Take the High Road
Rabbi Ron Shulman
Shabbat Shelah Lekha 5771
If you drive a lot, especially in an unfamiliar area, or are going to a new place, a robotic word may occasionally ring in your ear, “Recalculating!” Driving with a GPS system in your car, when you change the mapped out route the computer voice lets you know that it is recalculating how to guide you to your intended destination.
A woman who previously never drove with a GPS ignored its instruction to turn around and drove north instead of south convinced she knew where she was going. After a while, lost and frustrated, she pulled to the side of the road to ask for directions. The polite stranger answering her question and pointing her north noticed the GPS system in the car. “Didn’t your GPS tell you which direction to drive?” he asked. “I thought it was wrong,” she replied embarrassed.
Going in the right direction is important, whether you are traveling or thinking about your life’s course. But, heading in the right direction is only part of what we need. We also have to know how to get there.
There’s a road I always tell people to take in life. It’s the road of sensitivity and dignity. It’s the road of self-respect and regard for others. It’s the road of compassion and understanding. Whatever may be the detours you confront in your relationships with others or in your efforts to contribute, take the high road.
“We just don’t speak anymore, rabbi.” A woman enters my study to talk about what’s gnawing at her. “I don’t know what I did. I don’t know how they misunderstood. But they won’t return my calls. Why won’t they let me explain?” she asks me.
“I just don’t know what to do,” one woman says to her friend. “If I tell him that’s how I feel, it will just make things between us worse.” “But if you’re not honest,” responds her friend, “how can it ever get better?” “I know. But he doesn’t pay attention to the things I do for him now. It hurts.”
“She’s really angry,” I’m told. “I didn’t expect that. I was yelling. I was upset. But I didn’t mean what I said. She knows that.” He looks down sadly, “I thought when we calmed down she would realize I went too far in what I said. I know I did. How many more times am I supposed to apologize?”
Each of these, and so many more, are among our daily jolts. It’s not our problems that we have to answer for. Life is complicated. We confront tensions and difficulties in our relationships and efforts every day. It’s how we respond to our problems that demands our attention.
Take the high road is always my response. Never let someone else’s behavior bring down your own. Be the one more gracious and compassionate. Be the one who takes every extra step you can. Don’t wait for someone else to do what you ought to do now.
Mark Twain once remarked that to act morally is noble, but to talk about acting morally is also noble - and a lot less trouble. Funny, yes, but misleading.
Ask Joshua and Caleb, two of the twelve scouts Moses sends in at God’s command to tour the Land of Israel. After traveling around the land without a GPS for forty days, they report to Moses, “Olah na’aleh, Let us by all means go up” into the land.
The Torah reports, “But the men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot… The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size. We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”
Reacting to the discouragement of the ten scouts who do not want to go forward and enter the land, the Children of Israel cry out. They complain. “It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” It’s an ancient world GPS outburst, “Recalculating!”
Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb want to ignore the redirection. God is portrayed as angry. “How long will this people spurn Me, and how long will they have no faith in Me despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst?”
Let me share with you a Midrash that brings perspective to the Torah’s story.
The rabbis ask why God is so angry when the scouts report, “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.
In the Midrash, God rebukes the scouts. “I am ready to put up with your saying, ‘We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves.’ But, I take offense at your asserting, ‘and so we must have looked to them.’ How can you possibly know how I made you appear in their eyes?”
Here we are taught a powerful lesson for all of us to heed. On the one hand, we don’t know and cannot control what someone else sees in us or how they perceive us. What we do know is the truth of what we see about ourselves and how we behave. On the other hand, we ought not to assume that our own insecurities or mistakes are what others see about us. To someone else’s question or concern we are the answer. Even if we don’t see ourselves in that light, they just might.
That’s why we have to take the high road. That’s why it matters more what we do to help someone else than what they do to assist us.
Remember God’s complaint against King Saul in the Book of Samuel. Disappointed in King Saul, the prophet Samuel speaks God’s challenge. “You may look small to yourself, but you are the head of the tribes of Israel” to everyone else.
Joshua and Caleb help their people wandering through the wilderness to stay on course. They ignore the GPS of fear and insecurity calling out to them. With Moses, they confidently lead the people on a road forward toward God and the Land of Israel.
That’s the road to take in life. It’s the road to dignity and character. It’s the road to self-respect and regard for others. It’s the road to compassion and understanding. It’s the road to faith and hope. Whatever may be the detours you confront wandering your way through these busy and challenging days, to get where you’re going take the high road.
© 2011 Rabbi Ronald J. Shulman
