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My law school professor told me that patience is the key ingredient for successful negotiation. I once was present at a negotiation between an American food company and its oriental counterpart. The people who represented the oriental company just sat impassively for minutes on end not offering up ant proposal. The Americans therefore impatiently began to negotiate with themselves raising the ante to their disadvantage at every statement they made. Patience is the key ingredient for successful parenting and classroom teaching. Patience is the hallmark of the righteous and holy. It allows one to see the forest and not just the trees and to factor in correctly the long term consequences and effects of one’s statements and actions. The hasty person, unlike his Creator, would see no merit in saving Lot while Sodom and its wicked inhabitants were being destroyed. But human beings are by their very nature likely to be short sighted in these matters. Snap judgments, built in bias and prejudice, impatience with others and events all combine for behavior and policies that in the long run are nearly catastrophic. Temporary gain and immediate gratification most often lead to long term disasters and erroneous policies and behavior. This is true both in our personal lives as well as in the national life of the Jewish people and the State of Israel as a whole. Patience therefore is not only a virtue, it is a necessity. For without patience, wisdom becomes foolishness and triumph turns to ashen defeat.
Our father Yaakov stated that "tomorrow I will come to claim my reward." Judaism always preaches the virtue of tomorrow, of postponed gratification. A person should not only be concerned with his life and generation but should be equally concerned regarding the life and generation of his grandchildren and great grandchildren. Those Jewish movements that have deviated from Torah observance and traditional values receive great initial publicity and initial acclaim. But it is an almost incontestable rule that these movements do not produce later generations of committed Jews. I know that it is not politic of me to say this but facts are facts and current political correctness never changes facts on the ground. We should not rush to judgment for perhaps a Ruth and a Naama will yet emerge even from those who generations earlier abandoned tradition and halachic norms. But we should never be beguiled by promises of instant success and sweeping beneficial change. This corresponds to the dictum of the rabbis that teaches us to say and promise little but to act and accomplish greatly. The impatient shout and proclaim loudly regarding their so-called achievements. The patient plod on steadily towards the goals set for Israel at Sinai. Patience is taught by example and by history. It is too bad that there is no required course in our schools of learning that is labeled Patience 101. Such a course subject would make all of the other courses of knowledge being taught more relevant, productive and beneficial to life’s work and its goals.
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
