Who Will You Be In Six Years From Now?

Parshas Mishpatim 5780

The young student sat squirming in his chair in the rabbi’s office, his eyes darting from the office door to the Gemara that sat open on the desk before him. His meeting with Rav Moshe Feinstein had been momentarily interrupted as the Rosh Yeshiva was called out for some urgent matter, but assured he would return shortly. Those few moments were enough to set his curiosity ablaze: what a thrill it would be to have a peek inside the Rosh Yeshiva’s personal Gemara. 

The boy made up his mind and quickly scampered to the other side of the desk, leaning over the Sefer and scanning the handwritten notes dotting the margins. But as he leaned, he knocked the inkwell from its stand. The ink spread slowly over the open Gemara, and the boy was seized with dread. Quickly retreating to his seat, he sheepishly hung his head and awaited judgment. Reb Moshe returned just a moment later, and immediately sized up the scene. The Rosh Yeshiva’s reaction was one that the student would remember with gratitude the rest of his life: “Doesn’t the Gemara look so pretty in blue?”

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After six years of service, the eved ivri—the Jewish servant—has a choice to make: to go free, or to stay on? Initially sold in an effort to save himself from destitution, the Torah recognizes that this man may have grown rather comfortable in his new environment. If he so chooses, he can accept yet another term of service, terminating with the Yovel, the Jubilee celebrated every fifty years. And all it will cost him is a bit of earlobe.

Should he choose to remain, the Torah prescribes a ceremony: his master stands him by the door and pierces his ear with an awl. Rashi (21:6) quotes a classical interpretation of this unusual ritual:

אֹזֶן שֶׁשָּׁמְעָה עַל הַר סִינַי כִּי לִי בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲבָדִים, וְהָלַךְ וְקָנָה אָדוֹן לְעַצְמוֹ, תֵּרָצַע

That ear which heard on Mount Sinai what I said, (Leviticus 25:55) “For unto Me the Children of Israel are servants” and yet its owner went and procured for himself another master — let it be pierced!

Piercing the ear serves as a reminder that voluntary servitude violates, to some degree, one of the core messages we were meant to absorb at Har Sinai: that Hashem is our master, and no other. Voluntarily allowing a human being to control one’s time and decisions in some way detracts from the submission we should feel to Hashem alone.

Yet if the ear must go punished, why six years late? From the very outset, the Eved Ivri chooses to submit to the authority of a flesh and blood master. If this detracts from the purity of his relationship with Hashem, why not pierce his ear the moment he crosses the threshold into the home of his master?

The Torah is teaching us that what is considered unbecoming behavior at a later stage in life is not necessarily so at an earlier one. Or more poignantly, what is acceptable behavior at an earlier stage of life is no longer so as time passes. In effect, the Torah is teaching us that, as people, we must develop.

In many areas of life, we take this principle for granted. We expect that praise for our accomplishments will continue only as they become more impressive. Landing the entry-level job out of college is met with adulation by one’s friends and family. But holding down that same job for the next twenty years will not be met with praise. From athletes to academics, we expect to witness an increase in skill level as time passes and experience mounts.

But do we expect the same of character? Aside from what we do, what about who we are? When it comes to kindness, generosity, faith, commitment, sensitivity, patience and the multitude of others middos that comprise our very personalities, do we expect growth, or do we just point to our internal wiring as the justification for never improving?

The way we act, think, and feel are not predetermined by our genetic material. They are aspects of our being that can be honed like any other skill. The Eved Ivri is not taken to task in year one for submitting to a human master. In year one, his actions are understandable. But as time marches on, there is an expectation of development. His relationship with Hashem should have deepened over the course of the six year term of servitude. He should have grown into a new person, one who sees submission to a human master as beneath a true servant of Hashem, even if this consideration was not on the radar of the man he was six years prior. 

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There is an important post script to the story about Rav Moshe Feinstein I related above. News of this incident traveled throughout the yeshiva, adding to the already robust lore painting Reb Moshe as a man of remarkably saintly qualities. Some time thereafter, a student was meeting with Reb Moshe. Discussing the boy’s trajectory, the student noted of himself self-effacingly that the bar for success should be kept low. After all, he was not the sort of tzaddik who could simply turn the other cheek if a valued possession of his was ruined, say, if someone spilled ink all over his Gemara. Understanding the reference, the Rosh Yeshiva responded firmly, “It took me my whole life to do that!” 

Reb Moshe’s admonishment was clear: make no assumptions about who you can become based on who you presently are. Great people are not born, they are made; painstakingly handcrafted through years of personal development. If we see ourselves the way the Torah does, who we are today need not be the ceiling for who we can become tomorrow.