This week’s parsha—VA-ERA—narrates the exchange between God and Moshe about Moshe’s eventual leadership of the Jewish people. And we know that Moshe resists his calling—he worries about his speech impediment, he tells God that the Israelites will not listen to him, he mentions his older brother Aaron, and he tries everything in his power to dissuade God from appointing him. One popular explanation for God’s choice of Moshe as a leader is that Moshe is an ANAV.

          I think we probably all know this word—we hear it all the time, especially in the book of Exodus. And just as we frequently call Abraham, Abraham Avinu, so we often note that Moshe is an ANAV.  What does that word mean?  YES—HUMBLE.  In fact, Moshe called himself the most humble person on earth.  Imagine—this person who led the Israelites out of slavery, who received the Ten Commandments and the Torah from God, who is perhaps the greatest prophet of all time, who is the only person who is able to speak DIRECTLY with God—this is not just a humble person, but the most humble person on the planet.  One tractate tells us that “all the other prophets looked at God through a murky glass. But Moshe looked at God through a CLEAR glass.” Isn’t it amazing to think that someone with all of those accomplishments would be able to remain humble? 

I think that most of us—with even ONE of these things on our resumes, would have a tendency to get a swelled head.  But Moshe does not; and he never does.

          We tend to take for granted that the word ANAV translates to HUMBLE.  But not all translations do that. The Christian Bible—the King James Version—translates ANAV as MEEK.  What do you think? 

I may be biased, and I know that the business of translation is tricky.  But I’m with all of you. I think MEEK is not a good translation of ANAV. And I think that Moshe may have been humble, but he was certainly not meek.  Meekness, in my opinion, is very different from humility.  So look at our text.  Moshe kills the task master to save the life of a Jewish slave.  Moshe stands up to God and challenges God’s selection of him as the leader of the Israelites.  Moshe (along with his brother Aaron) confronts Pharaoh with the power of God and his love for the Jewish people.  Moshe may have sinned by striking the rock and by losing his patience with the people, but those sins make clear that he is hardly a meek man.

          But humble is very different.  When Miriam and Aaron challenge Moshe’s authority, he never defends himself; in fact, it takes God to intervene to defend Moshe.  When Korach rebels, we never see Moshe defend his leadership; in every case, he invokes God to make clear that he is only an emissary.  There is even a midrash that when the five daughters of Tzelafchad came to Moshe to ask whether they could inherit, he made the decision to let them inherit their father’s estate because they had no brothers.  But Moshe tells them that it was God who decided the issue; and midrash tells us that Moshe wanted the daughters to feel honored that God—and not humble Moshe--would decide in their favor. So, here again, Moshe willingly deflects attention away from himself.

          There’s a saying that good leaders always take the blame and never take the credit for what happens.  That’s a really hard lesson to learn.  It’s so much easier to pat ourselves on the back when things go well, and to point fingers when things don’t.   Moshe is a good leader because he knows who he is and he doesn’t need accolades or adoration.  So maybe humility and confidence go hand in hand. If you’re truly confident, you can afford to be humble. You know who you are and you don’t let others’ doubts or successes blind you to that awareness.  Let us pray that we might all learn this lesson from Moshe Rabbenu.

​In this week’s parsha, SHMOT, we see the evolution of a leader, of our first rabbi, Moshe.  Remember that Moshe lived the life of a prince, and his life in the Egyptian palace could have remained as comfortable as it was. But an event changes Moshe’s life and his destiny.  And that event occurs even before Moshe’s conversation with God at the burning bush, where God tells him that He has taken pity on the Israelite slaves.  But, even before that, we know that Moshe, in anger, kills an Egyptian, who was beating a Jew.  And the Torah tells us that Moshe looked around, saw no one, and killed the Egyptian.  But there’s an interesting phrase that we read just before he makes the decision to kill the oppressor.  The line is “He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen.”  

