Then, Parshat Tazria talks about tzaraat. Tzaraat is a plague, of sorts. Only a kohen, a priest, could correctly diagnose this leprosy-esque disease. It would show up on an individual’s clothing, house, or even body. If the tzaraat showed up on clothing or a home, the damaged area would be destroyed, and if it showed up on the person’s skin, they would leave the community and live alone outside the encampment until the tzaraat went away. The main cause that would give someone tzaraat is if they partook in my favorite aveira: lashon hara.

I’ll admit it: I love gossip. It’s fun; it’s easy to talk about other people when struggling to come up with a conversation topic that goes beyond generic small talk; it’s easier to talk about other people than to talk about yourself. Who doesn’t love knowing all the backstory, all about why one of your friends is treating another weirdly and what’s really going on within that friend group you’ve always hated?

But Parshat Tazria (and its sister parsha, Parshat Metzora, which is next week’s parsha) is an annual reminder that even lighthearted gossip has its consequences. That it’s an actual sin. I’d hate knowing others were talking about me behind my back. If I ever do find out that that’s going on, I become obsessively curious—what exactly were they saying? And who started the conversation? And what was the tone of voice used? And who else was there, was it just their friends or was it any of mine?

And if I hate the mere thought of being spoken about, why am I comfortable putting others in that situation? If I have something nice to say, shouldn’t I just say it to their face? If I have something mean to say, who does it benefit to say it out loud? What use is there in spilling secrets and sharing backstories if it isn’t remotely relevant to me?

The Talmud talks about how lashon hara harms three people: the speaker, the listener, and the person it’s about. You’re held accountable for gossip even if all you do is overhear it, even if you don’t spread it yourself. If you do spread gossip yourself, you’re not just hurting the person it’s about, but also yourself and the person you’re confiding in. There’s real harm in these seemingly “small talk”-like conversations.

We may no longer get tzaraat as punishment for speaking lashon hara, but lashon hara is just as harmful as it always was. Let’s focus on ourselves—other people’s personal business is irrelevant to our everyday lives.

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There were different sacrifices to offer depending on your situation; some would be brought as thanks, others brought in apology; some would be eaten by the priests, others would be consumed completely by fire. Each korban would be brought with salt. According to this piece from Chabad.org, salt adds flavor. Offering your apology and your gratitude are all good and well, but if you offer a sacrifice without really meaning it, it’s not worth nearly as much. The same way salt must be included in every korban, meaning is necessary for every fully-lived life.

Meaning is hard to find. Harder to hold onto. Sometimes I think I’ve found all the meaning I need, that my beliefs are unshakeable, only to fall into a rough patch and suddenly lose grasp of all the meaning that was once so closely within reach. I guess what I have to do in those moments is add some salt. Meaning isn’t always internally-rooted; internal feelings aren’t always strong enough to keep your life meaningful. In those moments, you have to sprinkle on some salt, sprinkle on some external meaning. Learn something new; seek out a mentor who can help you reconnect with your sense of purpose; take on a new mitzvah; find a new hobby. In life, you might not always “feel it.” But you can always add some salt, add some external flavor when your inner self isn’t providing enough of it.

When we Jews still brought korbanot, we had to bring animal sacrifices. Now, prayer is the standard substitute for sacrificial offerings. It’s so much easier nowadays, in theory. You can do it from the comfort of your own home; you don’t have to buy an animal to fulfill the commandment. Convenient! Free! Still, somehow, it’s so hard for me to actually do it, actually sit down and pray. I suppose the question to ask here is How can I sprinkle salt onto this sacrifice? Which external motivation can I use to find meaning in prayer?

Something that’s helped me connect with prayer in the past is learning more about what the prayers mean, how each prayer is relevant to me in my own life. Knowing what I’m saying is what transforms my prayers from a routine of rote recitation to a personal request. Another way I’ve found meaning in prayer is by engaging in hitbodedut, the Hasidic practice of talking to G-d in your own words. G-d becomes less abstract, more of a close friend, when I speak to Him in casual words and on a more regular, less restricted basis. We don’t have korbanot nowadays, in a time period where we still don’t have the Temple, but we do have prayer. Instead of adding salt to my korbanot, I’ll add salt to my prayers and really, really mean them.

