Just Do It - Parshat  Shofetim

We always want things to go well. We prepare for all contingencies. We gather information. This happens to us at work, at home, on vacation, while exercising or while planning a family event. We aim for success, and so we should. At what point does it become too much? When do we say 'enough' with planning? When do we then say - 'Just do it'?

We find in this week's parsha, Parshat Shofetim, a fascinating juxtaposition of two concepts. The first is that we should not turn to soothsayers, séances, wizards and the like. I had always expected the Torah to say that they are false. But the Torah does not say that. Instead the second concept it mentions immediately following is to be "totally faithful to God your Lord".1 Rashi points out that this means we are to live our lives, rely on God and not to try to foretell the future. Fascinatingly he, too, doesn’t say that these aforementioned occupations are false. The Ra"n in fact says that these occupations may even rely on certain truths.2 Note that even the Egyptian astrologers, according to the Midrash, knew that Moshe would die because of something to do with water. They just misinterpreted the findings.

Koheles, too, in offering sage advice, discusses the farmer who will not plant because he is looking too much at the clouds and the wind…and nothing winds up getting done. "He who studies the wind shall not sow; and he who searches the clouds shall not reap."3 We are meant to build the world and if we study it, and study it we must, it must not paralyze us into non-doing, a phenomenon popularly known as 'analysis paralysis'. Rather Koheles exhorts us to sow our seed,4 for it is in God's hands.

We often find this to be true in our daily lives. And if we continue the words of Koheles, we find a similar theme echoed by Dr. Viktor Frankl. In discussing faith he writes that "where knowledge gives up (is not possible), the torch is passed on to faith."5 This is true in matters of faith as well as more mundane everyday matters.

There is a popular saying, "the enemy of good is better"6. There is another popular saying, "the enemy of excellence is 'good enough'"7. There is a fine line that divides them. We need to strive. We ought to want to do our best. And at some, invisible or sometimes very visible point say, I have done my bit in preparing. Spring training comes to an end. Let s just do it!

 

  1. Devarim 18:14, Kaplan translation
  2. Drashot haRan 11
  3. Kohelet 11:4.
  4. ibid. 5-6
  5. Frankl, Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning, p.146
  6. Popularly associated with the French philosopher Voltaire
  7. People have quoted this and discussed it though noone seems to know the original source.

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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