A couple once came to me for a blessing in the merit of my forefathers, zy”a. They had been married for ten years, yet still did not have children. I innocently thought they were asking for a blessing for children. But what they requested was a blessing to find a spacious home at an affordable price.
It took me a good few minutes to digest this request. How could they prioritize something so peripheral above something of true significance? Didn’t they realize that a blessing for children was more crucial to them at this stage in their lives than finding the home of their dreams? Instead of focusing on their essential deficiency, they preferred to focus on building a beautiful big house, when they did not even have whom to fill it with.
On second thought, I realized that we, too, act in this skewed way. Often, a person ignores the purpose of his mission in this world, which is rectifying his neshamah and amassing merits. Instead, he seeks physical pleasures, such as making money, purchasing a magnificent home, wearing fashion clothes, eating gourmet delights, and other materialistic matters. He is conducting himself exactly like this couple, who had their priorities mixed up.
Just as this couple needed an awakening to set themselves straight, so does each person have to take himself by the reins and increase his Torah study and mitzvah performance, the entire reason we are put here.
