Do Your Part
Do Your Part
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.
As developers, we often find ourselves dealing with problems larger than ourselves. Sometimes it seems like we just can’t do it all on our own.
There are usually two ways people go about coping with such situations.
There are those who see themselves as martyrs. They will put in long hours, spend weekends on the office living off of pizza and Red Bull trying to get it done, sacrifice their health and their social life. Then, at the end of it all when things inevitably fall through (because the problem is, after all, larger than any one person), they will take it all very personally, blaming themselves for the failure and feeling completely worthless.
Others will take the opposite approach. They are the realists, the pragmatic ones. When they see the problem is too large, they will throw up their hands and go home knowing it’s not their problem.
Then there’s the third approach.
There’s a beautiful custom that many people have during the six weeks between Passover and Shavuot to learn a chapter from the Pirkei Avot (a tractate of the Mishnah that collects ethical teachings and maxims) every week, finishing the 6 chapter tractate in time for Shavuot.
Some communities continue this custom throughout the summer and, following that schedule, will be learning the second chapter this week.
The last Mishnah (verse) of the second chapter contains a powerful thought that I find myself going back to often (Avot 2:16):
לא עליך המלאכה לגמור ולא אתה בן חורין לבטל ממנה.
[Rabbi Tarfon] would say: It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it.
Rabbi Tarfon is speaking of a much larger task than any we might come across in our work, the task of transforming the world into a G-dly home. Nevertheless, the lesson he taught can be applied to our lives as well.
None of us lives in isolation; others will help us and continue our work when we’re finished.
The work may not be ours to finish, but by not absolving ourselves from doing our part, we get to become part of something much larger than ourselves.