Never Walk Alone

“Down to Gehenna or up to the throne,

He travels the fastest who travels alone,” penned Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling was correct, wasn’t he?  When we jettison the burden of carrying others we proceed much more quickly.  People slow us down.  They cut into doing things that take us away from our goal.  They stand in the way of progress.  The best minds of the past were those who segregated themselves from others to work in solitude.

Michelangelo never married.   Think of Van Gogh and his separate life.  Alfred Nobel lived and worked alone.  While married and a mother, Golda Meir was most wedded to her country, Israel.  Leo Szlizard, true father of the atomic bomb, consulted other theoreticians and physicists but he traveled his path almost entirely by himself.  And Alexander the Great was not a stay-at-home dad.  Such undistracted dedication gave rise to their genius and creativity. 

Torah takes a different view.  It tells us several contradicting things at once.  We are supposed to pursue a top rate, life-long Jewish education.  We are commanded by the sages to pursue a profession until we achieve excellence.  Our faith demands marriage and expects children.  At the same time, we are told to care of our parents.  Holidays must be observed.  Our spouse requires time, energy, and attentiveness.  Tzedaka must be dispensed, prayers recited….

How can one possibly achieve excellence with all these distractions?

Contrast what Kipling wrote with commentator, Philip K. Howard:  “Smart people spend time alone.  They don’t fill their days with appointments from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., as many politicians and executives do.  Great science does not emerge from hard logic and grinding hours.  It comes from the mysterious resources of the human brain and soul.  Inspiration is nurtured by activities like chopping wood and raking leaves, preparing dinner and reading to the kids.  The activities soften the rigid pace of the day’s pursuits and allow all our God-given intuition to work its unlogical magic.  Only then can we reach our fullest potential.  Only then can we leap from thinking to understanding.”

What our tradition seeks is balance.  The secret of life does not lie in obsessive behavior, it resides the rainbow-colored spectrum we call life.  Real beauty emerges from the full brush stroke from a palette of diversity.  Let’s face it: black and white movies are a novelty but color is so much more vibrant.  It is the same with life.

The joys of existence emerge from playing with one another.  Isn’t that what Pesah is all about?  We tell stories, sing songs, chant, eat, regale with tales from the past, set sumptuous tables, encourage children to participate, open doors, and bless one another.  Life lived alone, apart, is not a full life.

Once, a boy was walking in the street holding a beautiful apple.  An elderly man remarked, “That looks like a scrumptious apple.”

The boy replied, “It certainly does and I intend to eat it!”

The man asked, “Tell me. How could you enjoy twice as much pleasure out of this apple?” 

“That’s simple,” said the boy.  “Give me another apple and then it will be double.”

The man said, “You are mistaken.  Cut it in half and give half away.  Then you will discover the additional pleasure that comes from your friend eating the other half of the apple together with you.”

What is the moral of all this?  It is not about “you”; it is about “us”.