Stop Trying So Hard To Be Normal- Its Killing Your Greatness - The Parshah On Fire- Ki Savo

The United States Navy Seals considered by many to be the most elite group of soldiers on Earth. They have a quote that they brand on the bottom of all their maps and all their stationary. And it's a quote that's entirely encapsulates who they are. The quote is, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." Meaning to say that the only thing that will allow evil to fill the world is for good, well-meaning people to sit around and just do nothing. I believe the following quote is equally true. The only thing necessary for the triumph of mediocrity is humanity's obsession with normaly. The only thing that's really preventing most people from becoming great is their obsession with just being normal. The difference between a soldier who remains sort of on the bottom rung and a soldier who becomes a Navy Seal is often not their physical strength or their size, but their ability to dream and remain determined to rise in the ranks. He doesn't allow setbacks or challenges or failures or peer pressure to dull the fire of the dreams burning inside of him. What separates people who achieve greatness in their lives and the people that don't typically is the strength of their motivation more often than not success is achieved by the people not blessed with unusual talents or unusual abilities. It's achieved by regular people who really really really want it and refuse to let the status quo and complacency of the rest of the world prevent them from getting it. The same is true with spiritual greatness paraso. contains the brahos and the clalos given to the Jewish people on the mountain of griem and a e a half the Jewish people ascended harism and the other half ascended har evil and one group heard the curses that would be given out to the bad bad behavior and on the other hand the blessings that we'll get if we act in accordance with hashem's will was given on the other mountain now if you were to look at these two mountains you would notice that there's something pretty geographically odd about these two mountains. Hargreim and Harl were basically a mere few feet from another. And yet Hargreim, the mountain of blessings of Brah was lush and beautiful. And Harvil, the mountain of curses, was barren and desolate. So how did that come to be? These two mountains, which can still be visited today, are less than approximately 200 feet from each other. And yet they share the exact same ecosystem. They receive the exact same amount of rain. They have the exact same amount of sunlight. They have the exact same air quality. Why is one lush and vibrant and alive and the other one is hard and rocky and dead? So he explains that the only difference between these two mountains is that one has resistance and one is receptive. Har griezm had these little small holes in it allowing the nutrients and the rain and the sunlight to penetrate while Harval was closed off and it was impenetrable and although both mountains were exposed to the exact same climate only one allowed that climate to seep inside of it and rep goes on to say that it was not a coincidence that Hashem chose to issue the blessings and the curses on those two mountains. It was on purpose for by doing so he was essentially telling us the recipe for spiritual greatness which is to forever open ourselves up to the spiritual bounty that permeates all around us. All of us had dreams once upon a time of being spiritually great. Whether it was in third grade when we learned the story of Rahmenu or when we heard the story of whether it was when we first went off to yeshiva or when we were hugely inspired in seminary or perhaps it was something we heard we heard in a speech or on tishov or when we experienced our first real rash shana all of us had those flashing moments in our nishamas when we told ourselves you know what I'm going to be great so what happened what went wrong why Are most of us regular? The answer is that most most of us don't allow the spiritual nutrients that are whizzing all around us to penetrate into our very essence. We stop sort of aspiring for greatness and become far more interested in just fitting in. We tell ourselves that normaly is better than standing out. Even if normaly comes at the expense of greatness, we become so shackled to the status quo that all our dreams and all our hopes and all our aspirations just get replaced with an obsession to just fit in. We let the level of spirituality in our homes be dictated by the neighborhood around us. And the very moment one of our spiritual dreams goes up against what the current definition of quoteunquote normal is, we run we run right back to the safe haven of normaly. In no era could this motto be truer. The only thing necessary for the triumph of mediocrity is humanity's obsession with normaly. By giving the brahas and a mountain that opened itself up to the nutrients around it, Hashem was telling us that the key to spiritual greatness is to allow the inspiration we have all around us to penetrate our souls and to let those spiritual nutrients blossom inside of us. to allow the spiritual ingredients floating in the air to help bring our dreams and our aspirations to fruition, elevating us to greater spiritual heights, far higher than those in the peanut gallery below us. Now, listen to this one. One day, 3,000 years ago, the Jewish people woke up and they heard a bos coming