Nothing Stands before Desire

perfect (brave) jewish style

This article is a mind opener for me. Made me think its true Nothing stands before a person's desire."Thank you for the article and thank you for Aish, and Judaism. (for shabbath) god bless Israel

This is not a good example of desire. If he so wanted to honor Shabos, why didn't he go earlier? Why didn't he send one of his kids? Customers like this keep my husband from coming home at a reasonable hour-he's a pharmacist and he's seen customers coming in ONE minute to closing. As a result, he ends up staying later than he intends to and coming back later as well. Pure chutzpah.

Where there is a will there is always a way. The Almighty God provides a way out for His children in times of need when they make the effort. God reads the motive behind the actions and judges rightly. Great Article.

The author is making a terrific point--with the proper motivation and focus, we can achieve what is seemingly impossible. The comments from the visitors are focused on the wrong things!Focus on the possible, not the obstacles!

I think that all of the people who commented are right-on about the fact the people in the story did the wrong thing and I think it's good they brought the points out (like the author himself did), but I think they're also making a mistake. The author saw a bad thing and he took a positive lesson from it. People do things they aren't supposed to do all the time. That doesn't mean the Torah is bad. It just means people are people. I think it's great that the author found something good in it and brought it out. Maybe that's another lesson here too.

The author has a wonderful writing style. I hope that he'll be able to use his kochos to relate stories that convey more positive midos.

Yes, the little bald man was a noodnik. Yes, he should have gotten there earlier.
But what was it that kept him from doing so? Did someone one keep him from leaving his job? Was there something keeping the rude Russian at her station?

If that is what it is like to live in Israel, I want no part of it. Most of the remarks were self-centered, I saw nothing of love or understanding, just a rush to judgment without knowing the facts behind what kept our little bald brother from getting to the market in a more timely manner.

From fellow Jews I don't expect this. Is this what it is like to live in Israel? Maybe I expect more.

Mr. Goldfarb, did the employees give an ounce's worth of care if they got home in time for Shabbat? It sounds to me that they were more intent on saying "closed" than they were in getting home.

However, nothing does stand before desire is a truth worth knowing and understanding. In this case, the man's desire to not disappoint his family impelled him to do something that he probably would never have done had Shabbat not been so important to him. His desire to not fail his family overrode what he probably would have never done under normal circumstances.

Have a heart; know why someone does something before judging him. Which one of us can look forward to our own day of judgment without trepidation? Judge the man with the same kindness you would want someone to judge you.

I ALWAYS enjoy reading your feedback! Should the bald man have gotten to the store much earlier? Yes, I agree with that. I also feel bad for anyone who runs the risk of being late for Shabbos. However, we really did not know why he was as late as he was. I am writing my comments 10 years after this story was written and I hope Shabbos has become a lot more organized and a lot less hectic for him and his family.

I understand and appreciate the concept - that nothing stands before a person's will. I also understand that "maybe" the people in the store should have been more helpful. But in the end, this person "forced" himself into a closed store - where people were preparing to go home and make their own Shabbos. Did he do the right thing? Perhaps he created a chillul HaShem in the process. Something to consider.

As I read this article I felt increasingly disturbed. I almost felt that the message was that one should do whatever one must even at someone else's expense. Perhaps the sales person and/or guard had a spouse at home who was trying to juggle last minute preparations with a houseful of kids? Perhaps they had gone through this type of customer every single Friday and just had to put an end to it?!

The message in this article could have been taught through a different story, I'm sure. My parents owned a bakery for over 30 years. I can't tell you how many times both my parents barely made it home in time for Shabbos, not to mention without Challah! Why? Because of the "one" customer running in as the store was trying yet again to close for Shabbos, asking for Challah when there were none left! My mother would take her Challah out of her bag to give the man. So many customers counted on this treatment, knowing they'd have what they needed, even if they arrived after closing and even if there were no Challahs left to be be had!

The fact that this story was told as a means of teaching a POSITIVE lesson really disturbed me.

If this man was running late for Shabbos that he had to shove his way into a store, how much later was he making the store employees for Shabbos ?? Would he in his haste even think about this, or did he just assume everyone else was non-frum ?

Baruch H*Shem!!

i only hope that my desire to make aliyah is strong enough so that the Almighty will help me get it done.

We used to have a car with one of those automated voices. For safety, whenever any of the doors wasn't closed properly, the voice would intone: the door is ajar. We joked, the door is not a "jar". It's like the GPS saying: your destination is ahead. And we would split the word and laugh. For me the notion of jar, as someone who is working with ceramics and also someone who is a student of Jewish mysticism, well Jar is for VESSEL and we are all of us, in a deep, metaphoric sense, vessels. So I am thinking, if the door is a... jar... then certainly, if you have the passion, go through it. Life is about give and take, to pour and to receive, as in libations. I LOVE this little story which ends happily for all. If it's about passion and LOVE, and if nobody's being hurt in the process, then forge right through because to forge is to solder and something is being healed or mended in the process. I think these folks, so impatient to go home, had a little lesson in life. I mean, how hard would it have been for them to back down, just a little bissel, for LOVE?

Sorry, but I really didn't get "anything" from this story. I feel ashamed that the man in the story attained his needs at the expense of others. What kind of example of religious yidden is that for the Russian cashier, who probably grew up anti-religious and might just have felt it was another incident to prove her prejudice. And what about the guard-was he impressed by another religious Jew pushing his way in at the expense of other people's needs to prepare for the Holy Shabbos?

True, kosher desire is to serve H-shem through kidush H-shem and not chilul H-shem.

If the guard and store staff were so adamant to be "sagur", we would have more realistically seen that after this little bald man slipped in, the guard would have most likely (in the reality of our world) shut the door so the man couldn't get out with the groceries. The guard probably would have accosted the little bald man and thrown him out physically. The "sagur" certainly wasn't followed up by real action; all we hear is the tone of the guard saying "sagur" in "rapidly fired Hebrew" and we see the folded arms of the cashier...why didn't they follow up with enforcing their words? They weren't dumbstruck. They are Jews, remember? Please don't try and fool us with silly parables that don't meet with reality.

As an English person living in Israel this is the sort of person I really cannot abide. I hope he paid well over the odds. A better example could have been found for desire.

While I understand what the author is trying to bring out, I sit on the other side of this example. My husband is in the kosher food business and I can't count the amount of times he has come home practically while I was lighting candles because of people like THIS! This story makes my bood boil. While the author makes great efford to say that this is wrong, he is still using it as a possitive thing. The only thing I see from this is someone who tests our ability to still act as good Jews should in the face of someone who deffinatally sinned while thinking they were doing a mitzvah.

The choices and desires we want out of life depend on the circumstances of whether we really need or want out of something. Of course, with every choice or desire comes consequences thereafter, either good or bad. Ultimately, it's not a matter of what we want or need, but why we want these desires and needs. "Why?" is the most important universal question of all.

This story can have two messages: the moral that persistence backed by desire
wins out. Or - what about the lesson that we can learn from "losing out?" So that next time we can be more punctual and respectful of others -- don't the employees want to get home on time for Shabbat as well?