It's Possible to Do Good While Doing Wrong on a Soul Level

Have you ever felt like you’ve been trying your hardest to do the “right thing” or to perform a “mitzvah” (good deed), but you sense that something just isn’t right? Have you ever been focused on doing good but found that something about your actions felt so wrong?

Maybe you weren’t fulfilling your soul’s purpose. Maybe you were doing the wrong good deeds or performing the wrong mitzvot for you. Yes…that’s possible.

Rabbi Manchem Mendel Schneerson said:

We are each given a mission to fulfill during the course of our lives. we are also allocated the requisite number of days in which to fulfill this mission; we are given neither one moment too many nor one moment too few. Every day or moment that is not utilized in fulfillment of its particular mission is not only a waste of that particular moment, but an abuse of the mission entrusted to us by the King of all Kings, Almighty God, blessed be He. This is true even if we are engaged in a good endeavor, but not related to our particular mission.

When I read this quote last night while attending a class taught at my local Chabad House, I was struck by how often I feel I am trying to do good, how often I am trying to do the right thing, and how often I feel I am losing time and off course from what I am supposed to be doing.

Many of us feel this. We feel we must take a certain job to support our families rather than one that we’ve always dreamed of having. We feel we must help the person who asks for help even though it prevents us from completing a person projects dear to our hearts. We feel we must volunteer for a particular charity even though we want to put in time for a different one. And then we come home with regrets and a feeling of incompleteness and emptiness. We feel unfulfilled, unhappy and as if we are simply surviving rather than thriving. We sense that something essential in our nature is not being allowed to grow and prosper–and to give to the world.

Rabbi Schneerson’s words spoke to me. It called out to me. It yelled at me. It said, “You must fulfill your soul’s purpose now, not later. You are losing time!”

I know that only when each and every one of us is taking right action towards fulfilling our soul’s purpose–our own mission–will we manifest the things we want and need in our lives.

Yes, it is possible to do good while doing wrong on a soul level. That, it seem is easy. Many of us do this. The harder thing involves doing good while doing right on a soul level.

Actually, this only feel hard at first. I’m sure that once you and I take that step and begin doing the right thing, the good thing, the mitzvah that allows us to fulfill our mission on this earth, we will find that everything flows easily and effortless. Thus, continuing to do so will seem very easy. We will wonder why we didn’t do so long ago.