2024/5784
One of the hardest balances to maintain is that of humility and self-confidence. The part of Perek כו in this week's Parashah, BeChukotai, is a clear reminder of this truth. Throughout the warning, G-d reveals how His Hand guides all events, such as in "I will grant peace" (26:6), "I will make" (26:32), "I will scatter" (26:33), and "I shall remember" (26:45). Farmers can labor day and night, but G-d controls whether it yields fruit. You can study a dozen hours, but if G-d clouds your memory or causes an "unforeseen" event to occur at the test, you'll fail horrendously. You can work hard for a promotion, but if your boss is angry because someone else messing up on the big day, your efforts may be summarily rejected. We can send to שמים our mountains of Tefillot for the release of the hostages and the end of the war, but if G-d doesn't will it, it won't happen. G-d controls the outcome of our efforts.
However, as Rabi Tarfon says in Pirkei Avot 2:16, "it is not your duty to finish the work, but you are not at liberty to neglect it". How can we reconcile the first half of this quote with the latter half? An equation, diluted into principle, can explain this dynamic. According to the laws of physics, the more one increases his/her velocity, the less time one experiences. Don't start running to avoid aging; nothing will change significantly until you reach dozens of, if not hundreds of, millions of meters a second. At the speed of light, or 300 million meters a second, you don't experience time, as mind-boggling as that sounds to our finite, human perspective. We mortals can't go at the speed of light, given it requires infinite energy.
In this Mashal, G-d's power is represented by the speed of light. It is utterly unattainable. So why should I try to "finish the work"? Because self-confidence does not come from comparing our abilities to the Ribono Shel Olam. It comes from realizing that, even though we can never reach the speed of light, we still doubled our velocity. For our standards, we improved dramatically.
We need to recognize how great our personal improvements are relative to our past selves, while simultaneously realizing that anything close to G-d's level is utterly unattainable. May we be Zocheh to achieve such a balance, and may that hasten the coming of Mashiach במהרה בימנו.