from heaven making the following declaration. The next leader of the entire Jewish people will be named Shuel. He hasn't been born yet, but his birth is coming. And this unsurprisingly led to a whole great excitement and a buzz erupted. I mean, who would be the one to give birth to the next leader of the Jewish people? So with dreams of being the parents of the future leader of Kalisro, as you can expect, people began naming their sons Shuel in the hope that their son would become the one. 40 years go by and not one of the boys named Shuel was appointed leader. Not until Hana came along who after years of being barren, she finally had a son and she gave birth and she named him. And we all know the story. He was the one who became the leader of the Jewish people. What happened to all the others? There's a part of the story that a lot of people don't know. What happened to the all the other kids? All the hundreds of children whose parents with hopes and dreams named their kid Shu hoping that their kid would be the one to grow into a sadic and another the leader of Kalisro. What happened to all of those kids? So the writes that despite not becoming the leader of the Jewish people, each and every one of those children named Schmool nevertheless became a ni each and every one of them. Because each and every one of them grew up with a vivid dream. A dream that they might lead the Jewish people. A dream that they could be the most important man in the spiritual universe. A dream that they could reach the loftiest spiritual heights. And that dream was so vivid to them. It was so deeply permeated in their soul that the dream carried them on its wings and allowed them to soar to the level of nvua, a level of spirituality attained only by the most elite members of our nation. If we clutch close to our dreams and never let go, greatness can be attained. But if we let ourselves do what most people do, because that's what most people do, our dreams of greatness will slowly drift away. The difference between a major league baseball player who is making $23 million a year and has his name plastered on every newspaper in America and a minor league baseball player who makes $76,000 a year and who's someone you've never heard of, is that the major leager has a betting average of around 280 or 250. While the minor leaguer has a batting average of around 230, meaning that when the major leaguer steps up to the plate, he hits the ball 2.8 times out of 10. The minor leaguer only hits the ball 2.3 times out of 10. Not a very big difference. Yet, one is a famous millionaire and the other some regular guy who shops at the same Walmart you do. What led to the drastic difference? Both dreamed about becoming a baseball superstar. Both aspired for baseball greatness. The answer is that the major league refused to let his dreams go. He woke up a little earlier. He stayed in the gym a little later. He ate a little healthier. He focused a little more. He was in the bed in cages when the rest of his friends were eating ice cream. He studied films of his swing while his friends called him a fanatic. He read books. He listened to tapes. He left no stone unturned in his quest for baseball knowledge and greatness. And despite being called crazy by his peers, he refused to let the temptation to just be regular hold him back from achieving greatness. And sure enough, greatness he achieved. We should all be the same. We should aspire to live a life with no lush har and never let go of that dream. To dream of a house buzzing with and then see to it that it happens. to dream of being really sneez and then doing so despite the sneers and the social pressures, to dream of finishing shots, and then to never stop dreaming. To take the dreams we all had when we were young and close our eyes and accomplish them. The only person who gets in the way of your spiritual dreams is you. Don't shrink your dreams to fit your life. Stretch your life to fit your dreams. Now, here's an interesting historical tidbit. Socrates, considered by many historians to be one of the single most brilliant and accomplished minds of all time, the man who was the personal tutor of Plato, who eventually taught Aristotle, who eventually taught and tutored Alexander the Great. He is quoted as saying that all I am is simply smart enough to know that I don't know anything. Here's another quote. One of the single greatest minds of the last 300 years, Albert Einstein, he is quoted as saying, "I'm not particularly smart. All I am is ferociously curious." On the tombstone of Andrew Carnegie, one of the single most successful and influential businessmen of all time, it's written on his tombstone, "Here lies a man smart enough to surround himself with people smarter than he." One of the single greatest painters in modern history, Pablo Picasso. He responded when he was asked what his favorite painting is. By saying, "My favorite painting is whichever painting is coming up next." The common denominator between all these people is that great people are forever yearning to grow and to improve, to enhance themselves, to forever ascend the ladder of greatness. That is the key to success. Now listen to this. There's a strange found in the which is in it says that whenever you're about to say you must first remove all the knives from the table and only after the knives are removed from the table is someone allowed to start benching. So let's ask a pretty obvious