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Not only did they donate all that was needed, each individual bringing their jewelry and wool clothing and whatever else they had to offer, but they donated even more than that, so much that Moshe had to tell them to stop bringing things. They built the mishkan and all its furnishings: a solid gold menorah they lit every day, altars to bring sacrifices on, a table always stacked with twelve fresh loaves of bread, an ark with two carved cherubs atop it, and a washbasin made out of copper mirrors.

Moshe refused to accept these copper mirrors at first. Mirrors represent superficiality, vanity, a prioritization of external appearances. G-d instructed Moshe to ignore the usual connotations, to accept the donated mirrors. In Egypt, the Israelite women would use these mirrors to beautify themselves for their husbands. The Egyptians, in an attempt to depopulate their Israelite population, separated wives from husbands and overworked them so they wouldn’t have the time, much less the energy, to conceive any more children. With their copper mirrors, says the medieval commentator Rashi, the women would beautify themselves, seduce their husbands, and conceive more children.

I taught a classroom of middle school students this week, as a substitute teacher. They were scheduled to learn about middot, character traits. I didn’t have any material prepared to teach, so instead we launched into a discussion on character traits as a whole, and I brought up the book Orchot Tzaddikim. The book, anonymously written in the fifteenth century, details a multitude of human character traits, elaborating on how each one can be used for good and for bad. One of the main messages is that, with very very very few exceptions, no character trait is inherently good or inherently bad. Like, a seemingly positive trait, kindness, can become negative if you never stand up for yourself and allow others to walk all over you like a doormat. Or a seemingly negative trait, jealousy, can be used in a positive way if you use your jealousy of others’ accomplishments as inspiration to do better. I love the concept. I love thinking that it doesn’t matter if certain normally-positive traits are hard for me to strengthen, or if I’m inclined to normally-negative traits. Because even the traits we see as negative, even the traits we see as character flaws, can be (twisted around/etc/idk what word to use here) and used for good.

In Egypt, the Israelite women used their mirrors in a positive way; they transformed the normally-negative traits of vanity and superficiality and seduction into positive ones, using them for good, using them to raise their husbands’ spirits and help the Israelite population grow. They’re an inspiration for us, teaching us that the purpose of (metaphorical) mirrors is whatever we choose to use them for. It’s not about the character traits that come more naturally to you. It’s about how you use these innate traits.

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Within the mishkan, they would craft a washbasin. “They’ll wash with water so that they won’t die,” instructed Hashem. “They’ll wash their hands and feet so that they won’t die.” Sounds like some germaphobe propaganda! Moshe would also brew up an anointing oil, infused with myrrh and cinnamon and other spices, with which to anoint all the vessels of the mishkan. After receiving his instructions, Moshe, who was up on Mount Sinai, was given two stone tablets.

The problem? The Israelites weren’t great at calculating time, and they mistakenly believed Moshe was supposed to have descended one day earlier. Terrified at the thought of losing their leader, an angry mob went to Moshe’s brother Aharon and demanded that he create a new god for them. Afraid he’d be killed and trying to buy time, Aharon agreed, instructing them to bring all their gold jewelry, which they would melt down and craft a golden calf statue out of to serve as their new leader. Black magic got introduced into the mix and the melting went a little faster than Aharon had anticipated. Hashem told Moshe about what was going on down below and said He would punish the Israelites, which Moshe begged Him not to do. But when Moshe descended Mount Sinai and saw the Israelites serving this golden calf as an idol, he got upset and broke the tablets he carried down with him. He destroyed the golden calf next, then had the instigators put to death.

Moshe ascended Mount Sinai once more, in order to get new tablets with the entire Torah inscribed on them, and he again begged Hashem to forgive the Israelites for their sins.

When he descended, a new set of tablets in hand, Moshe was glowing. Literally. Light shone from his face, so brightly he had to wear a veil when talking to the Israelites.

Moshe Rabbeinu, the first leader of the Israelites, teaches important lessons about leadership. What does it mean to be a leader? 

It means enforcing accountability: the people most responsible for the sin of the Golden Calf were killed. Accountability was not theirs alone: there’s a Talmudic concept that all Jews are responsible for one another, kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh. The sin of the Golden Calf, in specific, wasn’t a sin for which only its generation was culpable. Elsewhere, the Talmud also states that every sin has hints of this sin, the sin of the Golden Calf, within it.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, being a leader means caring about the people you’re leading. Leadership can’t just be a job or role to you—it has to truly matter to you. Moshe was desperate to get Hashem to forgive the Israelites. Sure, he was upset at them too; they had effectively tried to replace him with a statue and completely forgone G-d in the process. Even so, he did everything he could to convince Hashem to forgive them, even saying that if G-d wouldn’t forgive them, He should erase Moshe from the Torah completely.

