Parshat B'chukotai (5771’)“No! You Got it All Wrong, You are Good Enough!”
Parshat B'chukotai (5771’)“No! You Got it All Wrong, You are Good Enough!”
Author Stephen Covey, in his work 7 Habits for Highly Effective People writes: Our very essence as creations is to be creators, but because we allow others to design who we are—such as parents, friends and colleagues – we “reactively live the scripts handed to us.”[i] Covey is not telling us that we are incapable of writing our own legacy and life mission, but saying that, because many times we feel so unsure of what we are capable of, we value the opinions of others over our very own. “These scripts come from people, not principles. And they rise out of our deep vulnerabilities, our deep dependencies on others and our needs for acceptance and love, for belonging, for a sense of importance and worth, for feeling that we matter.”[ii]
Putting politics aside, Mankind only functions because we depend on one another to survive. Our music and literature may be published for self-expression, but it is only published to begin with because there are ears that will listen and eyes that will see. We speak rudely, treat harshly and diminish our fellow man, yet without each other we would never have an ego to defend nor a lesson to teach.
Our very coexistence paradoxically reminds us of the duplicitous nature of man. There is a time for defined identity both under the community and the individual. The problem is that we are told from youth to only care about conformity—“to be like him/her, because what you are is just not good enough.” So what happens? Our communal prayer becomes a haven for wandering eyes, and our sense of self is lost within our neighbor’s sense of self, letting someone else’s script become my own. The Torah does not reveal a date for the holiday of Shavuot. It simply states: “You shall count for yourselves—from the morrow of the rest day…until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count, fifty days: and you shall offer a new meal offering to HaShem.”[iii] The “rest day” refers to the second of Passover and “until the morrow of the seventh week” refers to Shavuot. We count fifty days until we can finally offer a “new meal offering to HaShem.” The Omer offering involved separating the wheat and chaff. Constant care and commitment went into such an extensive and time-consuming task. Within the Biblical commandment of counting, the Sages established a pragmatic spiritual cleansing system in order to renew our greatest of skills and destroy our worst of hindrances.
Any person can fulfill this mitzvah on the shallow cultural level, but the completion of a seven-week character-building course is only meant for the vigilant and humble. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (who was born nearly 250 years before Stephen Covey, l’havdil) teaches us the lesson of the Omer. G-d tells us, “You shall count for yourselves.” When it says “yourselves,” it literally means oneself, the internal spiritual elements which make you a human being and everything that you are. It means not being concerned with whether or not your neighbor is fixing his/her self, it means taking ownership of your unique design and creative input, being so aware of oneself that the room seems empty when it is crowded.
When one focuses on themselves they become closer and closer to G-d and get to the level of a perfect vessel willing and open to receiving the water from everyone as if it were One. When that happens, “I [Hashem] will walk among you, I will be a G-d unto you and you will be a people unto Me.”[iv] Because G-d wants us to focus on ourselves and become the writer of our own destiny, He “took [us] out of the land of Egypt from being their slaves.” Thus, we are given the opportunity to become our own master, free from the script that others (Egypt) handed to us.
Deep inside all of us are our brick walls that hold us back from exponential growth. Distractions facilitate neglecting and neglecting results in abandonment. Thus, we forget ourselves and our uniqueness, increasing worry for our neighbor while nearly numbing ourselves. There is a unique way for all of us to acquire a sense of self, the Torah and its wisdom, but, like the counting of the Omer, it is worthless if our Judaism is defined by our neighbor and not ourselves—our own inner needs—because when it is defined by others it will “cause eyes to long and souls to suffer.”
This week I will try to: free myself from the slavery of my eyes, which lead me to look at those around me in prayer and in work. To rid myself of concern for others’ accomplishments and water my mind with thoughts of confidence to write my own script and destiny. I will focus on character building for myself without comparing myself to those around me, and I will pray for clarity from G-d in order to serve Him/Her with my truest self and spiritual force. Shabbat Shalom!
