Yesterday morning, I received hundreds of emails and texts within a few minutes. It was difficult to comprehend what was happening. In these moments, you assume something wonderful or something terrible is happening. I quickly realized that my e-mail had been hacked and a message was sent to my contacts that I did not compose and had no control over.
After comprehending the situation and working with the technology experts to solve the issue, I stepped back to reflect. I had not heard from many of those who contacted me in years: College classmates, colleagues from around the country, extended family from around the world, and friends and acquaintances.
Often, when we send what we believe is an important e-mail, we receive no response. We think to ourselves, “Is anyone listening? Do my words matter?” And yet, in that moment yesterday, the outpouring of support was overwhelming, many perplexed to see an email with content that I would not usually send.
As human beings, we wish to control the events of our lives: Where we live, when we work, and what we do with the hours of our day. And then there are the moments that as hard as we try, some events are simply out of our control.
We must only look into our tradition to understand these limits. The Torah is not a book that asks for perfection. Rather, our tradition asks that we strive to do better each and every moment. For when these situations inevitably occur, we will know that there will be others who will surround us, pick us up, and carry us ahead to where we need to be.
