The other week, Rav Natan Greenberg called us all together after the murders near Neveh Daniel to talk about the "situation." Among other things, he talked about there being no place in Judaism for people to be disconnected, no place for "individual" tzaddikim. There is no Jewish spiritual path that you can just follow on your own, with no one else around to hold you back sometimes when they're stuck in some chisaron (problem), in some form of muck, or to help you out of your own problems when you're stuck. Sometimes, it may indeed feel like we're being held-back, like if it weren't for all these other "sinners" around, we could've gotten much farther in our spiritual progress on our own. "Why do I need to wast the precious little time I have on their problems?"
That feeling, though, is missing the point. What we're doing in the world was never about how much reward/paradise/etc. I can grab-up in this world before the World-To-Come. It's not exchanging a life of the physical rat-race for one of a spiritual rat-race. What it is about is… love. Love of God, and love of Am Yisrael who are all brothers and sisters and love of all the world in ever-growing outward circles… and that's a different kind of "race."
In the army, whenever we used to go running, our commanders used to tell us that no one should run ahead; it's not about how fast you can run - it's about how fast you can run as a platoon together. If the pace is easy and you feel like you can run ahead - then run back and help your friends who are having trouble. A good run was always measured not by our time but by how we ran - if we were a tight, compact group or if we were scattered, drawn-out group with people trailing behind. That's the key. That's what makes us not just another spiritual method for achieving Godliness. That's what elevates it past just a bunch of rules, a system (i.e. daven X times, go to the mikvah Y times, and learn Z pages of Talmud - and then you'll get to paradise). It's all about friendship, about love, about caring, about fighting against indifference and solitude.
Eliyahu Berkowitz's chuppah (wedding canopy) stands out in my mind as one of the most beautiful, spiritual experiences I've had. There was this amazing feeling in the air of two souls being reunited who had been longing for each other for so long, and I was completely blown-away by it. At the beginning, though, I was standing by the chuppah in the middle of the crowd, and I was feeling very lonely and sad. It felt like: well, this is all great for Eliyahu and Devorah Gila, but I'm still alone and lonely, and so are so many other people who are yearning for their soulmates and still haven't found them - so how can I be happy?!? But then, suddenly, I realized that really we're all connected - but I mean really - and that every two souls that find each other bring the whole world closer to the Mashiach, to Geulah (Redemption). None of us can ever be truly and completely happy until all of us are truly and completely happy, and each of us that finds his or her true happiness brings all of us that much closer to our own personal happiness, and to the true happiness - the true Redemption of the entire world! I wasn't celebrating "someone else's" wedding anymore, "someone else's" simcha - Eliyahu's happiness is really my happiness because I could never be completely happy unless Eliyahu were completely happy… and how can we ever be happy if one of our true friends, one of the people we love, one creature in this world is suffering?
Maybe that's why you break a cup at a wedding, or leave part of a wall unfinished when you build a house; at the times when you most feel completion and happiness in this world, you need to remember that the Beit HaMikdash is still destroyed, that there is still suffering in the world, that not everyone is completely happy, so neither are you. A person once asked R. Moshe Leib of Sassov (who used to spend his time raising money for the poor and helping the sick and those in need) how he had room in himself for so many other peoples' sufferings. He answered: "If their suffering is really only their suffering, than truly my life has been a waste." I bless all of us that we should be able to love each other truly and be connected to Am Yisrael and to the whole world with true love and friendship.