Reply To: What We Can Learn From The Navy Seals

I absolutely meant the “be all you can be” hero. I should have more clear.

No question; if a teen boy on a summer break makes the right choice based on “is this mutter or assur” then he is as big a hero (perhaps bigger) than my learing an extra 30 minutes on a day off. His “struggle” is greater than mine.

Can that same boy be the next Rosh Yeshiva? If that’s what he wants, then more power too him. But an army needs mechanics too.

Nothing wrong with being a mechanic. Just be a great one.

And yes, I hear (and am very against) the “polarization” mantra being dished out in today’s yeshivas.

All you need to be is the best “you” you can be.

Just this morning, I read about the Berditchiver Rebbe’s novel way of the famous phrase, “in the place of baalei teshuva, tzadikim gemurim cannot stand”

As long as you are a “baal teshuva” (you keep trying to grow, learn / understand more) you keep moving ahead. Its when you think you’re “gamur” (a finished product) that you become stagnant. Growth, never being satisfied with the status quo, is what heros are made of.

(taken from Hamodia Magazine, article by Rabbi S. Ashkenazi)