Buckaroo
Banzai vs. Avraham Avinu:
Life comes with directions
Life comes with directions
Rabbi
Michael L. Feshbach
Temple
Anshe Hesed, Erie, Pennsylvania
The
following story is attributed to Rabbi Jacob Kranz, the Dubner Maggid, also
known as “the Jewish Aesop.”
Many
years ago, a nobleman‘s son was a student at a military academy, and one of the
sports in which he was an expert was shooting bull‘s eyes. In fact, he had won
many gold medals for his marksmanship. After he was awarded his diploma, the
young officer rode home on his horse. Passing through a tiny village, he saw a
hundred circles drawn on the side of a barn -- and in the center of each circle
was a bullet hole. The officer was so amazed he stopped his horse and yelled
out: "Who is this expert shot? A hundred perfect bull‘s eyes! That’s
incredible! Why, even I could not do that." Just then, a young boy walking
by looked up at the officer on his tall horse and snickered: "Oh, that’s
Nar, our town fool." "I don‘t care what he is," interrupted the
officer. "Whoever can shoot a hundred perfect bull‘s eyes must have won
every gold medal in the world! I must meet him and shake his hand! "
"Oh,
no, no," the boy laughed. "You don‘t understand. "Nar doesn’t
draw the circle, and then shoot at it. He shoots first, and then he draws the
circle!"
(From
Peninnah Schram Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another)
The great
(albeit fictional) philosopher/scientist/rock -star/time traveler Buckaroo
Banzai noted, in a monumental tribute to acceptance as a state of being, that
"wherever you’re going -- there you are!" As if... as if we were
meant to shoot first, and draw the circles later to leave on a trip but not to
pack to leap, and only then to look.
Perhaps
it is not this way with every one of us. But many of us jump feet first into
something so often in our lives that we justify our actions with an appeal to
existential complacency: wherever we are, whatever mess we got ourselves into,
whatever faults we may have, well, that’s just ‘‘who we are." The tone
implies that to accept another person, one must take the complete package.
Something you don’t like? Well, that’s just the way he is. Or: she’s just like
that. And often, that is true. Trying to change another person is
not
the easiest thing in the world. It is not always even the right thing to try to
do. It is good to be reminded that sometimes we need to accept other people as
they are Cromwell-like -- warts and all. Sometimes we need to learn more about
loving each other, and less about criticizing each other.
And
yet... it is one thing to accept the circles that someone else has drawn around
the shots they called. It is another to get away with the same thing... in
ourselves.
And the time is
near -- the time is now -- for us to step back, and to look at ourselves...
without illusion. As Jews, we are called upon to make sure -- at least once a
year -- which we draw the circles in our lives first. That we think about what
we are doing, that we think about where we are going that we set our goals
first, and then aim to meet them.
Many years
before Buckaroo Banzai, a different man heard very different words. Not
"wherever you’re going, there you are," but "lech lecha!"
Go, you. Go forward, yourself. Go forward -- into yourself. And with these two
words,
Abraham set
forth on a journey that would wind its way into history. He did not always know
exactly where his journey would take him. But he had a guide. And that guide
meant that he had a goal. And it was the goal he chose, more than any physical
compass, which set the direction of his life. Life comes with directions. Or,
more to the point, it implores us; it empowers us, to choose directions for ourselves.
And that is the central challenge of this season and all seasons: to lift up
our eyes, to look up, to look ahead, to choose our path, to set our goal and to
follow. To live, not just wherever we are blown by the winds of chance, but
somehow with a modicum of control over at least our inner fate, over the kind
of person we choose to be. To reach a star, first we must choose the star.
Then, and only then, does all our reaching have a chance.