question. What exactly is wrong with having knives on our table? Why do the spoons and the forks get to stay but the knives got to go? So the Taz writes that the reason he says is that we remove the knives before we bench because there was once a man who mourned and thought of the BA mikdash to such an unbelievable extent that one day while benching when he reached the part about Hashem rebuilding the B mikdash he got so distraught about its current state of destruction that he took a knife from the table and he stabbed himself. Therefore, we have the minog to remove the knives from our table while we bench in order to prevent that from happening again. Okay, let's ask an obvious question. The person was certainly a very holy man, but such an individual is an extreme outlier. Do the authorities really think that there is a practical need for this? This guy was a one in a million, maybe one in 10 million. Why institute this for the entire Israel? So I heard a beautiful explanation from Revavid Rev the Rebra in Los Angeles, California. He said that of course Kazal were well aware of the unlikeliness of someone actually stabbing themselves while they're benching. Kazal never instituted it for that reason. They instituted the requirement to remove the knives as a reminder to us that there once upon a time was a man who dreamed so much about the B mikdash that when he read about its destruction, he was so distraught. He was in so much pain that he stabbed himself. We are instilling in ourselves that there was a time when men dreamed about the B mikdash to such an extent that its absence caused so much pain and anguish that they couldn't refrain from stabbing themselves. Not that we're on that level, but that we should at the very least know that that level exists and that level existed and we should aspire to reach it. We cover our knives as a small reminder to keep on dreaming. To never let greatness get away from us, to never let the conveniences of normaly and mediocrity take precedence over the glory of greatness. Every few years, the world becomes transfixed by the World Cup, an event that takes over the global stage. Every country in the world trots out its best soccer team in the hopes of climbing to the top of the soccer world and claiming the trophy. From Russia to China, Argentina, United States, France, Australia, the whole world shows up. But what fascinates me the most about the entire event are the smaller countries that managed to succeed. countries like Costa Rica and Sagal and the Netherlands and Morocco, Croatia, Panama, tiny little countries that often take down countries 500 times their size. When you think about it, it almost makes no sense. America with a pool of around 400 million people from which to select its soccer team from losses to the Netherlands, a tiny country that has 17 million people. countries with every technological advancement and with access to every form of medical equipment are losing to Sagal, a third world country in Africa that doesn't have running water. That doesn't make any sense. How do you explain this? The answer is that America might like soccer. These countries live soccer. These countries breathe soccer. These countries go to sleep thinking about soccer and wake up thinking about soccer. Every thought that crosses their mind is soccer. Every dream they dream is soccer. And not only that, but they are children and grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of people who were obsessed with soccer. Soccer runs through their blood. It is infused into their very DNA. And therefore, despite being 1% of the size, despite having no medical technology whatsoever, despite living in a thirdworld warridden, dilapitated, dysfunctional country, they often come out victorious because for them, soccer is everything. We are a nation obsessed with spiritual greatness. We are a nation obsessed with godliness. We think and speak and dream about Hashem. Godliness runs through our veins. It's part of our DNA. Our dreams don't care about the people who say we can't. Our dreams don't care about the people who say we're wrong. Our dreams don't care about the people who call us old and archaic and outdated. The Jewish people clutch close to their dreams, stronger and with more passion than any other dreamers out there. That's why we're still here dreaming while the nations of the world have all taken their dreams and have vanished long ago. And we dream about spiritual greatness and no one will ever convince us not to. The difference between the people who achieve greatness in life and the ones who don't has little to do with their talents or their upbringing or their exposure or their environment. Many great people are brilliant. Most aren't. Many great people could sit and focus for hours on end. Most can't. Many great people are born leaders and they're born thinkers and they're born artors. But most great people aren't. The common denator denominator among all great people is that no matter what and no matter when, they never stop dreaming. They take their hopes and their dreams and their aspirations and their goals and never let go of them as long as they live. We are a people who dream. Lucky are the people who never let go of their dreams. Lucky are the people who don't let mediocrity and normaly and the pressure to be regular rip those dreams of greatness from them. We are a nation of dreamers. Lucky are those who know how to keep on dreaming.