I have very clear memories of September 10, 2001. What I remember most clearly about that day is how normal a day it was, how absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened that day. Everything was exactly the way we all expected – with none of us having any idea that the next day would fundamentally alter the course of human history.
We all have dozens of examples of how a day started completely normal – and then something drastic and totally unexpected happened, that changed the course of our lives.
This is one of the frightening things about life – it is so unpredictable. Nobody ends up in the situation he envisioned for himself as a youngster. Life throws us so many curveballs, and it so often catches us by surprise. We have a plan, but then circumstances come up that throw us off course.
When this happens, we feel totally lost. It is like we’re driving, and we have precise directions to our destination, but then a road is closed and we are thrown off course. We have no idea where we are or where we are going. It’s disorienting, and very, very frightening.
What do we do when we are lost, when a situation comes up that we weren’t expecting, that we didn’t plan for, and we didn’t prepare for? What do we do when we are taken by surprise, when something we’ve been doing doesn’t work out, when our plans are foiled, when people we thought we could trust betray us, when life takes a sharp, unexpected turn?
לך-לך
The first thing we need to do is understand that life is SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY. It’s meant to be unpredictable. We are not meant to know where we’re headed.
The first words that G-d spoke to Avraham Avinu were לך-לך מארצך וממולדתך ומבית אביך אל הארץ אשר אראך – “Go forth from your land, from your birthplace and from your father’s home, to the land that I will show you.” This command marked the launch of Avraham Avinu’s “career.” According to some commentators, this command was the first of Avraham’s ten tests, as he was told to leave his home and go somewhere else.
Several questions need to be answered about this command:
1) Why was this the way Hashem wanted Avraham begin his “career”? Why was this chosen as his first major challenge?
2) Why didn’t Hashem tell Avraham where he was going? Why did He tell him to go “to the land that I will show you,” instead of informing him right away that he’d be going to the Land of Israel?
3) Why did Hashem tell Avraham to first leave his “land,” then his “birthplace,” and then his “father’s home”? Shouldn’t the order be reversed? When a person moves away, he first leaves his family’s town, then the area where he was born, and then the country. Why is this command presented out of order?
Every Jew’s Mission Statement
The answer to all these questions can be found in the Zohar, which explains that the command of לך-לך was not just given to Avraham Avinu. Rather, it is the basic mission statement assigned to each and every Jew.
The Zohar explains that when the Torah says, ויאמר ה' אל אברם (“Hashem said to Avram”), it means that G-d gives a command to the soul, which is אב רם – a “father” from a “high place.” The soul is the “father” of a person, in that it tells the body what to do, and it comes from a “high place,” the heavens. Hashem tells the soul לך-לך – to go far away from its “land,” from the heavens, where it had resided until then. The soul enters the body at birth, and it must then leave its “birthplace,” and then its “father’s home,” and set out to build a meaningful and productive life.
לך-לך was the first command given to Avraham because it is the first command given to every Jewish person – to go from the heavens to the earth, and succeed despite the complexities and challenges of this world.
Here’s the critical point: the soul is told to journey אל הארץ אשר אראך – to wherever Hashem brings it. And none of us have any idea on any given day where that place is.
When we wake up every morning, we need to hear in our minds the command, לך-לך...אל הארץ אשר אראך – to follow Hashem wherever He brings us. We need to know as soon as we open our eyes in the morning that lots of unexpected things are likely going to happen over the course of the day. And we need to commit ourselves to trust and follow Hashem no matter where He takes us.
None of us end up exactly where we hoped to get to – and this is precisely how it’s supposed to be! Hashem created us this way, and He created the world this way. Our most basic mission is to follow Hashem each and every day אל הארץ אשר אראך – to wherever he takes us, without knowing in advance where that will be.
This is the first thing we need to remember when life takes us on challenging twists and turns – that this is supposed to happen. Life is meant to be surprising and unpredictable. This is why we are here – to trust Hashem at every twist and at every turn!
There is nothing in the world – NOTHING! – that can guarantee us that tomorrow will look the way we want it to look. There is NO amount of money, NO connections to a powerful person, NO job, NO investment, NO position, NOTHING, that assures us we will reach the place where we want to go. This is decided only by Hashem, and our job is to follow Him wherever He brings us.
