One Small Step
At 10:56 p.m. ET on July 20, 1969, the American astronaut Neil Armstrong put his foot on the lunar surface and famously declared, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil’s “one small step” was only made possible through years of research, billions of dollars of investments, and lots of hard work from a large team of experts.
Parents Kvell while watching their children as they grow up. But they also remember the sleepless nights, the Kvetching they had to put up with, the sacrifices they made and the resources they invested in educating their children to develop into mature, good, Yiddishe Mentchen.
There are countless stories of leaders who initially failed and encountered tremendous challenges before going on to create business empires and transformative organizations.
Thomas Edison, one of the most prolific inventors in history (holding over 1000 U.S. patents), was told as a boy by his teacher that he was too unintelligent to learn anything and suggested he go into a field that did not require intelligence. He tried more than 9,000 experiments before he created the first successful light bulb.
It’s easy to forget now that Apple is the most valuable company in the world, but there was a time when the tech giant was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Twenty years ago, the media was predicting the end of the company and it was losing $1 billion a year. All that changed when founder Steve Jobs returned to Apple, launching revolutionary products like the iMac, iPod and eventually the iPhone.
Setbacks, failures and challenges can become a part of our journey to greater heights. Success does not happen overnight, but it begins with small steps and lots of perseverance.
The Talmud teaches: “If a person tells you, ‘I’ve worked hard but have not succeeded’, don’t believe him; if he says, ‘I’ve not worked hard but have succeeded’, don’t believe him; but if he says ‘I’ve worked hard and succeeded’, believe him (-Megillah 2a)”.
Rabbi Akiva (50 AD, Lod, Israel- 135 AD, Caesarea, Israel), began his life as a simple unlearned shepherd. Akiva once saw drops of water falling on a huge stone – drip, drop – and directly where the drops were falling there was a deep hole in the stone.
Akiva then reasoned: If a substance soft as water can penetrate a rock with slow, persistent motion, so too the Torah can slowly but surely penetrate my heart. And that was Akiva’s turning point. He promptly set off to study Torah and rose to become one of the greatest Jewish scholars and leaders in history.
In this week’s Torah portion, Matos-Maasei, we learn about the forty-two journeys that the Jewish people traveled through in the desert after leaving Egypt on their way to the promised land. As the verse states, “These are the journeys of the children of Israel who left the land of Egypt in their legions, under the charge of Moses and Aaron.” -Numbers 33:1
It would seem that there was only one journey which took the Jewish nation out of Egypt. The other “journeys” listed in our Parshah were between points outside of the geographical borders of Egypt. Why, then, does the Torah speak of “the journeys”—in the plural—“of the children of Israel going out of the land of Egypt”?
Mitzrayim, the Hebrew word for “Egypt,” also means “borders” and “narrows.” On a spiritual level, the journey from Egypt is a journey from the boundaries that limit us—an exodus from the narrow straits of habit, convention and ego to the “good, broad land” of the infinite potential of our G‑dly soul.
The journey from Egypt is a perpetual one: what is expansive and uninhibited by yesterday’s standards, is narrow and confining in light of the added wisdom and new possibilities of today’s station. Thus, each of life’s “journeys” is an exodus from the land of Egypt: having transcended yesterday’s limitations, we must again journey from the Egypt that our present norm represents relative to our newly uncovered potential.
The Journeys of the Jewish people to Israel didn’t happen overnight. It began with one journey at a time.
The Ba’al Shem Tov (1698, Okopy, Ukraine-1760, Medzhybizh, Ukraine) taught that these forty-two journeys are also the spiritual journeys we make throughout our lives. In regards to our interpersonal relationships with our families and friends, our career development and our connection with our Jewish heritage, we may often feel overwhelmed by how much we need to grow and learn. But it all begins with one small step. Every Mitzvah that we perform, each moment that we dedicate to Torah study, every improvement we make in our professional and personal lives, despite how insignificant it may seem, puts us in touch with our own identity, connects us to G-d, brings us closer to the people around us and helps us reach our “promised land”.
The “journeys” mentioned in the Torah also include many difficult moments and challenges as well. This teaches us that setbacks are an inadvertent part of a person’s journey on earth. But when everything a person does is toward the goal of attaining the “Holy Land”—the sanctification of the material world—these, too, are “journeys.” Ultimately, they are shown to have been the true motors of progression, each an impetus to the realization of one’s mission and purpose in life.
This coming week we enter a period called the Nine Days, a time of heightened mourning leading up the fast of Tisha Be’av when the Jewish nation mourns the calamities that befell our people during the destruction of the two Holy Temples in Jerusalem many years ago. Ever since the destruction of the Holy Temples, the Jewish people have been dispersed throughout the world and have yearned to return to Israel to rebuild the Third Temple with the coming of Moshiach.
While the period of exile brought with it many challenges and persecutions, it also presents us with great opportunities as well. As the Talmud states: “The Holy One, blessed be He, acted charitably towards His people by dispersing them amongst the nations of the world”. It enabled us to serve as “a light unto the nations” by elevating and refining the world around us, by means of the Torah that we study and teach and through the Mitzvot we perform wherever we are scattered, thereby preparing the world for the ultimate redemption. While we mourn what we have lost, we rebuild for a brighter future!
