Parshas Vayigash 5781
Until a week ago, Josh Gibson was not considered to have been a major leaguer. Now he holds the record for the highest single-season batting average of all time. Last Wednesday, Major League Baseball announced that top ranking Negro Leagues—baseball leagues in which African Americans would play prior to being given entry into the American and National Leagues—would be granted official recognition as “major leagues”. Statistics from the Negro Leagues are now considered part of the Major League cannon.
On the face of it, this move appears to right a great historical wrong. Yet the obvious question cannot be ignored: Were the Negro Leagues actually as competitive as the Majors? Gibson’s hits did not actually come off of major league pitchers; how do his achievements rank on a major league level?
The reality is that this is a question not only for the Negro Leagues, but for the Major Leagues as well. With the abundance of world-class talent that was kept out of the majors because of race, we should be just as dubious about Ted Williams’ hits as we are about Josh Gibson’s. Williams never had to face off against Satchel Paige in his prime—or the likes thereof—because black players were not given entry into the majors. By keeping a vast pool of talent out of the majors, aspersions may well be cast not only on the achievements of black players, but on those of white ones as well.
Herein lies a fundamental issue with competition. Success is never absolute; it is always relative to those one is competing against.The only way to ensure that the success achieved can be touted as a genuine accomplishment is by ensuring that the competition is comprised of those who are truly at the top of their game. When the competition is diluted, so is the success.
Under the guise that their flocks of sheep and shepherding ways would be considered an abomination to the Egyptian natives, Yosef is able to convince Pharaoh to set aside a parcel of land—the Land of Goshen—for his family to live apart from the rest of Egyptian society. Ostensibly, Yosef’s concern is one of assimilation; that the values of the Egyptians will begin to influence the B’nai Yisrael.
But perhaps there is another dimension to Yosef’s scheme. Even if his family’s values will remain, how successful will they be? Perhaps they will still study Torah, be G-d fearing, and perform acts of chessed. But will they truly succeed in these areas once the “competition” has been diluted? Or will they begin to feel satisfied with lesser accomplishments that nevertheless outstrip the Egyptians. Even if their core value system would more less remain intact, would they become failures relative to their true abilities? By herding all of his family into a location apart from Egyptian society, Yosef ensured that they would be competing only against themselves, only against true “major leaguers”
This is the basis of a discussion that I sometimes have with students as they approach graduation and questions of what direction to take later in life begin to emerge. In outlining the advantages of continued time in yeshiva following high school and even beyond a gap-year yeshiva experience, a student once asked if I truly believed that his going to a secular college would lead to an abandonment of observance. “Probably not,” I responded, “But if that’s the only measure used for determining success, aren’t you setting the bar awfully low?”
The question is not how likely it is that a student will continue to keep Shabbos and kosher, or even if they will continue to daven or learn Torah. The question is how they will begin to define success in any of those areas, and that is a definition that is formulated by peers. Being surrounded by a group of friends who, as a matter of course, learn Torah more than six hours a day is simply not the same as an environment in which even the most dedicated barely eke out an hour or so. How success is defined in each venue will undoubtedly shape very different experiences for the student.
This is an issue that wags a long tail throughout life and needs to help inform decisions we make about where we live, where we daven, and the friends we keep, even as adults. It would be ideal, of course, if we were all capable of competing against no one but ourselves and considered success or failure only against the backdrop of our own talents and abilities. But human beings are simply not that way. We look to where the benchmark has been set by others and judge ourselves against it.
So where are we looking and who are we competing against? Do we make a point of surrounding ourselves by people who raise the bar, or who lower it? Is there an inclination towards peer groups who allow us to get away with less spiritual ambition and will consider us successful with minimal effort exerted? If the company we keep defines success in Torah study, tefillah, chessed, or yiras shamayim, life becomes far more comfortable, but far less real.
Removing talent from the playing field makes the victory achieved on that field decidedly less genuine. Let us be wise in who we allow onto our playing field and avoid building the walls too high. If we avoid the company of those with great talents who have had true successes, our own accomplishments may forever be marked by an asterisk.