As posted on February 15, 2012 by Sam Blustin on Soup for the Neshama
“Rabbi Mendel Futerfass spent several years of his life in a Soviet labor camp. He later related that one of the ways that he kept his sanity was to constantly engage his mind in the Chassidic practice, set forth by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, that “From everything that a person sees or hears, he should derive a lesson in his service of G-d.” Some very profound insights came from some very unusual teachers.
For instance, one of the prisoners claimed to be a tightrope walker.
Reb Mendel didn’t believe him because he couldn’t imagine why a person would waste his time walking on a rope and risk falling on his head, when he could just walk on the ground like everyone else. But when the evil Stalin died and the government eased up the pressure on the camps, some of the inmates decided to make a celebration and the tightrope walker saw his chance to prove himself.
He found a long thick rope somewhere in the camp, attached it to the side of a building about ten feet above the ground, stretched it to another building about fifteen yards away and attached it there at the same height. For a long time he was up on a ladder pulling, testing and fastening until everything was finally ready.
A crowd gathered around. The man removed his shoes and gingerly but unceremoniously climbed up the ladder onto the rope.
Reb Mendel was one of the first to get interested, and he explained what happened:
“First he climbed up onto the rope, took a few steps, lost his balance and fell. But he knew how to fall, like a cat. He waited a few seconds and climbed up again and fell again the same way. But eventually he started walking, and then dancing from one foot to the other to the rhythm of the clapping onlookers.
“Then he got to the end, turned around, danced back to where he started, and climbed down amidst the applause and cheering of the crowd.
“After shaking everyone’s hand he walked over to me and said with a satisfied smile on his face. ‘Well Rabbi, what do you think now?’
“I told him I was impressed, but I couldn’t help wondering how he did it. How could he walk on such a thin rope without falling off? After much prompting he finally revealed his secret. ‘I fix my eye on where I’m going,’ he said, ‘and never even think about falling’.
“He waited a few seconds for me to digest the answer, and then said: ‘Do you know what was the hardest part? Turning around! When you turn around you lose sight of the goal for a second. It takes a long time to learn to turn around!'””
Do you have goals in life? Values that you live by? How much do you pay attention to these goals when making a decision?
The tightrope walker in this story teaches us a very important lesson: When we keep our eye focused on our goals and are confident in what we are doing, and we embrace the possibility of failure but do not let it deter us, we can be successful and ultimately will be successful. That’s not to say we won’t fall down sometimes, but when we take our failures with grace, learn from them, and try again, we can achieve or goals.
There’s another important lesson that this story teaches us at the end. When we lose sight of our goal, it takes a long time to turn around! Think about it. When you are multi-tasking, how much time do you spend trying to switch your mind from one task to the other? Do you need to refocus? Re-read sentences? Start your thinking over again to continue? When we focus on our goals, it saves us the hassle of having to turn around constantly, dizzying ourselves in the process and causing us to fall down.
However, I would add a caution: Don’t be too focused on your goals not to enjoy and embrace what happens in this moment around you. Not only is the destination important, but the journey is as well. We end up missing a lot of life and a lot of opportunities when all we can see is the end line.
So this Shabbos, my blessing is that we can all find balance between our goals and enjoying the present moment. And if you don’t have goals yet in life, you should probably come up with a few.
L’chaim to all and Shabbat Shalom!
-SB
Story taken from http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3146/jewish/The-Tightrope.htm