Too often, we see people in leadership positions sacrificing the wellbeing of the people they’re supposed to be leading for their own personal benefits. Corrupt politicians are all the norm; school boards prioritize donors over students; leaders seem to no longer care about their followers, if they ever did. Moshe, in this week’s parsha, reminds us what a leader is truly supposed to be—caring.

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The Torah then, in describing korbanot, sounds like a cooking show host, describing precisely how to sacrifice specific animals and how to make the bread you bring them with.

Aharon and his sons were to be anointed, and the Torah describes every step of every day that the process lasted. It was a seven-day-long purification process.

Finally: the laws of incense. Yup, you read that right. Incense, special spices, also called ketoret, were brought to the altar, located in the holiest room of all the holies and inaccessible by anyone but the kohen gadol at specific times.

This week’s parshah is almost too specific, from all the details about outfits to all the details about bringing korbanot. It’s almost like a celebrity lifestyle blog, creepily fixating on everything the highest echelon of society, the priests, wore and ate. What’s up with that? Why does Hashem want us to know all these wardrobe details, and more specifically, what can I learn from it? Maybe, since we don’t know which generation Mashiach will come in and when the priests will begin wearing these clothes and bringing these sacrifices, we should be ready to revive the practice at any given moment, learning the protocols’ details preemptively even before they become relevant.

Maybe, though, there’s an implication that caring about clothing isn’t as shallow as I generally perceive it to be. When I see someone spending too long fixating on what to wear or how to accessorize it, I scoff at them in my head. Why spend so long on superficial, shallow parts of yourself when you can spend this time doing something else? While I do think I’m correct to not obsess over appearances, not my own nor those of the people I encounter, I think there’s a degree of nuance to introduce to the conversation. Clothes are important.

We’ve all heard the saying that “Clothes make the man” (or, similarly, Shakespeare’s “The apparel oft proclaims the man”) or the one instructing us to “Dress for the job you want, not for the job you have.” These aren’t Jewish concepts, per se, but the general idea surrounding them is that your clothes influence both how you see yourself and how others see you.

This isn’t a new idea—I’ve been approached by Jewish strangers in the past, offering rides or asking for directions, my long skirt and sleeves showing that I’m Jewish too. Would they have asked for or offered help had they not guessed my religious identity? Maybe. But because of my clothing, they didn’t need to guess, my clothes being a defining quality. It’s not great to define others or be defined by your clothing, but it makes life easier in a sense. If you’re in a hospital, scrubs or lack thereof signify a stranger’s ability to help you or if they’re just another patient. In a retail store, employee’s uniforms show that they’re the ones to ask for help.

When you’re getting dressed, you are representing yourself, and if you present as a Jew, be it with tznius clothing or a kippah or a magen David necklace, you are also representing the Jewish nation as a whole. That’s why the way you present yourself, clothing-wise, is so important. If you want to represent yourself in a positive light, dress in a put-together way. The trait of pride can be used in a good way when it stops you from wearing clothing that is dirty or torn, says the anonymously-written Orchos Tzaddikim.

Take pride in yourself, then. Take pride in the way you present yourself, and be specific about what you wear.

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The next day, Yitro saw Moshe sitting all day hearing cases the Israelites brought to him and judging them, and Yitro rebuked him. Yitro essentially said that Moshe was burning himself out and advised him to appoint good, G-d-fearing Israelites, in a hierarchical format shaped not unlike a pyramid, so that they could hear the queries of the Israelites. If they were unqualified to offer the Israelites a satisfactory answer, they would pass the case on to the judge just above them, and so on. Therefore, only the most difficult questions to answer would go to Moshe, as opposed to every single little question, and if even he could not answer it, he would ask G-d.

Moshe listened to Yitro and enacted this proposed policy, and Yitro left, back to Midian, in order to convert the rest of his family to Judaism.

The Israelites arrived at the Sinai desert, and they camped opposite Mount Sinai. There, they (we?) made a covenant with G-d, promising to keep His commandments. The first ten were given, by G-d Himself: to believe in G‑d, to not worship idols, to not take G‑d’s name in vain, to keep the Shabbat, to honor their parents, to not murder, to not commit adultery, to not steal, to not bear false witness, and to not covet another’s property. The Israelites were overwhelmed by the Voice of G-d, and they asked Moshe to give the rest of the commandments over himself, in his own voice.

