October 8, 2024|ו' תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ה One Step at a Time
Print Article
I recently read a story about one of the most successful magazine entrepreneurs in the world. The man was raised by a single mother in the Midwest, struggled growing up, and was failing out of high school. He promised his mother he would take the SAT test, though he didn’t expect to get a good score. He was shocked to learn he got a 1480 out of 1600 on the SAT. His mother, knowing her son, asks, “Did you cheat?” He swore to her he did not. And suddenly, things started to change.
In his senior year he decided since he’s smart he should attend classes. He stopped hanging out with his old crowd. The teachers and kids seemed to notice. They started treating him differently. He graduated, attends community college, went on to Wichita State, and eventually to an Ivy League university. He went on to become a successful magazine entrepreneur.
You might be looking at this story as someone who was really smart all along but just needed the standardized test to unlock his potential. No. That isn’t the story. What comes next is the important part. Twelve years after his fateful SAT exam, the man gets a letter in the mail from Princeton, New Jersey. He doesn’t think anything about it. The next day his wife asks him if he’s going to open the letter.
He opens it. It turns out the SAT board periodically reviews their test-taking procedures and policies. He was one of 13 people sent the wrong SAT score. His actual score was half of what he thought he got: 740. People had been saying his whole life changed when he got the 1480. What really happened is his behavior changed. He started acting like a person with a 1480 and started doing what someone with a score like that does.
Indeed, though not often thought of in this way, that is what Yom Kippur is about. Most mistakenly think that Yom Kippur is a day to feel worthless, a total failure, a mess-up, an underachiever. After all, we spend this day literally smacking ourselves and counting one by one the ways we have failed, the mistakes we have made. It seems a bit much. Yes, it is sobering and productive, but can’t we say vidui once? “I shouldn’t have done x, y and z,” mean it sincerely, then move on, break our fast. Why must we hit our chests and confess over and over and over again? Is perpetually beating ourselves up what this day is literally all about?
We say towards the end of our Yom Kippur Amida, עַד שֶׁלּא נוצַרְתִּי אֵינִי כְדַאי, וְעַכְשָׁו שֶׁנּוצַרְתִּי כְּאִלּוּ לא נוצָרְתִּי. “God, before I was formed, I was unworthy, and now that I have been formed it is as if I had not been formed.” I dread arriving at these words each year, words that are debilitating, deflating, and really very depressing. They come from the Gemara (Berachos 17a) – Rava said them at the conclusion of the Amida every day. I was nothing before, I am nothing now, what is the point of living at all?
Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook reads this disheartening tefilla in a very different way. He explains it is in fact empowering, inspiring, and motivating. It is the answer and response to the imposter syndrome, to feeling worthless and a fraud. Explains Rav Kook, “Before I was formed, I was unworthy” means that each and every one of us enters the world at the exact moment when we are needed. Before we were formed, there was no need for us. Hashem sends us into His world at the exact moment when we are worthy — that our skills, talent and abilities and even our challenges are uniquely needed by the universe, by the world, by our neighbors, family and friends. We are precisely what the world needs at the moment we arrive and for the time that we are in it.
Until now I wasn’t needed, but if I am here, I must answer the call, live up to that potential in me, recognize my ability and be the person the world was waiting for and needs at this moment. Rav Kook is teaching us that the vidui of Yom Kippur, our confession and admission, is not our failures, not a list of rules and regulations we violated per se, rather it is more an admission and confession of failing to realize the potential inside us, indulging in temptations, urges and impulses that distracted us from our core mission, from who we are meant to be. If we forsake our mission, if we squander our time and resources, if we fail to see the potential inside us and to believe in our power, then “now that I have been formed it is as if I had not been formed.”
Yom Kippur is not to beat ourselves up, but to raise ourselves up, to use 25 hours for an honest look in the mirror, to admit the potential that is inside us, to regret the ways we have failed to realize it and to pledge to make our existence purposeful, meaningful and impactful.
Degel Machaneh Efraim cites the Baal Shem Tov in explaining the pasuk we recite today (Tehillim 71:9) אַֽל־תַּ֭שְׁלִיכֵנִי לְעֵ֣ת זִקְנָ֑ה כִּכְל֥וֹת כֹּ֝חִ֗י אַֽל־תַּעַזְבֵֽנִי , Do not cast me off to old age; when my strength fails, do not forsake me! The simple understanding is this is a tefillah that one maintain his physical strength, vigor, and cognitive faculties through old age.
But the Baal Shem Tov explained that Dovid Hamelech was asking for help in a different way. Al tashlicheini, don’t cast me off to old age, don’t let me act like a person who has a fixed mindset, who is done, a finished product, who considers his or her book complete, done. Let me not live a stale life, give my mitzvos and my life, my mission and my purpose freshness, energy, vibrancy and dynamism.
It was said that in Kotzk, there was no such thing as an old man. An older individual simply contained in him three or four younger people. He may have been eighty years old, but he was full of energy and enthusiasm, he is constantly moving if not physically, spiritually. Today, it is often the other way around: a young person is a third of an old man. He lacks a sense of vitality, of life. He might be physically agile, but if someone has given up on themselves, if they aren’t fighting to be independent and add their unique voice to the world, they have reached eis ziknah.
Late in his life, Rav Aharon Soloveitchik zt”l had a massive stroke. He recovered but it was very hard for him to walk. I will never forget watching him make his way to the YU Beis Medrash on his own two feet. He had a walker, dragged one side of his body, and involuntarily let out a load groan with each step he took.
It was hard, arduous, undoubtedly painful, but Rav Aharon wanted so badly to walk into the Beis Medrash on his own two feet. Two people would walk with him holding him. He would walk step by step, very slowly into the Beis Medrash. When asked why he would not accept help, he explained that he wanted to walk on his own as much as possible to be makayeim the beracha of hamaichin mitzadei gaver, Hashem guides our steps.
When Rav Aharon passed away, at his levaya it was described that when he would take each step towards the Beis Medrash he would count like the Kohain Gadol on Yom Kippur sprinkling the blood in the Kodesh HaKadashim: Achas. Achas V’Achas. Achas V’shatyim.
In his broken state, in great pain, with tremendous effort, he recognized that whatever I am up to in life, that’s the most important step in the world. That’s my personal Kodesh Hakadashim. We have to see our next step, our next moment, our next action as our holy of holies, something so important, so meaningful to the universe, the fulfillment of why we are here. We cannot be Netzavim. Like Moshe at the end of his life, like Rav Aharon at the end of his life, we must be Vayeilech, keep moving, keep taking the next step and then we are young no matter how old the calendar says we are.
One beracha. One tefilla. One shiur. One page of Gemara. One Mishna. One demonstration of Emunah and bitachon. One great parenting moment or marriage moment of patience, love and affection. One gesture of kindness. One act of tzedakah. Al tashlicheinu, don’t cast me to old age, I’m young and vibrant and ready to go one step at a time, like the Kohen Gadol. That is our avodah: achas, achas v’achas, one step, one moment at a time.
The world didn’t need you until you were born. That was Hashem’s decision. But now that you are here, what will you do with it? Achas v’achas, take it one step at a time.
Don’t wait for the world to recognize your greatness. Unlock your potential, act like the person you are meant to be, and people will treat you like that person. More importantly, you will see yourself, treat yourself and believe in yourself as that person.