This line tells us that Moshe isn’t simply feeling compassion for someone who is being wrongfully hurt.  It also tells us that Moshe experiences a connection with the victim. He is, the Torah tells us, his KINSMAN.  So we know that Moshe, even with his privileged background, identifies as a Jew.  VaYigdal Moshe VaYaytzay el Echawv VaYahr B’Sivlotawm.  Moses became great when he went out to his brethren and saw their suffering.  More than any other quality, a true leader has to have compassion.  
At the end of today’s parsha, Moshe asks God two questions:  The first question: Oh, Lord, why did you bring harm upon this people?
And the second:  Why did you send me?
כבוַיָּ֧שָׁב משֶׁ֛ה אֶל־יְהֹוָ֖ה וַיֹּאמַ֑ר אֲדֹנָ֗י לָמָ֤ה הֲרֵעֹ֨תָה֙ לָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה שְׁלַחְתָּֽנִי:

I think today we continue to ask that first question—why is there evil in the world? Why do good people suffer?  And, as you’ll soon hear, God does not really provide much of an answer to either of those questions.  But I think in Shmot we have a glimpse of an answer to that second question—Why did you send me?—as we see Moshe Rabbeynu’s compassion for the Israelite slaves, even as they complain to him that his attempts to free them have only made their lives WORSE. We see Moshe identifying with the downtrodden, when it would have been so easy to return to his comfortable life in Pharaoh’s palace. We see Moshe deciding to link his fate with the fate of the Jewish people.  As God tells him, “Just as you believe in Me, so you must believe in them.”
Just as Moshe begins to believe in the Jewish people, so they begin to believe in Moshe and his leadership. This is all because of his great compassion.

We know from our reading of Breishit that God gave Adam dominion over the animals. He is even given the power to name them, a clear sign that he is in control.  But on what is that control based? The Torah is noticeably silent on that question. Why are human beings dominant over the rest of the natural order?


Some people have assumed that the answer is obvious. But it’s not really so clear when we dig a little more deeply. So many theologians, psychologists, and philosophers have tried to answer that question.  For Aristotle, we are the rational animal. For others, we are tool makers. Marx argued that we are the only animals capable of productive labor.  Many have claimed that human beings alone have a soul, and that means we are truly created in the image of God.  Though all of these answers have some merit, I want to suggest a different possibility which emerges from this week’s Parshah.
 
That Parsha, Vayigash, is one of the most beautiful of the Torah.  Its seemingly straightforward narrative belies the many unanswered questions embedded there.  It relates the climax of the story of Joseph and his brothers, a telling that moves from alienation, sibling rivalry and cruelty to care, compassion and reconciliation. 
 
We realize from the Parsha how much Joseph has yearned for a re-connection to his family, despite what his brothers have done to him.  Midrash tells us that Joseph has remained faithful to the mitzvot for more than 22 years, observances that were his alone in Egypt.  Perhaps he weeps for his loss of Jewish community beyond his immediate family.  We also see him weep with Benjamin, his full brother from his beloved mother Rachel,-the only other fully innocent character in this narrative.  He weeps for the mother he has lost and the brother he has found. 
 
We are told that Joseph’s sobs were so loud that the Egyptians could hear, and so the news reached Pharoah’s palace.  Joseph the Tzaddik is moved to tears by his brother Judah’s pleas for the life of Benjamin and Judah’s offer to take Benjamin’s place in prison to avoid further heartache for their father Jacob. 
 
This story is an incredible story of forgiveness.  Listen to the words of the Torah at the moment when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers:
 
“Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me here, it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you. It is now two years that there has been famine in the land, and there are still five years to come in which there shall be no yield from tilling.  God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance.  So, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharoah, lord of all his household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.”
 
In Joseph’s words we seem to have found an answer to the question of why he forgives his brothers. It was God’s plan that depended on their selling him into slavery, a plan that includes his imprisonment and rise into Pharoah’s inner circle.  He forgives them and lets them know that the difference now is not in him but rather in them.  No longer jealous or angry, they feel shame and fear before him.  They finally see their own sins and guilt and as a result of these insights, they are able to pass the tests Joseph had designed for them. 
 
Not only does Joseph forgive them, he refrains from referring to years of suffering or to what they have done to him.  As we read these passages, we cannot help but be reminded of other stories of jealousy-between Rachel and Leah, between Jacob and Esau.  These stories frame the story of Joseph and his brothers and at last provide us with a sense of peace and reconciliation after the noteworthy silence about these other rivalries.
 
