Grow and Allow Others to Grow

A teacher was lecturing his pupils on the story of Joseph who was sold by his brothers to passing slave merchants. 

At once, a sympathetic student began to weep listening as the tragedy unfolded.

The next year while teaching that same passage, the same student began to laugh uproariously.

“Are you insane?”  The teacher rebuked.  “Last year you were crying and now you are splitting your side with laughter?”

“Why shouldn’t I laugh?  After what happened last year Joseph should have learned his lesson!”

The stories in Torah do not change from year to year, but we do.   It is not surprising to understand them in an entirely different light with the passing years.

One year Moses may be our hero and the next, a man handicapped by all kinds of idiosyncrasies and deep flaws.  The same can be said for Rebecca or Abraham or Isaiah. 

There is one underlying concept, which undergirds the opinion we hold about the actors in the Torah: what makes a hero?  That entirely subjective question is determined by who we are.  The heroes we venerate are a reflection of our values.  For example, do you think Abraham, was fearless, unwavering in his faith to G-d?  Was he the paradigm of a religious human?  Or was Abraham too pliant, too easily moved to do evil?  After all, he was willing to murder his own son.

The answer to that question, like so many others, start with a simple question: Who is your hero?  Gandhi?  Akiva? Roosevelt?  Mao?  The next-door neighbor?  A relative? 

Why choose them?  What is it that makes them a hero to you?

We choose our heroes based on some ideal of human life.  When we know who is our hero, we understand who we wish to become.

That ideal changes as we grow.

“When I was young I admired clever people.  Now that I am old, I admire kind people,” wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel.  As we grow our priorities and wishes change.  Some become more conservative, others move to become liberal, while others change their world-view in myriad directions. 

The question burns: whom do we idolize?

A Midrash:  When Moses ascended to heaven to receive Torah the angels complained, “What is flesh and blood doing here, among us?” they wailed.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu responded, “He is here to receive the Torah.”

 “Nine hundred seventy- four generations have passed since the inception of the world.  Since that time Your word has been safe with us.  And now you want to give it to such beings??”

HaKadosh Baruch Hu responded, “They can do teshuvah.”

Hearing the clamor raging in heaven, Moses grew afraid.  What if the angels grew spiteful and destroyed him?

HaKadosh Baruch Hu soothed Moses’ anxiety saying, “Hold My throne and you will be safe.”

Even angels hold opinions. Allowing others to do likewise and respecting differences is what this midrash comes to teach.  Times change and people change along with them.  G-d trusted Moses and the people to change.  One upon a time we were radically different than we are today.  Thank G-d someone was wise enough to know we would grow out of it.

Thank You

Norman Podhoretz of Commentary Magazine fame once interviewed Professor Sidney Hooks, a few weeks before he died.  Hooks was a well-known atheist.

Podhoretz asked Hooks about his philosophy on life.  After a moment’s hesitation, Hooks replied that when something meaningful happens to him – whether it be the birth of a grandchild or by not being hot by a falling brick – he felt thankful.  (Note to self: Thankful to whom?)

Sometimes my mind meanders to all the things that could possibly happen to me.  Everything seems delicately balanced to fall apart at any given moment, especially in this technological age when all appears to be automated, the dishwasher, television, telephone, music systems, event he walls of our homes!  There are so many potential pitfalls of things that can go awry during the day from the greatest of them (death) to the least of them (the earphone jack does not work) that just getting through the day without a terrible mishap is a major accomplishment.  And it is only an accident of birth that we did not enter the world in say, Libya.

At the end of the day (assuming there will be a usual end to this day) it may be worth our while to be thankful having survived it reasonably intact, along with our family.  What an novel concept—to be grateful for all that did not go wrong.  And, of course, the potential for things to go “off course” is endless.

Helen Keller: “I, who am blind, can give but one hint to those who can see.  One admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if you would be stricken blind!

“And the same method could be applied to the other senses.  Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow.  Touch each object as though tomorrow your tactile senses would fail.  Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you would never smell or taste again.

“Make the most of every sense, glory in all the facets of beauty which the world reveals…”

A short poem with more than a measure of wisdom:

My Little Plant

My little plant died

I worried why.

“Too much water

And it will die.”

My little plant died

I questioned why.

“Too much handling

And it will die.”

My little plant lived

I asked not why

Just threw my arms exultantly high.  –Sada Applebaum