[i] 7 Habits (Pg.1)[ii] Ibid.[iii] Levitticus:23:16[iv] 26:12{v}ibid.
Author Stephen Covey, in his work 7 Habits for Highly Effective People writes: Our very essence as creations is to be creators, but because we allow others to design who we are—such as parents, friends and colleagues – we “reactively live the scripts handed to us.”[i] Covey is not telling us that we are incapable of writing our own legacy and life mission, but saying that, because many times we feel so unsure of what we are capable of, we value the opinions of others over our very own. “These scripts come from people, not principles. And they rise out of our deep vulnerabilities, our deep dependencies on others and our needs for acceptance and love, for belonging, for a sense of importance and worth, for feeling that we matter.”[ii]
Putting politics aside, Mankind only functions because we depend on one another to survive. Our music and literature may be published for self-expression, but it is only published to begin with because there are ears that will listen and eyes that will see. We speak rudely, treat harshly and diminish our fellow man, yet without each other we would never have an ego to defend nor a lesson to teach.
Our very coexistence paradoxically reminds us of the duplicitous nature of man. There is a time for defined identity both under the community and the individual. The problem is that we are told from youth to only care about conformity—“to be like him/her, because what you are is just not good enough.” So what happens? Our communal prayer becomes a haven for wandering eyes, and our sense of self is lost within our neighbor’s sense of self, letting someone else’s script become my own. The Torah does not reveal a date for the holiday of Shavuot. It simply states: “You shall count for yourselves—from the morrow of the rest day…until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count, fifty days: and you shall offer a new meal offering to HaShem.”[iii] The “rest day” refers to the second of Passover and “until the morrow of the seventh week” refers to Shavuot. We count fifty days until we can finally offer a “new meal offering to HaShem.” The Omer offering involved separating the wheat and chaff. Constant care and commitment went into such an extensive and time-consuming task. Within the Biblical commandment of counting, the Sages established a pragmatic spiritual cleansing system in order to renew our greatest of skills and destroy our worst of hindrances.
Any person can fulfill this mitzvah on the shallow cultural level, but the completion of a seven-week character-building course is only meant for the vigilant and humble. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (who was born nearly 250 years before Stephen Covey, l’havdil) teaches us the lesson of the Omer. G-d tells us, “You shall count for yourselves.” When it says “yourselves,” it literally means oneself, the internal spiritual elements which make you a human being and everything that you are. It means not being concerned with whether or not your neighbor is fixing his/her self, it means taking ownership of your unique design and creative input, being so aware of oneself that the room seems empty when it is crowded.
When one focuses on themselves they become closer and closer to G-d and get to the level of a perfect vessel willing and open to receiving the water from everyone as if it were One. When that happens, “I [Hashem] will walk among you, I will be a G-d unto you and you will be a people unto Me.”[iv] Because G-d wants us to focus on ourselves and become the writer of our own destiny, He “took [us] out of the land of Egypt from being their slaves.” Thus, we are given the opportunity to become our own master, free from the script that others (Egypt) handed to us.
Deep inside all of us are our brick walls that hold us back from exponential growth. Distractions facilitate neglecting and neglecting results in abandonment. Thus, we forget ourselves and our uniqueness, increasing worry for our neighbor while nearly numbing ourselves. There is a unique way for all of us to acquire a sense of self, the Torah and its wisdom, but, like the counting of the Omer, it is worthless if our Judaism is defined by our neighbor and not ourselves—our own inner needs—because when it is defined by others it will “cause eyes to long and souls to suffer.”
This week I will try to: free myself from the slavery of my eyes, which lead me to look at those around me in prayer and in work. To rid myself of concern for others’ accomplishments and water my mind with thoughts of confidence to write my own script and destiny. I will focus on character building for myself without comparing myself to those around me, and I will pray for clarity from G-d in order to serve Him/Her with my truest self and spiritual force. Shabbat Shalom!
[i] 7 Habits (Pg.1)[ii] Ibid.[iii] Levitticus:23:16[iv] 26:12{v}ibid.
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