The Test of Other People

by Rabbi Avigdor Miller (excerpts) 

Since the ordeal of jealousy, the ordeal of fighting for glory cannot operate in a vacuum, it follows that our contact with human beings are our great tests in life. Of all ordeals, the strongest, the most bitter, is the ordeal of getting along with other people.

You young people don’t know that. You think it’s important, but it’s not paramount. Now learn that this is the most bitter of all tests that Hakadosh Baruch Hu imposes on mankind. A man can go into seclusion with Hakadosh Baruch Hu; he thinks he can get along with Hashem. You know why? Because he doesn’t see Him. But if he could see Hakadosh Baruch Hu then trouble would begin; there would be real trouble.

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But the acid test is go in solitude with somebody else. When a man who goes in solitude with his wife, "Moshiv yechidim baysa — [Hakadosh Baruch Hu] puts two individuals into one house" (Tehilllim 68:7). Ah, now the problem begins!

​Why say two "individuals"? Because hitherto he had all his young years, done what he wanted. Let’s see he was in a dormitory with other boys, if he didn’t like it he moved out, he transferred to another yeshiva. He went to the dormitory mashgiach, he wants another room. She was alone, she had a bedroom by herself. Whenever her mother criticized her she slammed the door and she didn’t go out for two hours. She did what she wanted. So yechidim, they are two individuals. And now Hashem takes moshiv yechidim, He takes two individuals, buys them one house, now the problems begin. That’s the test. 

The acid test is go in solitude with somebody else

Now the gemara says in Sanhedrin that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created man in a particular way. The gemara says "Ki’sheim she’ain partzufeihem domeh zeh lazeh — just as no two people have the same faces — kach ain deoseihem domeh zeh lazeh -- they don’t have the same minds, [the same character]."

You hear that? If you’ll travel throughout the whole world you won’t find two with the same face, and you also won’t find two with exactly the same kind of a mind. Now that’s a very important statement. And the question is why, why did Hakadosh Baruch Hu do that? Wouldn’t have it have been better to have let’s say men with certain faces and you could find a woman with the same face, and they get married and their children have the same face. Just like when you pair together two animals in the barnyard, if they’re the same stock we expect their offspring to be the same, too.

And the answer is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu intentionally made everyone different in order to make it hard it to get along.… — Midos: The Supreme Test (#53)