Yitro—both the parshah and the individual—reminds me of the importance of familial connections. While not his biological father, Yitro was almost a father to Moshe. The very phrase “father-in-law” being used to describe Yitro alludes to his relationship with Moshe, says Rashi. Yitro called himself Moshe’s father-in-law, with pride at being related to the leader of all the Israelites. When he arrived at the Israelites’ camp, Moshe greeted him with love and respect. When he noticed Moshe biting on more than he could chew, he rebuked Moshe gently, gave him advice on how to balance himself and his responsibilities more efficiently.  And then, when Yitro left the Israelite camp to go back to Midian, he left in order to convert the rest of his family—he had seen the power of the G-d of the Hebrews, and he wasn’t going to leave the rest of his loved ones in the dark; rather, he’d share this revelation with them.

Later on, as the Israelites were camped by the mountain, the Torah refers to them in the singular sense rather than the plural. At the point of receiving the Torah, the nation felt a sense of unity so strong that they were like one individual with one heart. It’s so important to remember: we Jews are not just a nation. We are a family.

And even the Ten Commandments included an allusion to family connections, with the commandment to honor one’s father and mother. The Talmud says that there are three partners in creating an individual: the father, the mother, and G-d. When this individual later honors their father and mother, it is as if they are also honoring G-d.

Two caveats must be made here. Valuing one’s family is a crucial element of practicing Judaism, which I would argue is the reason why it plays such a role in the parsha in which the Torah is first given. However: valuing family sometimes takes the form of tough love. Yitro came with Tzipporah and her and Moshe’s sons because Moshe had sent them away earlier. He intended to bring them with him to Egypt as he redeemed the Israelites, but his brother Aharon rebuked him, saying enough people were already suffering in Egypt and they didn’t need to add more. Sending away his wife and children was, although tough love, one way Moshe kept them safe. Furthermore: sometimes, family is not what you are born into but who you chose. Proverbs 27:10 says a close neighbor is better than a distant brother, and this is relevant because Midrash Rabbah defines the close neighbor as Yitro, with the distant brother being Yaakov’s brother Esav.

The role family takes in every individual’s life varies by the individual. In your relationship with your family, do you prioritize tough or unconditional love? Are you closer with your blood relatives or your chosen family? More importantly: are you so close to the people you consider family that you’re almost like one person with one heart?

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After Yaakov’s passing, his descendants travel to Chevron to bury him in the Machpelah Cave, as he’d requested. They’re accompanied by a whole procession of Egyptian ministers and citizens.

Yosef’s brothers are sure that he has secretly held a grudge against them all along and was only keeping up appearances of peace for their father’s benefit. They’re worried that now that Yaakov has passed, Yosef’s cordiality has expired, and he will kill them. When they confront him about it, Yosef cries. He can’t believe his brothers really think that. Yosef understands that no matter what they did to him, everything happened because G-d wanted it to, and he therefore holds no resentment towards his brothers. He comforts them and tells them that he will take care of them in Egypt, where he serves as viceroy to the Pharaoh.

Then Yosef realizes that he is near death. It’s kind of morbid how long our ancestors spent talking about their impending deaths, but I guess they’re wiser than we are? Like his father before him, he requests that his bones be buried in Canaan, in the Machpelah Cave. He tells his extended family, the Israelites, that G-d will remember them and take them out of Egypt, and then he, too, passes away. But instead of burying him in Canaan, they embalm him, and he remains in Egypt.

Parshat Vayechi brings up a lot of thoughts about atonement and forgiveness. I often wonder about repentance, and the purpose of regret. Once you’ve atoned for your sins and wiped them away, is there any use to regretting these mistakes?

Shimon and Levi sinned against the people of Shechem with good intentions; Reuben, too, sinned with good intentions, and he spent the remainder of his life repenting for his mistake. Still, they did not get blessed along with their brothers at Yaakov’s deathbed. Regardless of whether they regretted what they’d done, the mistakes had been made, and there was no undoing of them. This teaches us to take our actions with the weight they deserve, to not expect that we’ll simply repent later on for what we did. In the moment, we must be sure we are doing the right thing.

