Leaving Our Comfort Zone | Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

[Music] The teacher and his student were taking a hike in a remote forest. Suddenly, they found a dilapidated house. Three barefoot children wearing torn and dirty clothes were playing together in the front yard. The teacher approached the father of the children, a da looking fellow. And after making some small talk, he asked him, "You live here in the middle of nowhere. There's no work here. How do you survive?" "Well, I'll tell you," he said. "It ain't easy, but we got this little cow that gives milk every day. I go to the nearest village, sell a little, and buy some food for my wife and kids, and with the rest, we make yogurt and cheese. We get by." The teacher thought about this for a moment, smiled, wished the man a good day, and left. After the teacher and his student had traveled a short distance, the teacher turned to his student and said, "Do you see that cliff over there? Go back to the house, steal the cow without anyone seeing you, and toss it over that cliff." The student was too shocked to reply. He stood there open-mouthed, and when he finally got his voice together, he said, "But that's their only cow. That's their livelihood. They'll starve to death. The teacher refused to budge. And so, reluctantly, the student went back to the hut, stole the cow, shoved it over the cliff, and watched it as it bounced from stone to stone to its death. The image was burned into his mind. Several years passed, but the memory of what he'd done and his guilt wouldn't leave him. And so he traveled back to the forest to find the family, confess, and offer them any help he could. As he approached the house, he noticed a great change. The house had been remodeled. Three neatly dressed children were happily frolicking in the front yard. The student figured that the family must have sold the house and moved away. He knocked on the front door to find out where the previous owners had gone. The door swung open and facing was the very man whose cow he'd pushed off that cliff, though he was barely recognizable. Now this man was dressed nicely and he wore a big smile on his face. The student introduced himself. Remember me? I was here several years ago with my teacher. Things seem to have changed a bit around here. The man smiled and said, "Well, I don't know if you remember, but we used to have a little cow. It fell off a cliff shortly after you were here and died, so we had to figure out another way to make money." My wife and I learned some other skills and looks like we're doing just fine. Go figure. Indeed, thought the student, go figure. Of course, this is only a mashala parable. Stealing and throwing animals off cliffs is never permissible. But this story contains an important message. We all have our comfort zones. The place where we tell us, "Look, I'm just being honest with myself. This is who I am. This is as far as I can go. I need my distractions. Just something to help me chill and calm down after a long day at the office." This thinking is terribly self-limiting and completely untrue. We can always strive to reach higher levels and push ourselves further. Nothing bad's going to happen to us and everything good will happen. Think to yourself, there is no limit to my potential. In order to grow, I must have the courage to leave my self-imposed limitations, to break out of my comfort zone. [Music] [Applause] [Music]