Not Above or Beyond

After forty years of leadership, Moshe was preparing to bid farewell to the Jewish People. He had led them out of Egypt, guided them through the sea, and brought them the luchot and the Torah. Yet, he had also witnessed their sins, mistakes, and failures, and was fearful about their future.

One of his greatest fears was that people would see their personal growth as dependent on forces beyond themselves. Moshe addressed this fear at the end of his parting words — toward the end of Sefer Devarim, in Parshat Nitzavim. He clarified that mitzvah fulfillment is not dependent upon something above, in the heavens, or beyond, in faraway lands. It hinges upon what is very close to us — how we use our own mouths and what we internalize in our own hearts.^[1]

We do not need intermediaries to relay Hashem’s word or wise men to guide us from afar. While their counsel is valuable, we possess all the resources we truly need within ourselves. Our growth and our mission in this world are squarely within our grasp.

If Not I

We are not only able to help ourselves, we are also responsible for doing so. Though many assist us throughout our lives, in the end, we are responsible for ourselves. Others cannot be, will not be, and are not meant to be accountable in our place. Hillel expressed this idea when he asked: “If I am not for myself, who will be?”^[2]

It is convenient for us to believe that our success hinges on forces and conditions beyond our control. One might get such an impression from the gemara which asserts that “everything is in the hands of Heaven, except for fear of Heaven.”^[3] We have seen^[4] that the Rambam^[5] dispels this mistaken impression by explaining that our personal growth is part of yirat Shamayim, which is in our hands. Hashem sets the circumstances in the world around us; how we respond and develop ourselves is up to us.^[6]

The support we receive from others is also limited to our time with them. Rabbeinu Yonah^[7] comments that making good decisions and consistent, continuous growth (even when alone) hinge on what we internalize, not just on who our friends and neighbors are. We must take full responsibility for ourselves; no one else will do so in our place. 

Taking The Blame

Taking responsibility also includes accepting responsibility for our mistakes and failures.^[8] People like to blame others for their shortcomings. Our nature, our nurture, or our circumstances cause our failures. We, ourselves, are not to blame.^[9]

The very first human being, Adam HaRishon, saw his very first sin this way. When Hashem questioned him about his eating the forbidden fruit, Adam responded, “The woman You placed with me gave me from the tree.”^[10] It is not my fault fault; my wife is to blame. Adam blames not only his wife but also Hashem for creating her! as well. Man’s need to shirk responsibility can bring him to blame even the One kind enough to provide him with a wife who saved him from his loneliness!^[11]

Chavah followed Adam’s lead. When Hashem directed his questioning to her, she also passed the buck. The snake had convinced her to eat from the tree. It was his fault.

Hashem did not accept their excuses. He punished both for their sins because He saw them as personally responsible. Though the snake encouraged Chavah to eat from the tree, she made her own decision. Though Chavah gave Adam the fruit, he decided to eat it. Hashem made this point in his response to Adam: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice, the ground is cursed..”^[12] Hashem punished Adam not only for his deed but also for choosing to listen to the offer.

We continue to suffer from the curses conferred upon Adam and Chavah because we continue to make the same mistakes, including shirking responsibility for our sins and errors.^[13]

The Moment We Realize

Taking responsibility for our mistakes and realizing that the solutions lie in our hands are critical to our personal growth.^[14]

We learn this from (Rebbe) Elazar Ben Durdaya.^[15] After deciding to do teshuvah for his initial sinful lifestyle, he asked the mountains and hills, the sky and earth, and the sun, moon, and stars to pray for him. When they each refused to help, he realized that “ein ha’davar talui ella bi — the thing depends only on me.”

His realization led him to turn inwards and soul-search while curled up in the fetal position. His pain and prayer were so intense that he cried himself to death. A heavenly voice announced that Rebbe Elazar ben Durdaya merited entry into Olam Haba.

Rebbe Yehudah Hanasi reflected that many spend their entire lives earning entry into the next world. In contrast, others do so in one moment — the moment they realize they can do teshuvah^[16] by taking full responsibility for their past mistakes and future growth.