But after Yaakov’s death, when Yosef’s brothers apologize him, the Torah is reassuring us that no matter how bad our mistakes, there’s no use torturing ourselves for it. Sure, there are negative repercussions as a consequence of the things we do wrong, but either way, whatever happens fits into G-d’s plans.

The structure of these two ideas fits together nicely. Shimon, in specific, had originally argued that they should kill Yosef. Reuben had failed to save him. When even Yaakov did not fully forgive them for the sins they’d done in the past, they may have turned to hopelessness. How much more can I repent? How can I fix what I did if there’s no going back in time? But Yosef’s assurances that he had long forgiven them must have assuaged it somehow. Sure, there’s no fixing the past. But if Yosef could forgive them, then at least they could move on towards living an unburdened future.

Ideas like this are a big part of why I love learning Torah. Even just thinking about it is soothing, reassures you that no matter how badly you messed up, moving on towards the future is possible.

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When heavy rains and a flood were about to destroy the entire world, Noach gathered two of each animal and his family: his wife Naama, his sons Shem, Cham, and Yafet, and his three daughters-in-law. The humans lived on the top floor, the animals on the middle one, and their trash went on the bottom floor. The rains started and continued for forty days and forty nights, flooding the entire world. Every living thing outside the ark died, and all within it were spared.

It took months for the water to dry.

Noach sent a raven out of the ark to see if the water had yet abated. Then he sent another messenger, a dove, to check. It came back. Seven days later, Noach sent the dove again, and this time, it came back with an olive branch in its mouth. This was a sign the earth was going back to normal, that things were growing again, so they parked and disembarked.

G-d created the rainbow, a promise that He would never destroy the world again and a sign that He wants to. It’s a shame they’re so pretty; maybe, if they looked a little scarier, we’d actually be scared into working on our shortcomings.

And life went pretty much back to normal, as life is wont to do, despite the massive changes and destruction that had just occurred. I guess we get used to even the worst situations.

Generations later, the world was more populated, all these new people speaking the same language. This new generation decided to fight G-d and built a tower to be able to reach them. Teamwork didn’t make the dream work, though, even though every member of this group project pulled their weight. G-d created different languages in order to confuse them, each tower-builder now unable to communicate with the next.

From Noach’s son Shem came Terach, and to Terach a son named Abraham was born. Abraham married his brother’s daughter, Sarai.

It took forty days for the flood to destroy everything, and three hundred for things to only slightly go back to normal. It took one generation to destroy everyone, and ten generations to build the population back up. Our words work the same way: it takes just a few nasty ones to tear someone down, and hundreds to build them back up. The power of speech is hinted to in this parsha, when G-d commands Noach to gather the pure animals and the not pure ones, rather than explicitly calling them impure. Admittedly, this comes off as a stronger distinction in Hebrew, but the point stands: you don’t refer to things negatively when you don’t need to. As a teacher of mine pointed out recently, the specified measurements of the ark actually hint to speech as well—it was 30 amot by 300 amot by 50 amot, which, if translated by gematria into Hebrew letters, spell out lashon, speech.

We humans were created in G-d’s image. We were created with the power to build and destroy. It’s so easy to destroy, and so hard to build, and we need to use these gifts wisely. Use your speech carefully, to build others up rather than tear them down. Create, don’t destroy.

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Adam, the man, asked for a wife. The “old ball and chain” mentality when it came to marriage must have existed even then, because G-d waited until Adam asked to give him a wife—otherwise, he would’ve complained the first time he got annoyed by her. After Adam asked, G-d made him a wife, Chava, because it isn’t good for man to be alone. I can affirm that: I get miserable whenever I’m alone for extended periods of time. (I also choose to be alone for extended periods of time regardless.) 

G-d gave the happy new couple one commandment, not to eat from one specific tree in the Garden of Eden, and allowed them to go wild in any other respect. But, of course, we always want what we can’t have, and with some peer pressure from a snake, Adam and Chava violated the one law they had to follow. They ate the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree, the Tree of Knowledge, and instantly their third eyes were opened. They were no longer blind to things we now consider human nature, like shame and mortality and the evil within. They were punished gravely: Adam with the burden of work, Chava with pregnancy and menstruation, both with death. Yikes. The snake lost its hands and feet, speech, and sense of taste. Still, punishments aside, I kind of get why they did it. I mean, infinitely more knowledge than you have now? Just by eating a single fruit? Can you imagine the fame that would bring you, and all the awards for being the smartest person alive? 

