Parshas Shemini 5782
The kids are getting older and finding time to bond and connect as a family seems to be slipping away. Though everyone’s doing well—no major catastrophes at school or at home— you want to do something to help solidify the relationships that bond your family together. So you find a way to rework your schedule and commit to start having dinner together as a family. It’s opening night of your new resolution, and just as you slide into your seat at the table, the phone rings.
In all likelihood, it’s about solar panels. But it rings and rings and rings some more. What do you do?
In its treatment of what makes animals kosher and non-kosher, Parshas Shemini offers a simple manner of determining the kashrus status of fish. Fins and scales means kosher; lacking either means not kosher.
But for all its seeming simplicity, the criteria provided are actually redundant. As the Mishnah in Niddah teaches:
כל שיש לו קשקשת יש לו סנפיר ויש שיש לו סנפיר ואין לו קשקשת
:נדה נא
All that have scales have fins. But there are those that have fins that do not have scales.
Niddah 51b
The Torah could have demanded only that fish have scales to be kosher, and said nothing about fins. The fact is, having scales means that the fish will have fins by definition. Why bother with a criterion for kashrus that is automatic and need not be checked for?
Rav Shaul Alter suggests that fins and scales are metaphors for two types of people. In emphasizing the need for fins—necessarily present on any scaled fish though they may be—the Torah makes its bid for the type of person it hopes we will become. Scales protect; fins propel.
A Jew can look at the laws of the Torah and respond with scales. We must be protected from the potential fallout latent in each mitzvah. We want to stay on Hashem’s “good side”, dodge punishment, and evade pangs of guilt. So we do what we must, checking off the boxes next to each halacha we encounter and remain protected from any possible harm resulting from leaving our obligations unfulfilled. Just as scales protect the fish’s body from harmful elements surrounding it, we cordon off each mitzvah and fulfill it before it harms us.
A fin is something else entirely. A fin propels the fish from one place to the next, and therein lies the other perspective we can hold of Torah and mitzvos. A mitzvah is not merely an obstacle lying in the way of all that I would rather do, it is that which propels me along a path of upward spiritual mobility. Each mitzvah helps to perfect me as a person and strengthens my relationship with Hashem. A mitzvah is not that which gets in the way of my true objective, it is the objective itself.
The Torah instructs us to look for fins. Perhaps not so much to determine what kind of fish it is, but to remind us of what kind of people we should be. And as we do our best to become more like fins and less like scales, I’d argue that that personality overhaul would be well advised in arenas even beyond the direct performance of specific mitzvos.
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey constructs a four-quadrant matrix for analyzing how we spend our time. The matrix evaluates activities according to two factors: importance and urgency. Covey submits that sustained, meaningful growth comes from the disciplined pursuit of spending time in Quadrant Two—that which is important, though not urgent.
If we would honestly evaluate our lives, we could all identify areas where increased effort would yield truly impressive results. But we default to spending time on things that are urgent, whether or not they’re important. And there is no shortage of activities that carry the sense of urgency, that we feel must get done right now at the expense of everything else, despite the fact that they may be rather unimportant. We respond to diffusing crises rather than fulfilling goals.
Instituting family dinners is a “Quadrant Two” activity. It’s not urgent, there’s no immediate crisis at hand that demands immediate attention. It’s simply an expression of considering what we want our relationships with our spouse and children to look like in ten, twenty, and thirty years from now and working backward to construct the life that will allow for it to happen. And it’s working beautifully, right until the phone rings.
We know full well it’s about solar panels, but there is something about the sound of a ringing form—an echo of some more foreboding alarm—that prompts us to interrupt what we know to be important for the sake of that which is urgent.
So much of life is lived through the prism of scales. Experiences rank only when they become crises, when there is a sense of urgency that drives us to act and to protect until we can return to tranquil equilibrium. That which may well be important—will help us to grow and develop in life changing ways—is easily ignored because it doesn’t prompt us into a defensive posture.
Dinners with the family, a few sessions with a personal trainer, or a professional aptitude assessment may be wonderful ideas. But the avoiding these initiatives will not pose a clear and present threat to my life as it exists right now, so we procrastinate, forget, and ignore. We are scales—we shield and defend when a crisis threatens to overturn the apple cart. But absent the crisis, we’ll remain largely inert.
The Torah emphasizes to look for fins. Not to know what to eat, but to remember what to become. Become someone who moves from point A to point B, not just a person who protects the area already gained. Identify areas where you can grow, activities that will propel you forward in life. What will make your professional life, family life, and spiritual life more robust and more meaningful? Recognize those items and pursue them. Know ahead of time that they may never feel urgent, will never muscle their way into your schedule all on their own. You’ll have to clear the path for them, with your elbows out, and your fins cutting through the water.
Don’t answer the phone. It feels urgent. But it’s not that important.