and his two sons. One day we heard the news that they caught and killed his two sons.
What had happened was there was an American soldier who was taking a stroll, and he
noticed a compound in the distance. He started walking towards the building and
shots were fired at him. He quickly took cover and he shot one bullet in the direction of
the compound. Immediately the response was fierce. Twenty, thirty forty rounds of
Machine gun fire was directed at him. The soldier picked up his radio and called his
commanding officer. He said: “Commander, I don’t know whose in this house, but its
somebody big”. The commander sent a whole battalion of soldiers, a fierce battle
ensured, and they killed Saddam’s two sons.
What is the moral of this story? This soldier was very smart. He saw that they
were putting up a fierce battle that meant that there was something very special, very
valuable in that compound. If they are shooting a lot of bullets at you from one
direction you know that’s where the prize is. And you have to run towards the fire.
I heard this metaphor this week. And as I thought about it I believe it can yield a
paradigm shift as it relates to the concept of Teshuva, the concept of repentance. You
see what is Teshuva? Teshuva is that you realize that you were engaged in a a wrong
behavior the whole year and now before Rosh HaShana you realize that you need to
stop it. For example, lets say that I spoke to much Lashon Hara, didn’t learn enough
Torah, spoke too much during davening. And now I realize that I need to cut it out to
make sure G-d inscribes me in the Book of Life on Rosh HaShana. What happens?
Usually we get into a tug of war with ourselves. We know we shouldn’t say this thing about that person, but on the other hand- I really want to…I know I should give more
charity, but on the other hand, I wanted to do something else with the money.
My friends, when this is our perspective? We can win a little bit- but ultimately
we lose in the long run. What’s the solution? We have to run towards the fire! But allow
me to explain by means of another story.
In Fridays NYT there was an incredible article titled: “What a Blind
Photographer Saw at the Paralympics”. It caught my attention. A Blind
photographer…what’s that? Well the article was written by Samantha Hurley and it tells
her story. You see Samantha was born with albinism, a genetic condition characterized
by a lack of pigment in the body. Without pigment, the retina doesn’t develop properly,
leading to visual impairment. So as a result of my condition, she is legally blind. As you
might imagine, photojournalism was not an obvious path for me. A blind photographer
— it almost sounds like an oxymoron. How could someone whose entire life has been
shaped by what I can’t see work in a visual medium? But she explained: My interest in
photography started when I was 11. That was the year I got my first cellphone, and I
began using it to snap pictures of things I had trouble seeing. Many people assume
blindness is complete darkness, but in reality, it is a spectrum; 85 percent of legally
blind people have some vision. Many of us can see shapes, shadows and some colors.
The quality of sight varies from person to person, but in my case, I can only see details
within about 20 feet from me. If it were a photo, my vision would be out of focus and
overexposed. As a child, I began using my phone to take pictures of things I had trouble
seeing. Whenever something was too far away, or too small for me to make out, I would simply take a photo of it and then enlarge the picture in the palm of my hand until it was legible.
At first, my camera roll was full of photos of everyday things — my classroom
whiteboard, pages from my history textbooks, restaurant menus — but over time I
became interested in other facets of the visual world. My camera was able to show me
all the things my eyes couldn’t, and I began to hunt for things to photograph — cool
shadows, interesting angles, repeating colors. On weekends, I would beg my dad to
drive me into Atlanta so I could find more things to capture. Later, when I got my first
good digital camera, I would wander through my childhood home on a quest for
details. I photographed the morning light streaming through the dining room window,
the scratches and grooves in old wooden furniture. I was amazed at the intricacy and
clarity of the world I saw through my viewfinder. I found beauty and imperfections
everywhere.
To make a long story short, basically Hurly became an award winning
photographer and Last fall, I applied for an opportunity to cover the Paralympic
Games. The application was anonymous, so the judges didn’t know I was blind. The
choice was based solely on photographic merit, and I was among just a handful of
student photographers selected.
I found this story remarkable. Because it wasn’t simply a person who overcame
a disability who surmounted a challenge. It was the story of a person who ran towards
the fire. Who ran towards the challenge. And that challenge also became their solution.
Their super power. Sumatran Hurly became a bling award winning photographer.
The same is true of the spiritual challenges we have in life. Rather than viewing
Teshuva as a tug of war process, in which we have the good angle on our rightshoulder and the bad angel on our left- we should run to the challenge and say that is
the area we are going to excel in. I will become a champion of davening, of Torah
study- not simply pulling harder in the opposite direction.
This is the message many Chassidic Master see in the opening of this weeks
parsha. Ki Tee LaMilcha Al Oyvecha VaShavisa SHivyo. When you go to war against
your enemy- they understand not as a literal enemy but as a spiritual enemy. But what
its VShavisa Shivyo?
Says the IShbitzer:
In other words take the bad thing that you see in the enemy, in the yetzer Hara and
transform that into good. Take it captive make it beautiful. See the challenge not only
as an area that we can overcome or surmount, but as the are you want to excel in. If
there’s fire coming from that direction there must be something valuable over there.
My friends, we all have the capacity to become blind award winning
photographers. We can all see the challenge and then use that to become great in that
area. This Elul as we approach the High Holidays, let us have a teshuva paradigm shift,
let’s run towards the fire, not away from it, because that is where its value is.