A little boy was overheard talking to himself as he strutted through his backyard, wearing his baseball cap, toting a ball and bat. “I’m the greatest hitter in the world,” he announced. Then, he tossed the ball into the air, swung at it, and missed.
“Strike one!” he yelled. He picked up the ball and said again, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world!” He tossed the ball into the air. He swung and missed. “Strike two!” he cried.
The boy then paused to examine his bat and ball carefully. He spits on his hands and rubbed them together, straightened his cap and said once more, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world!” He tossed the ball up and swung. He missed. “Strike three!”
“Wow,” he exclaimed. “I’m the greatest pitcher in the world!”
In life, all of us strike out from time to time. Don’t focus on the strikes. Focus on what we do right.
What are G-d’s first words in the Bible? What picture do they give us of Him?
G-d opening words are: “ “Let there be light!”
That is what G-d is about. He brings light out of darkness, order out of chaos, joy out of sorrow, peace out of conflict. And that is what Judaism is about: filling the world with light – the light of love, the light of compassion, the light of Torah, the light of peace, the light of redemption.
But in order to bring light into the world, we must first find it within ourselves.2
In 2007, two Harvard University researchers, Alia Crum and Ellen Langer, published a study of hotel maids and their exercise habits. The average hotel maid cleans 15 rooms a day, and each room takes 20 to 30 minutes to complete. Take a moment and imagine an hour in the life of one of these maids — walking, bending, pushing, lifting, carrying, scrubbing and dusting. What they are doing, in short, is exercising.
But the maids didn’t seem to recognize what they were doing as exercise. At the beginning of the study, 67 percent of them reported that they didn’t get any exercise at all.
Crum and Langer were curious about what would happen if the maids were told that they were exercise superstars. One group of maids got the good news: They received a document describing the benefits of exercise, and they were told that their daily work was sufficient to get those benefits. Meanwhile, maids in another group weren’t told that their work was a good form of exercise.
Four weeks later, the researchers checked in with the maids and were astounded to find that the maids who’d been told that they were good exercisers had lost an average of 1.8 pounds. That’s
almost half a pound a week, which is a pretty substantial rate of loss. The other maids hadn’t lost any weight.
The researchers ruled out a host of possible alternative explanations for why the maids lost weight, like the placebo effect. The maids simply stepped onto a scale, and the scale reported a lower weight. Scales aren’t subject to placebo effects. If the power of thinking alone could indeed make you skinnier, that would be a billion-dollar self-help book – Think Yourself Thin. I assure you, I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work.
The maids had not changed their diets or started going to the gym. So why did they lose weight?
The researchers concluded that just hearing the news that they really were exercisers was tremendously motivating: I’m not a sloth — I’m an exerciser!
The maids succeeded in losing weight because they cleaned with just a little more enthusiasm than before, and the news about losing weight further motivated them.
That motivation changed the way they behaved from that moment on. Once they realized that their small daily activities did constitute exercise, they began scrubbing the showers a little more energetically. They started making extra trips back to their carts as they changed linens, just to add a bit more walking. They took the stairs to lunch rather than the elevator. And they exerted that extra effort because someone let them know about the good they were already achieving, about the light they already had. They were building on their successes.
If you’re looking to bring more light into the world, think of the maids, and start by looking for the light in yourself. Focus on the good things you are already doing, and develop them.
It’s true you didn’t keep last year’s New Year’s resolution, but at least you made one! That’s the light. Focus on the good things you already do, on the mitzvot your practice. Recognizing those positive habits gives each of us the confidence to keep improving.
You already come to shul on high holidays; that’s wonderful, that’s light! Consider coming a bit more, maybe on Shabbat. You’ll pray a little – don’t overdo it.
You already light Chanukah candles; well, increase the light. Consider lighting Shabbat candles too. Of course, make sure you don’t get too religious; light just one or two candles, not eight.
You already have a mezuzah on the front door; you might as well put them on the bedroom doors. Grow the light.
Just as it is critical to find the light in yourself, it is also vital to find and nurture the light in others. But how far do our responsibilities stretch? How much light are we responsible for bringing to the world?
The Talmud tells us: “Before a baby is born, an angel appears in his mother’s womb, and holds a lighted lamp before him so that he can see, from one end of the world to the other end of the world.” Isn’t that a beautiful thought? A Jew, before he or she is even born, is shown the truth that his concern must be with the entire world from one end of the world to the other you must bring light.
By finding light in others, by pointing it out, we help each other to accomplish well on a greater scale than we ever could alone.
In 1990, Jerry Sternin, a worker for the international organization Save the Children was asked to open a new office in Vietnam. The government had invited Save The Children into the country to fight malnutrition. But when Sternin arrived, the welcome was rather chilly. The foreign minister let him know that not everyone in the government appreciated his presence. The minister told Sternin, “You have six months to make a difference.”
