb continues day in and day out.
The lyrics that come to my mind are:
You can get it if your really want it
You can get it if your really want it
You can get it if your really want it
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you’ll succeed at last
