HOME | CONTACT US | DONATE LoginLOGIN Ask the RabbiASK THE RABBI
Chabad.org - Torah, Judaism and Jewish Info Library
 
Chabad.org » Library » Anthologies » 54 Years, 54 Ideas » 2002: Earning a Living according to the Rebbe


Share thisPost a CommentPrintSend this page to a friendSubscribe
7 Comments Posted

Our Daily Bread


Your place is the wilderness. The bread you eat falls from heaven. The basket you collect it in is your attitude.

Clutch your basket tight and your manna will have no place to rest. Open it up and look to the heavens and your basket will always be full.


You have today's meal before you on the table and sit and fret over what will be tomorrow -- and you claim you are "just being practical." This is not being practical -- this is confusion.

A career doesn't make anything. What you receive is generated above, in a spiritual realm.Every day you are nourished straight from His full, open and overflowing hand. Everything in between -- all your work and accounts and bills and receivables and clientele and prospects and investments -- all is but a cloud of interface between His giving hand and your soul, an interface of no real substance which He bends and flexes at whim.

If so, if He is feeding you today, and He has fed you and provided all you need and more all these days, what concerns could you have about tomorrow? Is there then something that could stand in His way? Could He possibly have run out of means to provide for you?

Take your focus off the measured channels by which you receive and place your eyes on the Infinite Source of Giving. The Source has no lack of channels.


The reason you have a business is to reconnect all these fragments back to their Creator. And the gauge of your success is your attitude.

If you see yourself as a victim of circumstance, of competitors, markets and trends, that your bread is in the hands of flesh and blood...

...then your world is still something separate from your G-d.

But if you have the confidence that He is always with you in whatever you do and the only one who has the power to change your destiny is you yourself through your own acts of goodness...

...then your earth is tied to the heavens, and since in the heavens nothing is lacking, so too it shall be in your world.


The common conception of how the system works is faulty. They see a career as "making a living." A career doesn't make anything. What you receive is generated above, in a spiritual realm. Your business is to set up a channel to allow all that to flow into the material world.


Every business is the business of a tailor: to make clothes for the blessings that come your way.

You can't alter the size of your blessings by putting them in bigger clothes -- on the contrary, they might just be chased away. But neither should the clothes be too short. Because that is the whole purpose: that miracles and blessings should not come into the world stark naked, but be enclothed in the natural world. And we are the tailors.



Share thisPost a CommentPrintSend this page to a friendSubscribe
7 Comments Posted

Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe; rendered by Tzvi Freeman. Rabbi Freeman is available for public speaking and workshops. Read more on his bio page.

The content on this page is copyrighted by the author, publisher and/or Chabad.org, and is produced by Chabad.org. If you enjoyed this article, we encourage you to distribute it further, provided that you comply with the copyright policy.
 

7 Comments Posted  |  Post A Comment
Reader Comments
Latest Comments:
Posted: Aug 7, 2009
the wilderness, the drought, the basket
Tonight Secretary of State Hilary Clinton spoke of th situation in Somalia. What can we do? Who can help?
We can give them soil, seed and water and pots and troughs to put them in. They can open cooperatives if possible. Bill Gates and Howard Buffett announced a project at the UN General Assembly where their foundations will give $75 million to small farmers in Africa and Latin America so they can sell food to the UNWorld Food Program for better farming methods such as high yield seed.
With so much distrust in the world who can be the ambassadors of this good will? There was an article in The Smithsonian magazine recently about th Whirling Dervishes trying to establish peace and love in Pakistan. They are also in Somalia. Why not support and encourage them as emissaries?
Posted By virginia M. Mitchell, Farmington Hills , MI

Posted: Mar 19, 2009
thank you
this article brought tears to my eyes while my husband and i are struggling during a rough time in our lives for livelihood. as i look at my short 30 years of life, i revisit examples of how i never lacked anything in the past and G-d has always provided for me so why should i doubt that He won't do the same in the future. Your daily dose is also always divine providence to me, like the other day's "Its in your hands". Some days when i'm feeling down about something, i come to my computer and lo and behold i have a daily dose on exactly the thing i am battling with... thank you.
Posted By Anonymous

Posted: May 20, 2008
There is a chassidic saying "One must put one's trust in G-d when it comes to one's own pocket but when it comes to someones else's we must aid since G-d wants us to be a part of the picture." G-d wants us to give not only receive.
Posted By Nussin, Beijing, PRC



 


54 Years, 54 Ideas
1991: Miracles according to the Rebbe
1992: Community according to the Rebbe
1993: Pain according to the Rebbe
1994: Death according to the Rebbe
1995: Life After Death according to the Rebbe
1996: Absence according to the Rebbe
1997: Confusion according to the Rebbe
1998: Apathy according to the Rebbe
1999: Judaism's Universal Message according to the Rebbe
2000: The Modern Age according to the Rebbe
2001: Combating Terrorism according to the Rebbe
2002: Earning a Living according to the Rebbe
2003: Action according to the Rebbe
2004: The Future according to the Rebbe
Showing 41 - 54 of 54