His momentous realization earned Rebbe Elazar his portion in the World to Come and the title “Rebbe.” He taught us all the great significance of accepting responsibility for ourselves.

May Rebbe Elazar ben Durdaya inspire us to emulate him by taking full responsibility for ourselves.

Rav Reuven Taragin is the Dean of Overseas Students at Yeshivat Hakotel and the Educational Director of World Mizrachi and the RZA. His new book, Essentials of Judaism, can be purchased at rabbireuventaragin.com.

^[1] Sefer Devarim 30:11–14.

^[2] Masechet Avot 1:14.

^[3] Masechet Berachot 33b. See Sefat Emet (Likkutim Elul) for an expansive view of what lies in Heaven’s hands.

^[4] See the earlier piece entitled, “What is in Our Hands.”

^[5] Shu”t HaRambam 436. See also his commentary to our mishnah and Shu”t 182, where he explains that we should not use the term “melamed Torah l’amo Yisrael” in Birkot HaTorah, as Torah learning is in our hands.

^[6] Rav Chaim Volozhin, in his Ruach Chaim to Masechet Avot 1:14, distinguishes between Torah and financial earnings. As opposed to financial earnings, where Hashem decides how much to grant us, the amount of our Torah learning and growth depends on the amount we invest. This is why Rashi and the Bartenura understand that the mishnah relates to things like Torah learning.

^[7] Rabbeinu Yonah to Masechet Avot 1:14.

^[8] See Bereishit 38:26 and Rashi to Vayikra 9:23 and 10:20 for examples of this in the Torah.

^[9] Feelings of victimhood is a related phenomenon. Edith Eger relates to this idea in her book entitled The Choice.

Edith arrived together with her father, mother and sister Magda at Auschwitz in May 1944 as one of 12,000 Jews transported from Kosice, Hungary. Her parents were murdered on that first day. A woman pointed towards a smoking chimney and told Edith that she had better start talking about her parents in the past tense. With astonishing courage and strength of will, she and Magda survived the camp and the march. When American soldiers eventually lifted her from a heap of bodies in an Austrian forest, she had typhoid fever, pneumonia, pleurisy, and a broken back. After a year, when her body had healed, she married and became a mother. Healing of the mind took much longer, and eventually became her vocation in the United States, where she went to live.
On their way to Auschwitz, Edith’s mother said to her, “We don’t know where we are going, we don’t know what is going to happen, but nobody can take away from you what you put in your own mind.” That sentence became her survival mechanism. Initially, after the war, to help support the family, she worked in a factory, but eventually she went to university to study psychology and became a psychotherapist. She has used her own experiences of survival to help others survive life crises.
Early on in the book she makes an immensely important distinction between victimization (what happens to you) and victimhood (how you respond to what happens to you). This is what she says about the first:

“We are all likely to be victimized in some way in the course of our lives. At some point we will suffer some kind of affliction or calamity or abuse, caused by circumstances or people or institutions over which we have little or no control. This is life. And this is victimization. It comes from the outside.”

And this, about the second:

“In contrast, victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happens to us but when we choose to hold on to our victimization. We develop a victim’s mind – a way of thinking and being that is rigid, blaming, pessimistic, stuck in the past, unforgiving, punitive, and without healthy limits or boundaries.” (This piece was taken from To Have a Why by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.)

Even if we suffer victimization, we should never develop a sense of victimhood.

^[10] Bereishit 3:12.

^[11] Rashi to Bereishit 3:12 based on Avodah Zarah 5a. See also Rashi to Bereishit 30:23.

^[12] Bereishit 3:17. See the Ohr HaChayim on this pasuk.

^[13] See Avodah Zarah 5a and Bava Batra 16a.

^[14] See Orot HaTeshuvah 16:2.

^[15] Talmud Bavli, Masechet Avodah Zarah 17a.

^[16] See Siftei Chayim Mo’adim 1:21 and Sichot Mussar 4:5731, and the earlier piece entitled “Falls and Failures.”