The Grocery Cart Judge

This Torah class is brought to [music] you by torahanytime.com. Imagine for a minute you're in the grocery store, you're pushing your cart down the aisle like a normal human being, and there's some eggs in your cart, some pasta, a bag of frozen butternut squash, a cantaloupe, some [music] turmeric, some random other items you need, whatever. And suddenly, a stranger walks over, stares into your cart for 5 seconds, he shakes his head, and he goes, "Ugh, disgusting. Look what you have in there. What a terrible cook. You're a joke." And he walks away. You you would just stand there thinking, "What?" You have absolutely no idea what I'm making. You have absolutely no idea what I'm cooking. You saw 17 random ingredients and [music] somehow concluded the final meal is terrible. How in the world can you possibly know that? >> [music] >> Every normal person understands how ridiculous that would be, which is precisely why it's so strange that we literally do this to people all day long. We walk around staring at other people's grocery carts [music] in life. We look at some 17-year-old and say, "Ugh, weird kid, strange choices, bad future." We look at a 35-year-old and think, "Oof, still struggling with that, still unmarried, still figuring life out. What are they doing?" We look at someone's personality, someone's job, [music] someone's house, someone's family, someone's challenges, someone's quirks, someone's background, someone's baggage, and after seeing five random ingredients in their shopping cart, we confidently announce that that person is a terrible [music] cook. But hold on a second. Do you have any idea what they're making? [music] Do you have any i- clue what recipe Hashem gave them? Do you have any idea what kind of marriage they're going to build, what kind of parents they're going to become, what kind of wisdom that their pain [music] is creating, what kind of emunah their struggles are cooking into them, what kind of greatness is slowly baking in the oven that you can't see yet because you only caught a glimpse of the ingredients. [music] You know nothing. You saw somebody standing in aisle seven of existence [music] and declared the entire meal a failure. But here's the really [music] terrifying part. How many of us do this to ourselves? How many of us spend our lives staring into our own grocery carts with disappointment where all we see is dreams that never happen. We see insecurities we can't [music] shake. We see marriages that don't exactly look the way we imagined. We see children who challenge us. We see parents who wounded us. We see flaws. We see distractions. We see struggles. We see ingredients we never would have chosen for ourselves and while still standing in aisle seven of life before anything is even finished, we declare ourselves failures. We tell ourselves, [music] "Bad cook. Bad life. Bad ingredients." One second. Slow down. Your cake was never supposed to look like his cake. [music] Your recipe is different. Your ingredients are different. Your kitchen is different. Your mission is different. [music] Maybe Hashem gave you those exact ingredients because the masterpiece he wants from your life could not be made any other way. Maybe one day you'll realize that those things you [music] thought ruined the recipe were actually the ingredients that made it unforgettable. So stop standing in the grocery aisle criticizing the chef. Go out and cook [music] cuz the meal isn't finished yet. >> You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by [music] torahanytime.com.