Are We Talking About The Same Thing?

“The world’s changing a lot. It’s best not to try and outsmart it” memoirist Tara Westover recently said. This week’s portion of Torah strongly agrees. 

If you ever wondered what extremism-on-the-loose might look like, you now know. Today’s world finds fury running rampant. And so, just in time, the Torah arrives to restore a way to refurnish your inner-life. 

How? By remembering how unhealthy it is to believe your own might is sovereign. To say to yourself, “My own power is solely responsible for all I’ve accomplished and accumulated” (Deut. 8:17). The prophets tell us: arrogance is the worst of all the vices. Why? Because it convinces you that you don’t have any. 

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once noted: history is a vast panorama of idols worshiped and smashed. Once upon a time the idol at the base of Mt. Sinai was a Golden Calf. Maybe today it’s your smartphone. Yes, every new tool extends our strengths. The carpenter’s hammer. The farmer’s tractor. The medical-researcher’s genome. But extending strengths can also alter them. 

What to do? Try to humbly recall that your strength isn’t self-made. The next verse reminds you, “The Good Lord is your genuine source of vigor (Ha-notain Lecha Koach) (Deut. 8:18). This doesn’t mean you outsource your elbow-grease. Far from it. You remain fully accountable. It simply reminds you that self-made light ends up being too dim. 

I’m learning that a good question to ask your neighbor who’s fuming over something about which you feel differently is: Are we talking about the same thing? 

This week’s portion asks, regarding your attainments. something similar. It gently invites you to revisit what you know And to reconsider how you’re choosing to live in light of it. May how you commit to living in light of it, make you a better beacon for those around you.