By Rabbi Nuriel Zargari: The parsha starts out ,”וישב יעקב בארץ מגורי אביו” ”Yaakov settled in the land of his father.” Rashi quotes chazal that Yaakov Avinu really wanted to sit in tranquility, but Hashem did not let that happen. Instead Hashem said is it not enough what the Tzadikim have waiting for them in olam habba, but they also want to sit in tranquility in this world?
And the question is first what sin did the righteous do that they don’t deserve tranquility in this world? And, also, can’t the righteous have both the good in this world and the next?
The Darche Mussar explains based on the chazal ”תורה שלמדתי באף היא שעמדה לי” The Torah that I have learned at times of difficulty they have stood for me. In other words, the Torah and mitsvot that you do at the situations when its hardest – the times in your life when it was most difficult to keep your set learning with your Torah partner, the times it was so hard to wake up on time to pray with a proper minyan – in retrospect will be your greatest accomplishment, because you were able to push through the challenge. That pushed you to work harder and accomplish things that man can’t possibly accomplish when everything is going easy.
Maran Harav Shach ztz”l suffered tremendously as a young boy all alone during the First World War living with only the shirt on his backing lacking basic necessities but thru it all he pressed spending his days and nights engrossed in only his torah learning. Years later when he was the rosh Yeshiva of the famous Ponevish Yeshiva and known as the gadol hador he wrote in his sefer that the torah he learnt during those war years under the hardest conditions were the best and the most beloved because the times were so challenging and he rose above it, those Torah thoughts were of the highest quality. So to although Hashem could have made it easy for Yaakov avinu in this world but Hashem wanted to challenge him in order to let him rise to higher levels.
So if you feel that the yetzer harah is trying to stop you from your Torah learning or its challenging for you to pray with kavana, know that Hashem is challenging you to give you an opportunity to get to the next level.