Why forgive?  There are lots of good pragmatic reasons to forgive-to end a feud, for example. To think about how self-poisoning resentment becomes if one doesn’t forgive.  But the primary reason to forgive, it seems to me, is to restore a lost relationship.  Remember that it’s often those closest to us who have hurt us and need forgiveness.  Think about someone you have finally forgiven or want to forgive.  My guess is that it’s not some anonymous stranger who cut you off on the highway.  Those little injuries evaporate quickly.  Wrongs from those closest to us do not.  So, forgiveness matters because the people closest to us-Joseph’s brothers, for example-matter.  Who are we without them?  What does that isolation cost us?
 
In answer to our original question about what might separate us from the animals, perhaps the answer is forgiveness. This may be because forgiveness may run counter to all of our basic instincts for survival. 
 
There are no rules for forgiveness.  Joseph forgives his brothers and goes far beyond forgiveness to restore them to life and health and property and standing.  But he gains even more for himself through his act of forgiveness.  Through his forgiveness he becomes whole again. 
 
So may it be for all of us.  Amen. 

A rabbi whose name I’ve forgotten was taking a walk through the streets of Jerusalem. At one point, he stopped to observe a group of garbage men who were collecting that day’s trash.  They all had a very clear and consistent system:  each truck was staffed by two people—one person would be on the ground, running around picking up the garbage; and the other person would be on top of the truck, taking the garbage and throwing it into the truck.  The rabbi watched for a little while, and he started to feel that the system was unfair:  the person on the ground had to do so much more work than the person on top of the truck.  But, as he was about to comment on it, something changed:  the two people switched positions, and the person who had been on the top went down to street level and started picking up the trash, and the person who had been on the street moved to the top of the truck to toss it. 
It turned out that every half hour the two people switched roles.
I love this story, and not only because it’s yet another reminder of Israeli ingenuity. I also think that it tells us so much about the story of Joseph. Remember that when we left him last week, he is in prison. He has asked the butler to remember him, but the butler, once freed, has completely forgotten Joseph. Joseph is the lowest of the low.  But then, two years later, when Pharaoh dreams, the butler recalls the boy in the prison who could interpret dreams.  And Joseph, in just a few lines of MI KEYTZ, is saved.  Not only saved, but remade:  he is cleaned up, he is given a haircut, new clothes, and a signet ring. He becomes a VICEROY, the second in command in Egypt, after Pharaoh.  If you’ve been to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and seen the Egyptian rooms, you can probably imagine what Joseph looked like—so stylized and ornamented.
So, what does this story tell us? I think it tells us, like the story of the Israeli garbage collectors, that we should always remember that life is full of ups and downs.  We do not always get what we want, and there are times when we get so much more than we expected.  We may be planning our next step in life---a promotion at work, a new job, a home purchase, a retirement—and somehow things don’t work out the way we expected.  Or we may be thinking that life is going to continue as we’d mapped it out—we are NOT expecting change—and somehow, unexpectedly, we are facing a new challenge that we weren’t prepared for.  It’s a cliché, but it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves:  into each life some rain must fall.  Imagine what a movie would be like without ups and downs—just plain boring! 
We can learn a lot about people, we can learn a lot about ourselves, when we look at how and WHETHER we change during these ups and downs that are so typical of a normal life. Do we become haughty when we are at the top of our game? Do we become demoralized when we don’t get what we wanted?  Do we keep our faith when life treats us well, and curse God when we face difficult challenges? I think that Joseph matures, and he never forgets that God is with him, whether he is at the top of the garbage truck or on the street. This is surely a message for all of us, especially as we are about to enter the secular new year. 2021 has been a very tough year for many of us—on both a personal and a global level—but we look for moments of joy and peace even as we recognize that there is so much that we cannot control.
 

A Joyful and Light Chanukah to all!

Genesis, the first of the five books of the Torah, is somewhat like a roller coaster ride.  It is powerful and grand, yet there is also something so personal and intimate about it and the stories that it tells.  What makes it so powerful? Well, one rabbi has a possible answer.  He notes: “I can go through every single parsha in Breishit and show the good guy and the bad guy and set them against each other as moral lessons, of good versus evil.”  There’s a lot of truth there—think about what we’ve read thus far. We have Adam and Eve VERSUS—the snake.  We have Cain versus Abel. We have Avraham VERSUS Pharaoh.  We have Jacob VERSUS Esav.  And we heard last week of Jacob VERSUS Laban.

