As
I write this post, the Phillies seem to have miraculously gotten their groove
back (though by the time you read this, they may be slumping again…). Who would
have thought they’d be in the hunt for a Wild Card spot? Yet here we are. And
one of the images that’s
always stuck with me is the description of the
difference between a hot streak and a slump: As a batter, when you’re really in
the zone, it looks like the pitcher is lobbing beach balls at you. But when you’re
struggling, those beach balls turn to golf balls. I don’t know why that concept
has stayed with me, but I find it fascinating. The ball always stays the same,
right? What changes isn’t the size, speed, or angle of the ball; it’s our own
mind, and our perception of the self, the people around us, and the predicament
we find ourselves in. This week’s Torah reading teaches us much the same lesson…
but let’s face it, nothing really drives it home like a baseball metaphor!
God
and Moses are bringing it all together this week, summing up all the teachings
of the Torah in these final, fleeting chapters. In chapter 30, verse 15, Moses
declares: “See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and
adversity.” And he follows it up with a
reiteration in verse 19: “I call heaven
and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and
death, blessing and curse. Choose life.” We’re talking about free will. This is
the crux of the entire Torah. God isn’t going to FORCE us to obey, that’s the
whole point of being human. We have a choice. There are, however, barriers that
make it hard to choose wisely. What stands between us and making the right
decision is lethargy, apathy, selfishness, anger, fear, and a whole host of
other forces that the rabbis group under one name: The Evil Inclination.
Each
of us has one, but the decision to listen to it or fight it is entirely up to
us. The rabbis share a fascinating midrash, a story, about the Evil
Inclination: “In The Time To Come [The end of days], the Holy One, blessed be Adonai,
will bring the Evil Inclination and slay it in
the presence of the righteous
and the wicked. To the righteous it will have the appearance of a towering
hill, and to the wicked it will have the appearance of a hair thread. Both the
former and the latter will weep; the righteous will weep saying, 'How were we
able to overcome such a towering hill!' The wicked also will weep saying, 'How
is it that we were unable to conquer this hair thread!' (Sukkah 52a).
One
thing that fascinates me about this midrash is that it seems reversed. I
would have thought the evil impulse would seem tiny to the righteous and huge
to the wicked, yet here it is the opposite! And it made me realize that it’s
all in our own minds.
We all face adversity and challenge, no one is ever
really exempt. We don’t succeed because we never faced hardship, or because
those obstacles seemed minute and insignificant. And when we fail, it’s often
because we trip ourselves up and lose confidence, not because we were burdened
with insurmountable odds. Like the baseball, whose size never actually changes,
our Evil Inclinations are the same. The work that we must all do now, with Rosh
Hashanah just around the corner, is figure out how to start seeing it more like
a beach ball than a golf ball, so we can knock it clear out of the park. Maybe
Chooch can come and give us some pointers.
Photos in this blog post:
1. Image courtesy of Rabbi Gerber's iPhone.
2. The part of 'heaven and earth' will be played today by the view from the Pearlstone Retreat Center in Maryland. Courtesy of Rabbi Gerber's iPhone.
4. Image courtesy o Rabbi Gerber's iPhone and 80's night at CBP!
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