Anyways, Adam and Chava were banished from the Garden of Eden. They had two sons, Cain alongside one twin sister and Abel alongside two triplet sisters, and since they had to reproduce somehow, each son was to be paired up with the sisters he was born with. Whether it was because G-d liked Abel’s sacrificial offerings better, Cain’s jealousy that Abel pulled more girls than him, or just plain old sibling rivalry, it ended the same way: with the world’s first murder. Adam and Chava later had another son, Seth, and later on, when the world was destroyed by flood, Seth’s descendant Noah and Cain’s descendant Naama, along with their children, were the only ones to survive—but more on that next week.

Before they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, the full extent of Adam and Chava’s evil was external. The only bad thing they ever did, the only bad thing they wanted to do, was the result of an external evil whispering in their ears. After they ate from the fruit, evil suddenly lived within them. Now they (and we) had to live with the proverbial devil on their shoulders, constantly swaying them to do the wrong thing. 

With evil inside man, suddenly, tiny slights such as Abel’s to Cain’s were something unforgivable. And that’s what we’re here for, I think. When you’ve been slighted, when you think you’ve been treated unfairly, that’s when the evil inclination inside you tells you that you want to lash out. In times like these, let’s pretend that little voice isn’t inside our heads, but let’s see it for what it really is—a snake who wants to see us mess up.

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Reuben came first, with a blessing that he should live and not die. The Torah isn’t known for being redundant—actually, it’s known for not being redundant—so, like, why the repetition? It got me thinking, maybe this phrasing is necessary because not dying doesn’t necessarily mean actively living. It’s the old surviving-versus-living spiel. Maybe (like Rav Shlomo Yitzchaki, colloquially known as Rashi, said) this alluded to life in this world and the World to Come. Maybe this alluded to both physical and spiritual life. Or maybe Moshe was blessing the Tribe of Reuben that not only should they literally wake up in the morning, but that they should also make the most of each day. Living is about more than just not dying; it’s also about loving and laughing.

Then the other tribes were blessed, one by one, some with plentiful lands, some with prestigious positions within the Jewish nation (sea merchants and lawmakers and priests, which was basically back then’s doctors and lawyers), some with Hashem’s aid in their wars. This portion of the parsha is rife with animal comparisons. Which makes sense, because most of the tribes are compared to different kinds of animals, but still. As king of the others, Yehuda, of course, is a lion, and then Gad is, um, also a lion, and Joseph is an ox, and then Dan is also compared to a lion, but this time it’s super different, because it’s a young lion. Again, as mentioned earlier, the Torah doesn’t exactly make a habit of repeating itself needlessly. So what’s with the repeated lion messaging?

We’re told to behave like lions at certain points in Judaic canon. Pirkei Avot quotes Yehuda ben Teima, who tells us to be strong like a lion; the Shulchan Aruch, the book of Jewish law, instructs us to wake up like a lion. You know, seize the day. Get out of bed right away, don’t dawdle. I think the lion thing gives us a similar message to Reuben’s blessing. Just “not dying” is worlds apart from actually living, and similarly, just “waking up” and eventually “getting up” isn’t the same thing as jumping out of bed. We can’t just waste the day away, we have to seize it.

Moshe Rabbeinu passed away after blessing the Jewish nation. They mourned him there, in the Moabite plains, and Joshua the son of Nun took over as their new leader, soon to lead them into the Land of Israel.

This is an important caveat to the “seize the day” messaging above. The Jews could have technically rushed straight to Israel following Moshe’s passing. But no—they waited for thirty days, the appropriate length of time dictated for mourning. Only after the appropriate mourning period passed did they continue. Seizing the day is important, but it needs to be done respectfully and consciously. This is supported by the exclusion of one of the tribes in Moshe’s blessings—Shimon was not blessed. Why not? Because Shimon was quick to massacre the city of Shechem, because he initiated throwing Joseph into the pit, because his descendants later ran to serve the Baal Peor idols. Well, hey, wasn’t he taking initiative? He wasn’t lazy, he was making the most of his day. But he wasn’t “seizing the day” with the right intentions.

Pirkei Avot doesn’t just tell us to be strong like a lion, it tells us to be strong like a lion in order to carry out our Father’s will. The Shulchan Aruch, too, instructs us to arise like a lion so that we can serve Hashem.

Seize the day. Be zealous, take initiative, run to do good. But make sure what you’re running to do really is good.

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