“We were like orphans at the airport when we arrived in Vietnam,” he recalled. “We had no idea what we were going to do.”
Sternin had minimal staff and meager resources. He had read as much as he could about the malnutrition problem.
The conventional wisdom was that malnutrition was the result of an intertwined set of problems: Sanitation was poor. Poverty was nearly universal. Clean water was not readily available. The rural people tended to be ignorant about nutrition.
In Sternin’s judgment, all of this analysis was true but useless. “Millions of kids can’t wait for those issues to be addressed,” he said. If addressing malnutrition required ending poverty and purifying water and building sanitation systems, then it would never happen. Especially in six months, with almost no money to spend.
Sternin had a better idea. Instead of looking at what was wrong, he’d look at what was right. He would look for what he called the “bright spots.”
He traveled to rural villages and met with groups of local mothers. The mothers went out to weigh and measure every child in their village. They then pored over the results together.
Sternin asked them, “Did you find any very, very, poor kids who are bigger and healthier than the typical child?” The women scanning the data nodded and said,
“Co, co, co” (Yes, yes, yes).
Sternin said, “You mean it’s possible today in this village for a poor family to have a well-nourished child, even though they have only the same meager resources as everyone else?”
“Co, co, co.” “Then let’s go see what they’re doing differently.”
Sternin and the villagers set out to discover what the mothers of the healthiest children were doing differently, and this is what they found.
First, they were feeding their children four child-sized meals every day. The malnourished children, on the other hand, ate two bigger meals, but their stomachs were unable to process the larger quantities.
Second, the parents of healthy children actively fed them. The unhealthy children were left to their own devices and only ate from a communal bowl when they felt hungry.
Finally, the mothers of the well-nourished children added seafood and sweet potatoes to the meals, providing a much-needed source of protein and vitamins.
Sternin got all the village mothers together and encouraged the mothers of the well-nourished children to focus on the bright spots, to share their stories, their recipes, and their successes. In short order, all the mothers adopted these new practices and before long, Sternin got them talking to mothers at other villages nearby. The villagers had the solution to the malnourishment of their children all along; it was a native solution. Sternin got them to look at and develop the good that was already there, rather than focusing on what was wrong.
Six months after Sternin had come to the Vietnamese village, 65 percent of the kids were better nourished, and they stayed that way.
In time, the program reached 2.2 million Vietnamese people in 265 villages. It has since become a national model for teaching villagers how to drastically reduce malnutrition in Vietnam. What makes this story more remarkable is that Sternin and his small team weren’t experts. They had a shoestring budget and didn’t walk in with answers. All they had was a deep faith in the power of staying focused on the bright spots.
As Jews, our task is to bring the light of love and G-dliness into the world. And the best way to do this is not by focusing on what’s wrong in our community, or what’s wrong with our spouse or children. Rather, we must focus on the bright spots and nurture them.
Someone once asked the Rebbe Rashab: “What is a Chassid?”
The Rebbe answered: “A Chassid is a lamplighter. In the olden days, before modern street lights, villages had gas lanterns, and it was the job of a man to go around every night and light them. “A Chassid is one who sees candles everywhere and makes it his business to kindle them so that they can illuminate the darkness.”
The fellow continued his questioning: “But what if the lamp is in a desolate wilderness?” “There, too,” the Rebbe answered, “he must go to kindle the lamp.” “But what if the lamp is across the ocean?” “He must get himself wet and go and kindle the lamp.”
Thinking about all this, the man finally asked: “What if I don’t see any lamps to be kindled?” “Then,” the Rebbe answered, “you’re not a Chassid.” A Chassid is one who sees the bright spot in everyone.
That’s not only a fine description of a Chassid, though; it is how we can all choose to live — to search for the good in others in our community and our homes. When we focus on our child’s strength, we help build their self-esteem and kindle the light of their soul.
Let me conclude with a wonderful story from the autobiography of Marcel Reich-Ranicki. He was a Jewish man who became the most prominent literary critic in postwar Germany. He was famous for his wit, his books, and his popular television show on literature.
He and his wife survived the Holocaust with the help of an unemployed Polish typesetter named Bolek, who hid them in his house until the end of the war.
Describing that time, Marcel recounts that one night Bolek drank a little too much vodka and started babbling to them. He said: “The most powerful man in Europe, Hitler, says that you two Jews should die. And I, Bolek, a powerless typesetter, say that you two Jews should live. Now let’s see who wins. ”
And that is why they lived. Because of Bolek said, “I will be their light in a dark world.”
Each of us, every day, can become a light for someone who needs our help. And if we do, we make their world and the whole world as G-d intended it, a better, happier, kinder place.
On this holiday, Rosh Hashanah the day on which G-d said, “Let there be light,” may you find your light, may you nurture the light within yourselves and in everyone around you. May it be a year filled with light!
Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Tom Peacock wrote...