Are We Successful?
“Am I living a successful life?”
This is a scary question, which many of us are, understandably, not very comfortable asking ourselves. But if we want to honestly answer this question, we need to take a step back and ask another very difficult question. What is a successful life? How do we gauge success? Is it how large a family a person has? How strong his or her marriage is? How well one’s children do in school? The number of “likes” one receives on a Facebook post?
This time of year is well-suited for asking these questions. I recently noticed something remarkable about the Jewish calendar, an observation that I have yet to see noted in any book. Namely, the spring and autumn holiday seasons are precisely the same length. There are fifty-two days from Rosh Hodesh Elul through Simhat Torah (fifty-one in Eretz Yisrael), and fifty-two days from the beginning of Pesach through Shavuot (fifty-one in Eretz Yisrael). This parallel would certainly seem to suggest that these periods resemble one another. Specifically, both are designated as periods of personal growth. Every half-year, we are to go through a period of especially intensive efforts to improve ourselves. The difference between these two periods is that one focuses on the past, whereas the other is geared towards the future. The High Holiday period is all about introspection, thinking of one’s mistakes of the past year and working to correct them. During the period from Pesach and Shavuot, our minds are focused on the future, on building ourselves going forward. This is the time to ask ourselves what we need to do to make our lives “successful,” and then implement those changes in our daily routine so we can achieve the “success” that we desire.
Let us, then, ask ourselves, what does it take to be successful?
Am I Serving Others?
I once read a book by a non-Jewish author, which contains an entire chapter on the method by which one can determine whether his life is successful. The author lists seven questions that one can ask himself to determine whether or not he lives a successful life. I will not go through all seven, but I will rather just mention that he got the first one right. The first question on his list is, “Am I serving others?” If one does not live to help and serve anybody besides himself, then he cannot by any means consider his life successful.
Tradition teaches us that during Sukkot, we are visited by special guests. Seven of our righteous ancestors – Avraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, Yosef, Moshe, Aharon and David – come to join us in our sukkot, each on one day of the holiday. Each of these righteous figures embodies a certain characteristic, and altogether, these seven characteristics form the foundation of Torah life. These seven tzadikim therefore visit us, each on one of the days of Sukkot, to help us improve and hone these seven qualities. Each day, we receive one visitor to inspire and teach us so we can cultivate the characteristic embodied by that great righteous figure. On the first day, our guest is Avraham Avinu, the bastion of loving kindness. He comes first, because the very first step in the process of personal growth is hesed, extending outward beyond ourselves to serve other people.
As we set out to try to build ourselves during this period of personal growth, the first thing we need to do is become people of hesed, people who live in order to give and serve. Indeed, the first week of the omer period is associated with the quality of hesed, because this is the first quality we need to develop as we embark upon the process of growth and self-improvement. This is the first step we need to take to put ourselves on the road to success.
The Unique Character of Rabbi Akiva
How do we cultivate this quality of hesed? How can we build ourselves into people who wake up in the morning and ask, “How am I going to serve other people today?”
The first thing we need to do is recognize that we all have something special that makes us unique and capable of making a real contribution. One does not have to be a rocket scientist or have an exceptional, one-in-a-million talent to perform hesed. Each and every one of us has something special to contribute. It could be unique sensitivity and compassion, the ability to understand people, special life experiences, positive or negative, or some kind of talent. We are all endowed with unique skills and qualities that can be used to help other people.
The period between Pesach and Shavuot is a time for reflecting upon Rabbi Akiva’s students who perished during these weeks, but it is also an opportunity to think about Rabbi Akiva himself. Rabbi Akiva, as the Talmud (Ketubot 62b) tells, was an ignorant shepherd working for Kalba Savua, one of the wealthiest Jews in the world at the time. When Rabbi Akiva was forty years old, his employer’s daughter, Rachel, offered to marry him if he would agree to begin learning Torah. Rabbi Akiva agreed, and he went on to become one of the greatest Torah sages in history. The Talmud tells that Rachel’s father, Kalba Savua, adamantly opposed his daughter’s marriage to a poor shepherd, and disowned her.
What did Rachel see in this ignorant, impoverished shepherd? She sacrificed everything for the sake of marrying him. What was it about Rabbi Akiva that led her to make this sacrifice?
The Gemara says that Rachel noticed that Rabbi Akiva was צניע ומעלי (“humble and nice”). The Maharsha explains this mean that Rabbi Akiva had proper middot – refined character traits – and was kind to other people. Rabbi Akiva must have been a man of extraordinary intellect if he was able to begin studying at the age of forty and then emerge as the generation’s leading Torah scholar. But his brilliance is not what impressed Rachel. What caught her attention was not Rabbi Akiva’s exceptional mind, but rather his exceptional character, his courteousness and generosity. She perceptively noted that a man with such outstanding character traits must have the potential for greatness, and of course, as we know, she was absolutely correct.
An example of Rabbi Akiva’s character is found in the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat (127b). The Gemara there tells of a laborer who worked for a certain man for three years. After his term of service was completed, on Erev Yom Kippur, the laborer asked for his salary so he could provide for his family. The employer declined, claiming he had no cash available. The laborer asked if he could be paid with food, but again, the employer claimed he had none. The laborer persisted, asking to be paid with land, animals, or household goods, but the employer claimed he had nothing at all with which to pay. Exasperated, the worker returned home.
