Rabbi Rael Blumenthal

This week, I had one of those “back in my day...” moments.

My kids were waiting for a show to load on the iPad, and it had been buffering for a few seconds longer than expected.

These days, delays of this nature tend to induce a mild panic. People get antsy. Maybe somethings broken? Maybe we need to restart the router?

Looking at their exasperated faces, I explained that “back in my day”, downloading an album of music took the whole night. We’d cue it up to start downloading before going to bed, and then, in the morning, we prayed that it had worked.

Of course, it was all lost the moment anyone picked up the phone.

My kids have never heard those screeching dial-up tones, and likely they never will. As of last month, AOL no longer offers dial up internet. All of this has been replaced by an internet that moves data faster than any of us could’ve imagined.

But this is not a tale of nostalgia for times past.

To be clear, I love technology and I’m far from the type to get sentimental about slower times. But there’s a point we often seem to miss... That the speed of everything in our world is also part of Hashem’s Hashgacha.

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Chassidim tell a story of the Baal Shem Tov who once met a group of horse dealers at an inn. It was during the time of year when the fair was open, and they had all come to buy and sell their wares. They would spend every day doing business, and they would come in the evening to the boardinghouse to rest.

When the Ba’al Shem Tov saw how immersed in their business these men were, he felt sorry for them. He said to them, “I have a question for you, my brothers.”

Can you tell me the difference in price between a good horse and a bad horse?” The horse dealers began to laugh at the silly question. One of them spoke up and said, “There is a huge difference! A good horse that is able to run fast and which can carry a rider can fetch 100 gold coins or more. A bad horse that is too weak to run fast or carry and rider and can only pull a small cart can only be sold for 10 gold coins at most.”

The Ba’al Shem Tov, however, continued to speak and he asked,“Why is it good for a horse to be able to run fast? This could be a detriment. If it runs off the path, it will get very far away before you can catch it and get it back!”

The merchants now understood that he was hinting to deep matters and they waited to see what he would say next. The Ba’al Shem Tov continued: “It is true that a fast horse may get lost and run far away but it will also get back on the right path very quickly!”

He then turned to them with sweetness, “You should be able to understand on your own what I am getting at. You are all good Jews. You descend from great men and women. Even if you wander very far from the good path, do not despair! You still possess greatness within you and you can quickly return to the proper path.”

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As parents and teachers, most of the time, our inclination is to attempt to control the rapidly increasing speed of the world. We try to create boundaries, structures and rules with the hope that we can slow things down to a pace we recognize; a pace we can manage.

What if we looked the rapid changes in our world as more than a danger? What if this was all an invitation?

Moshe Rabbeinu presents this invitation at the opening of our parsha:

רְאֵה אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה – See, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;

On this, the Seforno explains: In every situation, there is a possibility of it being entire good, or entirely the opposite:

כי אמנם אנכי נותן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה והם שני הקצוות כי הברכה היא הצלחה יותר מן המספיק ע”צ היותר טוב. והקללה היא מארה מחסרת שלא יושג המספיק ושניהם לפניכם להשיג כפי מה שתבחרו:

Remember that I present you this day with the choice of two extremes, opposites. The ברכה is an extreme in that it provides you with more than you need, whereas the קללה is another extreme making sure that you have less than your basic needs. You have the choice of both before you; all you have to do is make a choice.

What if this year, this Elul, we harnessed the speed of our generation to make rapid changes? All it takes is to point ourselves in the direction we want to move towards, and then to start doing the things we want to be doing.

The invitation is simple: If Hashem has given us a faster horse than any time in Jewish history, let’s use it to get our lives back on track quicker than ever before.