Overcoming Different Challenges
My brother had a neighbor in Brooklyn who came to the U.S. from Russia, and she once told him her remarkable life story.
She grew up in Russia under the Soviet regime, and was not religiously observant. However, when her son was born, she insisted that he would have a berit. This proved to be exceedingly difficult. In the end, she was forced to pay an entire year’s salary (!!!!!) to have the berit performed.
The baby grew and began going to school. One day, the mother was passing by the school’s playground and saw the group of children. It occurred to her that there was one boy who belonged to her nation – her son – and 199 children who did not belong to her nation. She realized that there was no chance whatsoever that the boy would grow up with a sense of Jewish identity.
She came home and told her husband that they were leaving Russia. She knew how difficult a process this would be, but it didn’t matter to her. Even if it took 5, 6, 7 or more years – as it often did – she was determined to move.
The woman turned to Hashem and made a pledge: “If You help me leave here, I will become observant.”
In just four months, she obtained the papers she needed, and they left Russia. She moved to the United States, started observing mitzvot, and all her children grew to become dedicated Torah Jews.
She told my brother that she knew other Jews in Russia who, despite the enormous challenges, were religiously observant even there. But when they later emigrated to the United States, or to secular communities in Israel, they gave up religious observance. Those families were able to meet the challenges of Soviet Russia – but they weren’t able to meet the challenges of New York and Tel-Aviv.
These Jews knew what to do under the persecution of the Soviet authorities, but when they enjoyed the freedoms of the United States or Israel, they were lost, and they couldn’t find their way.
Life is going to throw us more than one “curveball.” We are going to have many different kinds of tests and challenges, and it is impossible to prepare for all of them in advance. We need to follow Hashem in each and every circumstance, and work to overcome the many different kinds of challenges that we confront.
Before the story of Avraham, the Torah tells us the story of Noah, who is described as both a צדיק (“righteous person”) and תמים (“wholesome”). Noah lived during two sinful generations – the generation of the flood, which was steeped in immorality, and the generation of the Tower of Babel, which tried to challenge Hashem’s authority. Noah was called a צדיק because he remained moral despite the depravity of the generation of the flood, and he was called תמים because he remained loyal to Hashem despite the rebelliousness of the generation of the Tower. And thus the Torah says that Noah was righteous בדורותיו – “in his generations.” He overcame the different kinds of challenges that he faced at the different stages of his life. He loyally followed Hashem wherever Hashem took him – through the generation of the flood, and through the generation of the Tower.
We are going to face many difficult situations over the course of life – and we need to remember that Hashem is bringing us to each and every one as our mission, and we must loyally follow Him in each and every one of these situations.
Finding Ourselves When We are Lost
There is also something else that we can and should think about when we feel lost, when life has taken us off course.
There is a famous prayer that many people recite when they have lost something and cannot find it. They give some charity in memory of the great sage Rabbi Meir, and recite the special prayer, which includes the following statement of the Midrash:
הכל בחזקת סומין עד שהקדוש ברוך הוא מאיר את עיניהם, מן הכא ויפקח אלוקים את עיניה…
The Midrash here teaches that we are all “blind” until Hashem opens our eyes. The source cited for this teaching is the story of Hagar, Avraham’s maidservant whom he needed to send away from his home. The Torah tells that Hagar wandered in the desert with her son, and their water ran out. Her son nearly died of dehydration, until “G-d opened her eyes and she saw a spring of water. This shows us that we cannot “see” without Hashem’s help, and so when we cannot find something, we mention this teaching to express that we rely on Hashem to “open our eyes” so we can find what we are looking for.
This teaching of the Midrash can also help us when we have “lost” ourselves, when we feel lost in this world.
Let’s take a quick look at the story of Hagar. The Torah tells that after Hagar left Avraham’s home, ותלך ותתע – “she went and got lost.” Rashi explains this to mean that was “lost” in a religious sense – she went back to worshipping idols. Hagar grew up as an idolater in Egypt, but then gave up idolatry when she started working for Avraham Avinu and she came under his influence. Now, after leaving Avraham’s home, she became “lost,” reverting back to her old ways.
