The outcomes of our efforts can exceed anything we thought possible
How superficial!
Would you not be shocked if a rabbinic search committee told you the qualities they were looking for in their next rabbi, in addition to wisdom were physical strength, good looks, wealth, and old age? Well, these are the five leadership qualities enumerated by Chazal(Vayikra Rabbah 26:9) that set the Kohein Gadol (Chief Kohein) apart from his team. Really? How superficial! How limiting! What if there was a really good candidate who was saintly, empathetic and decisive but wasn’t physically strong or good-looking, would he not make the cut?
In this essay we will analyze the meaning of strength, koach, in the qualifications for a Kohein Gadol.
Strength, energy, potential
The Hebrew word for strength, koach, like many words in Hebrew, has a variety of shades and overlays of meaning. Koach also means energy and it means potential. When the word koach is used in Torah it usually has a richer and a more subtle meaning than just “strength.”
The Midrash proves that the Kohein Gadol needed to have strength from the fact that Aharon conducted 22,000 waive-offerings in one day, one for each Levi, when he inducted them into their service. Rabbi Chaim Schmuelewitz[1] calculates this as two seconds per waive offering all day without a break; a physical impossibility. This fact leads Rabeinu Bechaya[2] to say that Ahron’s accomplishment was not natural, it was miraculous. If miraculous, asks R’ Chaim, how could the Midrash possibly prove from this action of Ahron that he had great physical strength?
I remember R’Chaim z”tzl explaining this Midrash when I studied under him in Mir. His explanation was life changing and has probably impacted every day of my life. He explained that miracle only begins where nature leaves off. Until a person has exhausted all his or her natural abilities to achieve an outcome, the miraculous does not start. A person has to use all of their energy, skills, intellect and talent to achieve what they want to. Once they have done that however, the miraculous kicks in and turbo-charges a person’s efforts to achieve outcomes that could not possibly have been accomplished by the individual alone.
Effort and Outcome
The relationship between effort and outcome from a Torah perspective is a unique relationship. Effort is a condition for success, not the cause of it. Without effort there is no success, however, if we are connected to Hashem then success is not the result of our efforts it is the result of His miraculous intervention.
We have a choice to make. We can choose to ignore our connection to the Divine and do it all on our own. In this case we will need to exert great effort for possibly mediocre results. Or, by staying connected to G-d in our thoughts, prayer and actions we can have Him partner us in our undertakings adding to our success when we have exhausted the natural means available to us.
Ahron’s koach means both his physical strength and his moral strength (as the Yefei To’ar explains the Midrash in Vayikra). Without both physical and moral strength he could not have succeeded in his mammoth task nor merited Divine assistance. However the physical strength implied in the word koach does not refer to an objective measure of strength that Ahron needed to have. Rather, koachmeans the actualization of every ounce of his potential energy – both physical and mental. He needed to focus his mind on the task and apply all the strength he had to its accomplishment. Even then Ahron could not have naturally accomplished his goal. However, having applied all of his koach to his objective, Hashem would accelerate his efforts to manage the work successfully.
I often find myself taking success for granted and not fully appreciating how little of it directly results from my own planning and efforts. Even little successes, the things we might call coincidences, are all G-d’s watchful eye and guiding hand helping along His loved ones whose efforts He admires. When I stop to think about how much could have gone wrong and didn’t, how many little successes along the way were not, and could not have been planned, I see Hashem’s hand more clearly. And, when I take time to look at bigger successes in retrospect, it is even clearer that these were not the outcomes of my thoughts and plans.
On the other hand, as much as I realize that my successes are the work of Hashem, I know too both from experience and from my teacher’s brilliant insights, that without tireless effort and expending every bit of effort I have, these successes could not have happened either. The outcomes of our efforts can exceed anything we thought possible if we apply all the potential with which we have been blessed and we nurture our connection to the Divine.
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