Torah
March 28, 2008
Humble Success
Rabbi Ron Shulman
Special to the Jewish Times
Among the rites of spring is the anticipation of a new baseball season. Even for teams with low expectations, a new season brings hope and imagination. Before play starts every team is in first place! All of us are not baseball fans but every one of us appreciates the annual cycles of different seasons and hope-filled possibilities.
“And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you,” proclaims the prophet Ezekiel on God’s behalf. Ezekiel’s message, expressed in this week’s haftarah, is one of transformation. Following exile, both a political and spiritual condition, Ezekiel describes the capacity of people and of God to reconnect and refocus on their genuine desires for life. Renewal in life brings hope after more difficult periods of time.
Middle Ages Biblical commentator Rashi explains the promise of this renewal. The new heart and spirit that Ezekiel senses is “our inclinations renewed for goodness.” Deep within each of us God has planted this gift. We pull ourselves forward and up following moments when we feel broken. We recognize good reasons for our values and our efforts.
On the eve of a new baseball season debate swirls around successful ball players and their use of performance enhancing substances. The larger issue in this is how driven we all are. We push ourselves to succeed, and others demand it, sometimes at any cost. This reach for outstanding achievement, for setting the bar so very high, this push is admirable and healthy –– as long as it is held in check by a different truth for our lives.
The ballplayer whose career statistics and record book legacy are more important to him than a sense of team, of sport history, and honest competition; that ball player fails in the eyes of fans and those very history chronicles he hopes will remember him. He is an arrogant ambitious person focused on the actor more the act.
It is hard to try our best, to expose our efforts to the judgments and critique of others, or to accomplish less than we had dreamed we might. More modest ambition can allow us to compete on the fields of our dreams and find fulfillment in the results when sometimes we win, and other times we lose.
If baseball isn’t your interest, apply this ethic to something else. In recent years, our society’s narrative tells the story of many business people, professionals, politicians, and all of us other folk, with ideals consumed by the fires of arrogant ambition.
The Torah tells us its version of this experience, as well. Nadav and Abihu, two sons of Aaron the Kohen Gadol [high priest], come forward to the altar sometime after their father begins ancient Israel’s worship rites. “They offered before the Eternal alien fire about which God had not commanded them.” This strange fire consumes the two sons of Aaron. Tragically, they die.
Jewish tradition compares their act to their father’s. Humbly before God, Aaron did as he was commanded. He did not bring a strange fire. Aaron didn’t understand the act of Divine service to be about him. He found fulfillment in the purpose and privilege of his task. Aaron was successful, and as a result, God’s presence appeared to the people.
As one commentator exclaims, the father seeks achievement and hopes for grace. The sons thirst for public recognition, and are destroyed. Nadav and Abihu placed their desires, enhancing their personal performance, above that of every other kohen who ever approached the altar.
Tradition rebukes Aaron’s sons. They acted in self-interest knowing that someday one of them could be the High Priest. Arrogant ambition cannot stand.
I hope it’s a great baseball season. I hope your team wins! But remember, since it’s only a game –– how we win at every new season in our own lives matters most of all.