But then her eyes were opened, and she found her way. How did this happen? By crying out to Hashem when her son nearly died. Once she brought Hashem back into her life, she wasn’t lost anymore.
What does this teach us?
It teaches us that we feel lost in life only if we don’t have Hashem. If we feel frightened by the uncertainty of life, by the unexpected twists and turns, by not knowing what tomorrow will bring, it’s because we are “worshipping idols” – meaning, because we do not have sufficient faith in G-d. When we feel lost, we need to bring Hashem into our lives, and trust that He is bringing us PRECISELY where we need to go. If we live with this firm faith, then we are never, ever lost.
הכל בחזקת סומין עד שהקדוש ברוך הוא מאיר את עיניהם. We are all “blind,” we are all lost, without Hashem. It is only through faith that we can feel confident and secure even when life takes us somewhere unexpected.
This is the only way to overcome the many different challenges that come our way. We might be able to prepare for one, or two, or several challenges, but it is impossible to prepare for all of them – because we never know what challenge is coming next. The only way to overcome all of life’s challenges is to firmly trust that Hashem is bringing us exactly where we need to go, always.
Living Like Teflon
The story is told of a certain motivational speaker who made a living traveling and sharing his wisdom with audiences. This speaker became quite popular and quite famous, and he started drawing very large crowds at his lectures.
Once he traveled to a certain town, and huge crowds of people assembled to hear his presentations. There were other speakers in the town who resented the competition that this visitor created, as they were losing popularity. One speaker was so angry that he went over to the place where the visiting speaker was staying in order to shout at him.
He knocked on the door, and when the man opened the door, the angry speaker bellowed, “You’re a fraud! You came here and drew people away from my talks by speaking total nonsense. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re a complete fraud! You shouldn’t be here!”
The accomplished speaker did not say anything, and simply smiled at his attacker. This made the other speaker even angrier.
After shouting for ten minutes, without the other speaker evincing any emotion whatsoever, he finally asked, “Why are you smiling? Just say something already!!!!”
Remaining perfectly calm, the speaker said, “Imagine you invited a guest to your home, and you served him food, but he declined. He did not want to eat the food. To whom does that food now belong?”
“Obviously, it would belong to me.”
“Exactly. You are ‘serving’ me a lot of anger and negativity. And you know what? I’m declining. I don’t want it. I want to be happy. So this anger is all yours. Keep it for yourself. I’m staying happy.”
What is true of anger and insults is true of any kind of adversity we face. We are capable of living like Teflon, not allowing any negativity to stick to us. We can just brush it off and not let any of it affect us. We can live happily even if people are angry at us. We can live happily even if people insult us. We can live happily even if people say something insensitive to us. We can live happily even if we struggle with finances, with health, with our children, or with anything. Life will “serve” us negativity, but we don’t have to accept it. We don’t have to let it stick!!!
One year, right after the holidays, I felt completely overwhelmed. There was just so much going on, so many things that I needed to get done – I didn’t know what to do. I felt that I just could not handle all the pressure I was under. I felt like I was gasping underwater, and there was no way to come up for air.
I called a friend who urged me to find something, or a few things, that I could drop. I sat down and made a list of all the things I needed to do, all my obligations and responsibilities, and all the things people needed and expected from me – and there was NOTHING that I could drop.
I felt completely lost, having no idea what to do.
My son, who was still home on vacation from yeshiva, came in and I discussed with him how I was feeling.
“Dad,” he said, “why do you have to accept all the pressure that people are putting on you?”
I thought about it, and he was right. I was under pressure because I let people put pressure on me. I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to be controlled by other people’s expectations.
If we let everybody’s expectations and attitudes “stick” to us, then we are lost. We won’t be able to handle the pressure. But we can live like “Teflon,” allowing ourselves to remain happy and satisfied no matter what other people say or do.
And the greatest “Teflon” we have for resisting this negativity is faith in Hashem.
The Gemara teaches that the prophet Habakuk encapsulated the entire Torah in three words: וצדיק באמונתו יחיה – “A righteous man lives with his faith.” These words express everything the Torah teaches us – to live a happy, fulfilling life through faith in Hashem, by knowing that wherever we are, Hashem brought us here and He wants us to follow Him under these conditions.
If we live this way, then we can handle anything, and we will never, ever, feel lost.