Re'eh 5772

“See, this day I set before you blessing and curse” (Deuteronomy 11:26).

Human beings stand perpetually at a crossroad, deciding which path to take.  We have free will, and are afforded choice each and every day, each and every moment.  We chose between blessing and curse at all times.

The choices are usually miniscule, but small choices add up.  According to Sfat Emet, the Hasidic master from the early Twentieth Century, each choice is but a hairbreadth, that is, so minor as to be insignificant.  “The righteous, as they overcome each hairbreadth, go on to encounter another.  They keep doing so forever, until they accumulate so many as to seem like a mountain” (Arthur Green, The Language of Truth, JPS, 1998).  This is how we craft our way in this world, and it is entirely up to us whether we arrive at the summit of righteousness or the valley of wickedness.  Both journeys are made one step at a time.

Eikev 5772

Moses, approaching the end of his days, remembers what happened after he destroyed the first set of Commandments.  God tells him to “hew … two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to Me onto the mountain, and make for yourself a wooden ark”  (Deuteronomy 10:1).  Moses, however, “made an ark of acacia wood, and [then] hewed two stone tablets like the first ones” (10:3). 

Rashi notices that Moses goes out of order, directly disobeying God.  He was supposed to make the tablets first.  The great commentator explains Moses’ thinking by putting words in his mouth:  “I, however, made the ark first, because when I could come with the tablets in my hand, where would I put them?”

There are dreamers in this world, people who have bold visions and inspire others to join in.  And there are systems people, capable of determining the proper order so that processes are smooth, efficient, and effective.  Some are content to launch out into the unknown.  Others prefer having a map in hand.  When taking on a project, following instructions is often beneficial.  And sometimes improvisation is what’s needed.  Success usually requires a mixture of vision AND research, planning AND adaptation.  The trick is to know your strength, and when to employ each technique.

How do you work best?  Do you seek out partners to compliment you, or do you find it upsetting to work with people who have styles different from yours?

Parashat Vayetchanan 5772

“Hear, O Israel!  YHVH is our God, YHVH is One!”  The Shema, “watchword of our faith,” is Deuteronomy 6:4 and is found in Parashat V’Etchanan.  These six little words contain so much richness, so much complexity, and so much ambiguity.  No wonder they have resonated through the millennia.
Once, when I worked at a Jewish summer camp, I accompanied a group of youngsters on an evening hike.  We climbed onto a fire lookout, breathed in the fresh-born air, and listened to the silence.  I asked the students to look around them and tell me what they saw.  Predictably, they told me that they saw trees.  When I asked them to look further off, they suddenly saw the forest.  Notice the details, and see the trees.  Take in the big picture, and see the forest. 
The Shema reminds us of this fact.  Viewed separately, the pieces of this world are disconnected, separate.  The wall and the window and the ceiling are all disparate parts of my office.  Viewed holistically, they fuse together and form a single entity.  And so it is with everything that fills the Universe.
We can choose to see the world as a jumble of disparate pieces, each one separate from the others.  Or we can peel back the illusion within which we live to see the Unity behind it, the Oneness that transcends all division.