So far, it’s pretty easy to see the world in very stark, very black and white terms.


But let’s think a bit about this week’s parsha, Vayeyshev.  It’s probably easy to think right off the bat that it’s Joseph VERSUS his brothers. Right? Our children’s stories and the Broadway show might set it up that way, but I think we should work to make this a more complex tale. 

Can we really claim that the brothers of Joseph—the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel—are really evil?  Can we really think that Yehudah—who gives our people its name—is evil? Of course we recognize that they are flawed, but so is Joseph.  These are ALL righteous people.  Not perfect, but righteous.  This is a good lesson for all of us. What the brothers should have realized is that there is room for all of them, that there is room for them to have differences of opinion and to co-exist without rancor.

People are NOT one-dimensional, thank God. And if we keep that in mind, then we will recognize that we can co-exist and that we can perhaps even learn from each other. And strengthen our community in the process. A community built not on sameness of belief but on a commitment to a vision.

I was privileged to see the play Hamilton a few years ago. There’s a great line in it that reminds me so much of this week’s parsha.  At the end of the show, Aaron Burr—spoiler alert:  he kills Hamilton—Aaron Burr sings: “I should’ve known that the world is wide enough for both Hamilton and me.”

Joseph’s brothers should have known that, and they were allowed by God to learn that later in life, when they were finally reconciled with their brother.

May that be so with all of us.

Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great start to Chanukah!

In Vayishlach, our Parsha this week, we see that Jacob kind of gets what he deserves.  Some might call it karma.  Remember that he has stolen his brother’s birthright. He has tricked his father into giving him the blessing that his father had intended for Esav, the son Isaac prefers.  Even his name tells us that he’s flawed—YAAKOV can mean HEEL but it can also mean CROOKED.  

So, there is no question that Jacob has some growing up to do, even if this is all part of God’s divine plan.  But, as we know, he does get his comeuppance.  He has to flee from his home. He ends up being tricked by Laban and forced to marry the daughter he does not love. He works for more than 14 years to get the woman of his dreams. And he is finally driven to sneak away—once again—under cover of the night with all his property, his children, and his wives.

So maybe that’s karma. Payback for all the deception he used against his brother and his father. But let’s not forget that there’s another part to this powerful narrative. Remember that, before meeting up with his brother Esau, Jacob is left alone by the stream of Jabbok. There he wrestles with a man all night long. When morning comes the man asks to leave, and Jacob tells him, not until you bless me. The man says to Jacob, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human and have prevailed.” The name Israel means “wrestles with God.” Jacob has a new name, and an injury to his sciatic nerve that will cause him to limp for the rest of his life.

Maybe that’s another form of karma.  But what happens when Jacob’s name is NO LONGER JACOB, but Israel? After wrestling with the man—and some say that the “man” was really GOD, or really an angel, or perhaps even Jacob wrestling with HIMSELF—what happens after this dramatic contest is that Jacob now knows that he has not been the kind of person worthy of the covenant God promised him. He has been crooked, and he needs to become a new self. He changes.

Is that KARMA?  Maybe. But I think that, regardless of what you call Jacob’s transformation, this chapter of Breishit teaches us that people can change. WE CAN CHANGE. We tend to focus on that lesson during the High Holidays, but the lesson itself is right here in this week’s reading. Any one of us can wrestle with our demons and come out a better, less crooked person. That struggle is definitely painful, and Israel has the limp to prove it. The limp that reminds him—and us—of how far we have come, but also of where we have been.  The limp that lets us know that change is hard and painful and leaves scars, but it is something that we survive. And, ultimately, it is worth it.

