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Do You Still Play On Playgrounds ?
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This Torah class is brought to [music]
you by tora anytime.com.
A Torah Anytime original series
[music]
Imagine
[music]
this for a second. You're driving by a
playground and you see a 50-year-old
man, not homeless, not drunk, a normal
guy, a businessman, someone respected in
the community, and he's alone running up
the slides, climbing the jungle gym,
balancing across the beams over and over
again. There's [music] no kids with him.
He's not with his nieces and nephews.
It's just him. You wouldn't say, "Wow,
look at that free spirit." You wouldn't
say, "Good [music] for him staying
young." You'd say, "This guy has
absolutely lost his [music] mind." You'd
say, "Maybe he, you know, loved this
when he was five, but he's not five
anymore." You'd think, "This is
childish. This is embarrassing. This is
pathetic." [music] And you'd be right.
Because adulthood means you're supposed
to outgrow certain toys. You're supposed
to move on from childish pursuits. But
here's the uncomfortable question. Don't
a [music] lot of adults do the exact
same thing. We just swap the playground
equipment for shinier [music] toys and
instead of slides and swings, it's
gadgets and cars [music] and status and
likes and titles and restaurants and
square footage and who's talking about
me and who's not. Full grown [music]
adults running up and down different
plastic structures calling [music] it
success. And nobody thinks it's crazy.
Why? Because society voted that these
toys are [music] adult. That's it.
That's the entire logic. Not because
they're meaningful, not because [music]
they last, not because they elevate the
soul in any way, just because enough
people in society agreed to obsess over
them. [music] But that's a ridiculous
way to decide what a human being should
live for. [music]
Judaism never outsourced that decision
to society. In Judaism, adulthood
[music] isn't about better toys. It's
about higher ambitions. A child plays
because [music] play is all he can
handle. An adult is supposed to build
something eternal like Tyra and mitzvah
and character and self-discipline
[music]
and purpose, a relationship with Hashem.
Not because money is evil, [music] not
because success is inherently bad, but
because if that's the main event, then
spiritually [music]
we never left the playground. We just
updated the equipment. Kazal didn't
[music] measure greatness by net worth.
They measured it by how much Tyra lives
inside of you, how refined your midas
are, how much light you bring into other
people's lives, how much of you survive
after you're gone. The guttle isn't the
one with the biggest toys. The gule is
the one who stopped playing games.
That's how we measure greatness.
So the next time you pass a [music]
playground and you think that would be
ridiculous for an adult, ask yourself
something [music] a little harder. What
am I still running after that makes
sense only because everyone [music] else
is doing it, too? Because adulthood in
Judaism isn't about being respectable.
It's about being responsible for
eternity. [music]
It's about knowing that some toys, no
matter how expensive, no matter how
socially approved, at the end of the
day, are still toys.
You've just experienced [music] another
Torah class brought to you by to
anytime.com.