Go The Extra Mile
Go The Extra Mile
This Dvar Torah was originally published in Torah && Tech, the weekly newsletter I publish together with my good friend Ben Greenberg. To get the weekly issue delivered straight to your inbox click here.
There are 10 types of people, those who can count in binary and those who can’t!
Okay, I’m kidding; it’s the people who, when faced with a task, do the absolute minimum they need to get the job done, and those who go all out to make sure they complete the task in the best way possible.
Jewish sources as well distinguish between people who do the Mitzvah and those who go a step up to the level of Hiddur Mitzvah (a beautified Mitzvah).
What those terms mean can vary depending on one’s level of observance, but the general idea is the same. One can do the bare minimum needed to fulfill the Mitzvah, or one can go above and beyond, “beautifying” it and doing it the best way they could.
Why bother? If good is good enough, why not leave it at that?
This week, the eyes of millions of Americans were looking towards the state of Iowa. The sleepy, oft-forgotten state was being called on for its once-in-four-years job of officially kicking off the American election season by being the first state to hold caucuses for the presidential primaries.
But as the hours went by and the candidates, volunteers, news anchors, and Americans everywhere were waiting to hear the results of the Democratic primaries, the results were not showing up.
It turns out, a new and untested app that the Democratic party had commissioned to help with tallying up the vote wasn’t actually up to the task, and the resulting mess still hasn’t been sorted out as of the writing of this newsletter!
It might take some time to find out what exactly went wrong, but what’s clear is that someone somewhere thought it would be smart to cut a few corners, hired a sketchy company on a shoestring budget to develop the app, and the result was much heart-ache and finger-pointing.
So as we can see, good is not always good enough. It’s not good enough for our code; it’s not good enough in our interpersonal relationships, and we shouldn’t find it good enough in our relationship with G-d.
Let’s take it a step further; let’s go that extra mile.
Shabbat Shalom!
Yechiel
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