There is a marked contrast set up by two similar events in the book of Genesis, Breishis.  We read in Vayatzei about Jacob having a dream that is really a visit from God.  He sees a ladder stretching, Midrash tells us, from his home in BeerSheva to the place he was sleeping, Mount Moriah, site of the Akeida of his father and the future home to the Holy Temples of Jerusalem.  There are angels ascending and descending from the ladder, proving, the Rabbis tell us, that Jacob was being guarded by heavenly creatures during his travels.  The sages tell us that because the first angels are going up the ladder; they must have been with Jacob all along.  The ones coming down are arriving to take up the guard duty that is being passed to them from the first set of angels.  And, one might ask, what about the time that Jacob was unguarded, the time in between the two sets of angels?  At that time, our commentaries state, Jacob was being watched over by God Himself.  The message from God is then given to Jacob.  It is a reiteration of the covenant given to his father and his grandfather: God will bless the fledgling Jewish nation and will give to them the land upon which Jacob is sleeping.  God will be with him wherever he goes.

This metaphor of Divine protection seems so comforting to me.  From Jacob’s vision, perhaps we can all conclude that we are all under the shelter of God’s wings.

Another story of a dream is related later, in Parshat Miketz.  Pharaoh is sleeping and has an encounter with God.  The dream is about seven lean cows and seven fat cows, a warning to the king about impending doom to his country.  Of course, as we know, it would take Joseph to interpret the puzzling metaphor.

Besides the obvious differences in tone of each dream, there is another telling difference between the two narratives.  When Pharaoh awakened from his sleep, the Torah relates that he went back to sleep.  What a departure from Jacob’s reaction to his dream!  The Torah tells us in Vayeitzei that when he awakens, he is immediately aware of the Presence of God and he dedicates himself to Divine service.  Quite different than turning over and going back to sleep.

The Baal Shem Tov, the first Chassidic master, quoted the Talmud that each day a Heavenly Voice emanates from the mountain of Sinai, urging people to do teshuvah, to return to the Mitzvot.  “Of what use is this voice,” asked the Baal Shem Tov, “since no one has ever attested to hearing it?”

He then explained that although the voice is physically inaudible to the human ear, it is heard by the neshama, the soul.  The moments that we are moved to do teshuvah and acts of loving-kindness are due to the neshama perceiving the voice from Sinai.

As we see from the two reactions to a call from God, there can be two results.  We can ignore the call and go back to the hibernation of ingrained habits, or we can emulate our forefather Jacob and rouse ourselves to a wakened state in order to make positive changes and to take constructive action.

We read in the Torah a number of examples where even the righteous and sometimes the not-so-righteous lie.  For example, we know that Rivka encouraged Jacob to deceive his father. She may have believed that she did so because of the prophecy that Jacob would inherit his father’s estate, but it was a lie nonetheless.  There are even moments when Adonai lies—for example, he does not tell Abraham the real reason that his wife Sarah laughed at the prophecy that she will bear a child, namely that her husband was so old.  These examples suggest that, for us as Jews, lying is a complicated matter and no absolute rules are appropriate.  To condemn lying completely might be clearer in many respects but to do so disregards situations where lying might not only be allowed but perhaps even be necessary.  As we think about the lies told by Jews and righteous Gentiles during the Holocaust, we would be highly unlikely to criticize their actions.  But we also recognize that it’s not always the case that “the end justifies the means.” As always, we are willing to live with some gray!

Rav Yonah, a Talmudic scholar, listed nine different categories of lies, with people cheating in business and causing other people financial loss being the worst.

There was once a man who was a tailor and he took a partner in the business. One day, a man left a jacket for altering. After the customer left, the tailor checked the garment and found $500.00 in one of the pockets.  This created a great moral dilemma.  Should he tell his partner??

Another form of lying, per Rav Yonah, is “changing minor details when retelling an episode” being wrong but less wrong. The lies he cites are all related to self-aggrandizement and/or cheating other people—promising to do something for someone, knowing that one has no intention of doing so, for example.  I would guess that many of us have told some of those lies in some of those categories.

On the other side, Talmudic literature provides us with stories where lying seems to be justified, where it is done for “good reasons.” But how do we interpret those stories, given that they can be understood on so many levels? Practical Halachah gives us more specific guidance. For example, we are allowed to say, “I don’t know” (even when we do) if we’re asked about information that is confidential.  A wealthy person can lie to avoid ayin hara or arousing jealousy.  And a man is permitted to lie to his wife about the time if she will be late for Shabbat!  But even there there are limits—he can only do so if she is procrastinating, not if she is rushing to get ready because that would only increase the pressure on her.  

