Your Grades Don't Define You

At the end of a semester, it's important to remember:

Taking the Time to Breathe

In this week's parsha, Parshat Shemot, Jewish slavery in Egypt begins. Strangely enough, as the work load increases there's no mention of the Jews complaining under the hard labor or crying out to Hashem. That is... until the day of the King of Egypt's death. Well, doesn't that seem like a strange time to cry? If anything, wouldn't they be excited by the death of the very king who was enslaving them? Now that he's dead, they can have hope that a new king might lift the strict work regimen and bring new policies!
Some commentaries explain the sudden Jewish cries by saying exactly that -- that it was after the death of the old king, and thus at the start of the new king's reign that they started crying. They were crying because it turned out that the new king was just as harsh as the old one. Before the death of the old king, the Jews looked forward to a light at the end of the tunnel, but now that the old one died and the new one was just as bad, all hope was lost. Time to turn to Hashem.
But I actually want to focus on a different approach -- that of the Netziv (Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin in the mid 1800's).
He strengthen's our original question by saying that the Jewish people especially shouldn't have been crying on the day of the king's death. This is because all of Egypt was mourning his death, and it was a day off for the entire country. In other words, the Jews wouldn't have been working on that day! So why in the world is their one day off from work the day when they suddenly started crying?!
The Netziv explains the situation with a profound idea.
You know that feeling of being so incredibly busy that you have no time to think, and then finally Shabbos arrives, you get to put your life on hold, and you can finally give yourself a chance to breathe?
Well that's essentially what happened to the Jews. They were worked so hard while the old Pharaoh gradually brought them into slavery, that they never had a real opportunity to pause and think about the seriousness of the situation they were in. It was only on the day that the Pharaoh died, when they weren't working, that they had time to reflect on their awful situation, recognize it's gravity, and call out to Hashem for help.
Let's reflect this story back to us.
We spend our whole lives running and running and running in circles with all the things we have to get done, but do we ever give ourselves a moment to breathe? To think? To add meaning to our day? To thank God for the gifts He's given us? We're so busy with the tasks that fill up our daily routine that we don't get to reflect on (hopefully) the AWESOMENESS of our lives!
What if the busy-ness of life is stopping us from doing something as crucial for our well-being as asking for Hashem's help was for the Jews enslaved in Egypt?
Before we get lost in our school work once again, let's finish up our winter vacations by taking a step out of our routine. Close your eyes, reflect on the greatness of life, and breathe!

Self Realization and introspection

I believe that we are not just the sum of our actions. Rather, we are the summation of our actions and our perspectives, our thoughts and our intentions, our direction and purpose. We are judged by what we do and how we treat people, and with this in mind, we should consider how we treat people. I was always taught before one says something, one should think if it is helpful, true, and kind. These, I think, are principles that we should all try to live by. More than that, because we are not just the sum of our actions, but rather the combination of our actions and thoughts, then our actions should reflect our thoughts. Our actions should be intended for the betterment of self as well as the benefit of those around that person's said self. May we all continue in the pursuit of bettering ourselves and the respect of other people through our actions and thoughts.

How We Play the Hand

In a peculiar exchange of Parshas Toldos, Esav returns from the field to ask Yaakov "Let me swallow, please, that red, red [stuff]". Because of this request, the pasuk tells us, "they called him Edom", meaning "red" (Bereishis 25:30). 

This is not, however, the first encounter we see of Esav and redness. In fact, Esav was covered -already from the womb!- in red. Why is it that only now he was called "red" after this fairly vague and enigmatic statement regarding lentils? He was covered in red "like a hairy mantle" (Bereishis 25:25)! 

Regardless of what exactly Esav's statement implies, at the very least it reflects a perspective Esav cultivated on his own. His statement was a manifestation of some engrained attitude towards life. His naturally hairy body, on the other hand, was not his decision, it was merely a predisposition. 

We are all different, whether it be through our nature or our individually nurtured upbringings. The way we are judged and the legacy we leave is not based on how we are born or with what qualities we naturally contain. What matters is how we make the most of what we are given. 

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." - Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture