There are two paths: a long and a short one, the path of suffering and the path of the Torah. In fact, on the path of suffering I don’t move ahead. However, each time I stand idle, suffering puts me through blows and returns me to the path of the Torah.

By the same token, a child who doesn’t care to study finds himself “under the blows of fate”: He isn’t allowed to play outside until he completes his homework and he stays in the same grade to repeat a year. Having suffered for some time, he feels the need to sit down with the books. Frankly, today’s parents don’t have what it takes, but the Creator does have the power and the means. He forces us to do our homework and keep moving toward the goal.

Thus, the purpose of suffering is to direct us toward the path of the Torah since correction occurs solely by virtue of the Light that Reforms. Yet, in the course of events, insofar as I don’t wish to turn to the Torah, I am bombarded by blows, and they force me do so.

After all, I am but the desire to enjoy. All it takes is to lock me away from “toys,” deprive me of pleasures, sting me with suffering, and I, like a little darling, am willing to do whatever it takes. What can we do if we are small and weak and have only one solution: to draw upon ourselves the Light that Reforms.
[41793]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/2011, “The Freedom”

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