Bend, Don’t Break: The Engineering of the Soul

We might be surprised to learn that one of the safest places during an earthquake is actually [music] a skyscraper. Engineers discovered something that goes against common sense. Buildings that are constructed too rigidly shatter. [music] It's actually the tall ones which know how to sway and dance with the quake that survive. [music] Flexibility disperses the energy while rigidity concentrates it until it breaks. The rigid breaks, the flexible survives. And let's admit it, we're a generation that tries to look tough, not to show weakness, not to cry. I'm strong, nothing can shake me. And then, like [music] a building that's too rigid, the first quake comes. Disappointment, heartbreak, failure, and we shatter inside because we didn't allow ourselves [music] room to move. The Talmud in Taanit says word for word, "A person should always be as soft as a reed and not as hard as a cedar." And why the reed? Because it bends with every wind and returns. And thanks to this, it merited being used to make a quill to write a Torah scroll. It is precisely the flexible one who was [music] privileged to write the sacred. Science has proven that flexibility weathers the storm. Our sages knew that gentleness is the true strength. The Holy One, blessed be He, did not create us to be iron that shatters. He created us like a reed that bends and grows. Let's not strive to be hard, let's be flexible and endure.