My colleague Rabbi Ed Feinstein, in his book Capturing the Moon, tells the story of Rabbi Pinchas, a beloved leader of his community, who is sought out constantly by people who have problems and/or questions. Rather than spend his days talking to people, what Rabbi Pinchas really wants is to sit alone and write a book.

One Yom Kippur, God grants Rabbi Pinchas’ fervent prayer to be alone, and immediately the rabbi starts working on that book he always dreamed of one. No one disturbs Rabbi Pinchas with a question, but also no invited him to break the Yom Kippur fast, help him build his sukkah, nor visit Rabbi Pinchas in his sukkah.

Rabbi Pinchas comes to learn that his lifelong prayer — to be alone — is not really want he wants. In the end, he prefers a life with people, even if that means never being the author of a book.

Like Rabbi Pinchas, many of us pray for something which, though it seems attractive at the time, really won’t improve the quality of our lives. And we pray for our lives to be different, not realizing that what we have is usually worth keeping and cherishing.

In the movie Big, Tom Hanks is a young boy wishing to be older. In The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland wants to leave home to live on the other side of the rainbow. In both cases, as in other similar movies, the characters’ wishes are granted, yet they discover that returning to their old lives is the greatest blessing of all.

Even people living in difficult situations — unemployment, illness, etc. — have discovered that their lives have deep meaning, and that their particular challenges are as helpful as they are detrimental. People living in poverty or physical pain have shared stories of how much joy they experience and how much more appreciative they are of life. They are overwhelmed by the compassion and assistance of members of their communities.

This phenomenon was explained two thousand years ago by Rabbi Yochanan in the collection of midrashim called Yalkut Shimoni. Rabbi Yochanan makes an instructive observation about the human anatomy. The eye has a white part and a dark part, yet we see only out of the dark part. Rabbi Yochanan further analogizes that while standing in a dark place, a person can see people in a nearby lit area, but the opposite is not true. The message here is that living in "darkness" (i.e. pain of many sorts) enables one to have a greater insight into the meaning of life.

It would be nice for all of us to be healthy, rich and powerful. But what we truly need to ask of God is the insight to see ourselves as we truly are — to recognize our strengths, build upon them, and use them to help others not so blessed. And to recognize our flaws, and to discover ways to improve in those areas, both by our own efforts, and by learning to ask members of our community for assistance.