After the holidays, the employer went to the laborer’s house bringing with him the money he owed as well as three donkeys loaded with food and drink. The two feasted together, and then the employer paid the worker his full wages.
Before the employer left, he turned to the worker and asked, “When you asked for your wages and I said I had no money, what did you think?”
“I thought that perhaps a good investment opportunity came up, so you took all your money and put it into this investment,” the worker replied.
“And when you asked to be paid with animals, and I said I had none, what did you think?”
“I thought that perhaps you rented out all your animals.”
“And when you asked to be paid with land, and I said I had none, what did you think?”
“I thought that perhaps you rented out all your property.”
“And when I told you I had no fruit, what did you think?”
“I thought that perhaps you had not yet tithed your produce, so it was all forbidden.”
“And when I told you I had no houseware, what did you think?”
“I thought that perhaps you had consecrated it all to the Bet Ha’mikdash.”
The employer swore to the laborer that all this was correct – this is precisely what happened. He then said to his worker, “Just as you judged me favorably, may the Almighty judge you favorably.”
This remarkable story is well-known, but many people are unaware of the fact that in the She’iltot, the laborer is identified as…Akiva, before he began studying Torah. This is the special character that Rachel saw. And this is the special character that enabled Rabbi Akiva to become the towering figure that he eventually became. He ended up teaching 24,000 students not because of his outstanding intellect, but because of his outstanding character.
Of course we are not Rabbi Akiva, but we all have something special inside us. We all have some unique quality that can be cultivated and then used to give to others. And the first step to becoming a true בעל חסד, a person who lives to give, is recognizing and identifying this special quality.
It’s Never Easy
The second step is to understand that hesed is rarely, if ever, smooth and easy.
A person in need goes over to somebody and asks for some financial assistance. The man writes him a generous check, and the recipient warmly thanks him. A few weeks later, the donor receives a warm letter from the recipient glowingly expressing his gratitude and telling him how much this donation helped him.
This is a simple, beautiful story of hesed. There’s only one problem: it almost never happens this way. Helping people is rarely this easy, and rarely do we receive the recognition and gratification for our hesed that we would want.
Our Sages taught us this idea in a very powerful way. The Gemara (Sotah 14a) observes that the Torah begins with hesed and ends with hesed – it begins with the story of Hashem providing clothes for Adam and Havah after the sin of the forbidden fruit, and it ends with Hashem burying Moshe Rabbenu after his death. One of the commentators raised the question of why the Gemara points to the clothes given to Adam and Havah as the first act of kindness in the Torah. Wasn’t creation itself the greatest act of hesed ever performed? Hashem created a world for us, and He placed Adam and Havah in Gan Eden where they had everything they could have wanted. Why wasn’t this the first act of kindness?
The answer is that until Adam and Havah’s sin, hesed was smooth and simple. Everything was perfect. The first act of real hesed was after Adam and Havah made their catastrophic mistake. The first act of real hesed was giving to people who caused their own problem, who did not necessarily deserve the assistance.
This was the first act of real hesed, because real hesed is never a fairytale story with a happy ending. Real hesed is investing countless hours and energy helping somebody, who then drops you like a hot potato the moment he no longer needs the help. Real hesed is lending something to somebody who does not give it back and then blames you. Real hesed is lending money to a relative in need who then treats you like he’s doing you a favor. Real hesed is launching a successful community project and watching somebody else get all the credit.
Rabbis know this very well, and I myself have experienced this countless times. Just one example is a certain man who prayed in my minyan every morning for a period of time, and would approach me just about every day with all his questions. He would discuss with me every question or problem he ever had. At some point he started praying in a different minyan, and I never heard from him again. I gave him my time when he wanted it, but then he just moved on.
This is true hesed – finding the special qualities inside ourselves that we can share with others, without expecting it to be easy or to be reciprocated.
Of course, we need to set limits. If we are always giving of ourselves without feeling appreciated, we can experience burnout. But the basic rule of thumb is that hesed requires sacrificing and giving even when it is difficult, and even when we receive little or no appreciation in return.
The Letter That Saved a Life
Rav Eliezer Shach told the story of two young women who were inseparable friends as youngsters, but then parted ways. One enjoyed great success, studying in seminary, finding a good job, getting married and raising a beautiful family. The other struggled in every respect, and lived alone in a small apartment, without any family and without finding a steady job.
One day, as the unmarried woman returned home, she noticed an envelope addressed to her in her mailbox. She brought it inside, placed her bag on the counter, and opened the letter. It was from her old high school friend. The friend explained that she had been telling her children about her best friend in her youth, and she then decided to get back in touch and invite her old friend to meet for lunch.
The woman cried. She was so touched that her old friend reached out to her, and cared enough to write.
That letter saved her life. Because she had just come home from the store, where she had purchased drugs with which to kill herself. Instead, she decided to call her old friend who had sent her that beautiful letter. The two met, and rekindled their old friendship. The unmarried woman became part of her friend’s family, and was like an aunt to her children, buying them gifts and spending time with them.
This story does not have a perfect ending. It is unknown whether that woman ever got married and had children of her own. But hesed is never perfect. Hesed is about looking inside ourselves and seeing what we can do for other people. All the woman in the story needed to do was to write a friendly letter, and it saved another person’s life.
This is how we begin our journey to a successful life. It is by living to serve others, rather than serve only ourselves. Let us, then, take a good look into our beings and see what we have to give, so we can truly enjoy a life of genuine happiness, fulfillment and success.