In recent years, davening has been very difficult for me. There were times when I convinced myself that when I got to a certain age or situation, I would become better at it. I was talking with my cousin about this, and we decided that this problem is called religious procrastination. The reason is that this is very similar to regular procrastination. When you procrastinate doing homework, it gets pushed off until it doesn't happen. The same is true with religious procrastination: you just tell yourself that you'll do everything at a specific time, but that doesn't happen either.
In this week's Parsha, due to the impending death of Moshe, he started his repetition of the torah. During this time, Moshe urged the Jewish people that when they got to the land of Eretz Yisrael, they should keep all the laws out of respect for the land and Hashem. The idea was not that when they crossed the river into Eretz Yisrael, they would start doing all the mitzvos. Instead, they would work towards keeping the laws in the coming weeks, and when Moshe passed away and went into Eretz Yisrael, they would be doing every mitzvah naturally.
When Moshe told the Jewish people to do the mitzvos in honor of entering the land of Israel, he did not expect them to do it all at once. Therefore, if we struggle with a specific mitzvah (or mitzvos as a whole), we can be comfortable taking it one step at a time. Ultimately, if we try to do every mitzvah in one moment, it can be overwhelming and unproductive. Instead, we need to learn slowly what each one means to become motivated. Suppose we start by doing one mitzvah today and steadily increase it. Eventually, we will be able to keep every mitzvah! Join me this week as we take on more mitzvos and bring Moshiach!
Good shabbos
All the best
Avroham Y Ross