Rabbi Bridget Wynne
August 8, 2024 • 4 Av 5784
These are difficult times in our country and in the world. Though there are bright spots, there is much pain and demonizing of “the other.” I hear from many of you how hard it is not to descend into overwhelm or even despair.
In these moments, I lean heavily on what I’ve learned from Jewish tradition, and I want to share a couple of those teachings with you.
Our tradition argues strongly against giving up or turning away. Instead, it asks us to recognize the power we do have, reminding us that outcomes are not predetermined. It calls on us to take action, even if we are unsure whether it will make a difference.
A 20th-century teacher of Mussar, or Jewish ethics, expressed it this way:
Every person needs to know that you have great value. Not an imagined value, in that you “consider yourself special” … rather a deeply profound, even astonishing, importance. The Talmud (a collection of teachings from about 1,500 years ago) states, “Each and every person must declare, ‘The world was created for me’” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, page 37a)
There was never a person like you, nor will there ever be a person like you throughout history. I – with my special character strengths, my particular parents, born at a specific time period, and in a certain environment – certainly there is a unique challenge that is placed upon me. … [T]he entire world is waiting for me to actualize that which is incumbent upon me. For my role cannot be exchanged with anyone else in the world! (Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, Alei Shur, Volume I)
I agree with Rabbi Wolbe; each of us has particular gifts we can draw on to make a difference. The contributions we make, given our strengths and our lives, may not feel like “enough,” but we cannot know what impact they will have. As the Dalai Lama says, “Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects.” We may never know those effects, but we will know that we took action in keeping with our values.
This brings me to the second teaching I want to share. Rabbi Tarfon, who lived about 2,000 years ago, said, “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” (Pirkey Avot/Teachings of the Ancestors 2:21). I remind myself of this frequently. I cannot do it all – no one can – but I am called to do my part.
May we encourage ourselves and one another to draw on the resources we have, the gifts we have been given, to act for the good. In this way, may we be, in the words of our tradition, a blessing to the world.
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