Though there may not be clear answers, these examples as well as the examples from the Torah lead us to think about our own actions and our own willingness (or unwillingness) to tell a direct lie or to deceive others indirectly.  Thinking twice about such actions can never be a bad idea!  Truth is weighed against doing chesed, with chesed held up as a more desirable concept.  

As Jews, we try to emulate God.  A clue to God’s qualities is the recitation of God’s midot, attributes, words taken directly from Torah.  The listing includes, “gracious, compassionate, patient, abounding in kindness and truth, assuring love for a thousand generations.”  Here we see that chesed, kindness, has precedence over truth.  It can be concluded, then, that being kind is even more important than the telling of the truth.

Let us all treat each other with kindness, even if it means stretching the truth at times!

I think many Jewish people—perhaps MOST Jewish people—know that there are two central pillars of Jewish faith and practice:  TZEDAKA, charity; and CHESED, acts of lovingkindness.  Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Z”L, tells us that these mitzvot lie at the heart of Judaism’s understanding of mitzvoth bein-adam-le-chavero, of our interpersonal duties  We recognize that every society needs laws—mishpatim—but laws are not enough. We also need acts of tzedaka and of chesed.  

Every time you make a donation to the Temple, you are doing tzedakah.  Often, we give in memory of a loved one, or in honor of someone who has lost a loved one. That is tzedakah, the very essence of it, by remembering someone through an act of goodness.

But tzedakah is NOT charity; it is not a magnanimous act. Rather, it is a simple act of justice, of righteousness. The obligation is not fulfilled by paying taxes.  We know that Jews are among the most philanthropic of all people.  For example, 24.5% of all MEGA-donors—those who give more than $10 million a year—are Jewish.  Business Week’s 50 most generous philanthropists include at least 15 Jews, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s top 50 charitable donor includes 16 Jews.  Bear in mind that Jews comprise about 2% of the population.

But what is especially interesting in light of the importance of these commands is that neither tzedakah nor chesed are mentioned in the Ten Commandments.  We know that there are 603 OTHER miztvot, but I find it noteworthy that we are NOT told “thou shalt be kind. .  .  “ OR “thou shalt give charity.”  So where do we get these mitzvot?
 
I think the requirement to do chesed and tzedakah can be found in some key passages in the Torah.  In Re-eh, for example, for are told:

​Notice that we see the word ‘chesed’ in two places in the passage that I just read.  Eliezer is looking for a certain kind of wife for Isaac—a woman who is not just from the right family but also someone who shows kindness to strangers. And Rivka is precisely that person.  The Torah tells us that Eliezer had “scarcely finished speaking” when Rivka—Rebecca—came out to greet him.  Not only does she tell him, “drink, my Lord,” but she also runs back to the well to draw more water for all of his camels.  How many camels was that? TEN!

So, the wife of the first Jewish child, Isaac, is characterized as many things—she is strong, she is beautiful, she is modest. But, most importantly, she is KIND.  She is kind to a stranger, and she provides life-sustaining water, perhaps the most precious commodity in a desert culture.  And we later learn that Rivka’s goodness is all-the-more remarkable, given how deceitful and conniving the rest of her family is. In the house of Abraham and Sarah, kindness and generosity to strangers were the norm.  Only a spouse that held those same values could make Yitzchak happy.  The genius of Eliezer is that he understood that.  

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel used to say, “When I was young, I admired cleverness. Now that I am old, I find I admire kindness more.”  Someone once said that “kindness isn’t doing something for someone because they CAN’T but because YOU CAN.”  Rav Moseh of Kobrin, z’’l, wrote that, “A day that a Jew does not do a kindness is not considered a day in his life.”
 
Rivka, like Abraham before her, does not hesitate to treat strangers with kindness.  She, like Avraham Avinu, thinks of how she can lighten someone’s burden, how she can give light in an otherwise dark world. Let us pray that we can find the strength to give that strength—or at least a part of it—to others, so that they might bless us and so that we might walk in God’s path