Empowered Potential

Whether it be through books, movies, music or any other cultural tool, some sentiments become so frequent one may mistake it as true. Phrases and expressions passed down like old relics become family treasures that are coveted even in modern times. Although this makes us who we are, this also *makes us* who we are.

For example, the phrase “You’ve got a lot of potential…” –you can probably finish the sentence, as well as hear the tone in which it is being said. Without it having been said.

Remarkably, this illustrates the crazy reality of impression expressions have marked on our minds. These same phrases and notions have been used so often in media as well as real life, that we don’t even need to finish the phrase to understand the context.

Let’s do a quick experiment:

When you read the words “You’ve got a lot of potential…” –What tone did you read it in? Was it positive, as the words may suggest? Or was it impending negative? (as the phrase does more often than not) We know this expression to be the “glass half empty” sentence that makes space for the contradictory “but” that strikes the first, once half full glass.

Stating someone has potential, whether it be an applicant for a CEO position or NFL quarterback…the words ignite this spark that it’s just not enough.

Maybe the world is on to something about this, or maybe they have it all wrong.

Let’s investigate the power of potential through a Torah lens.

The first time the word “Potential”/a synonymous word to potential appears in Tanach, it is subtly spoken through the interpretation of three very different sources on one tragic Pasuk. וַיֹּ֖אמֶר מֶ֣ה עָשִׂ֑יתָ ק֚וֹל דְּמֵ֣י אָחִ֔יךָ צֹעֲקִ֥ים אֵלַ֖י מִן־הָֽאֲדָמָֽה׃ -“What have you done? Hark, your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!” (General translation–בראשית ד׳:י׳)

The context is the moments of conversation between G!d and Cain, upon the first murder in the world and consequently the first destruction of family. In the more obvious texts, Hashem makes known to Cain that his act did not go unnoticed, so much so that the Earth itself is stained by the rash acts of jealousy. However, through the more investigative analysis of Holocaust survivor Charles Kahane in 1963, Rav Shraga Zilberstein in his Sefer “Chumash Rashi” and finally the famous Roman convert to Jewish commentator, Onkeles, suggests an additional meaning.

Just as in Parshat Noach we learn that a person can be defined by their descendants, of course a person’s descendants are greatly impacted by the individual. Even their very…that magic word, “potential”

All three of these sources understand these words of G!d to Cain to be not only the sound of his brother’s voice hummed within the Earth, but also “the blood of his potential descendants, cries up to Me from the ground” All three understand the verse to be a direct reference to not what once was, but even more impactful of what could be.

Another example, of how potential is actually one of the most powerful forces in the world, is illustrated through the deepest prayers of our history.

The prayer for children, dating back to the hopes and dreams of our early Avot and Imahot, passed down as precious relics and family treasures, these prayers articulate the great longing for potential. Not through negating what is, but celebrating what could be.

Chana, one of the most vulnerable women in Tanach, inspires the silent prayers of Am Yisrael today. A woman who deemed our whispers loud enough to be heard.

It is her Tefilah that is saturated in what can be. A prayer for a son, and without stopping at the sweet gift of a child, she extends her prayer to the potential of who this child could be.