Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin tells of a time he was once with a pilot looking at a small Cessna plane which was high winged and had a single propellor in the front. Inside the plane he saw many buttons and dials, but one stood out to him, it was a dial with a picture of a small plane.
He asked what that dial did, and the pilot replied, “That dial is what tells you if you are going up or down, sideways or upside down.”
Rubashkin was confused, “Can’t you just tell if you are going up and down. It’s pretty obvious, just look out the window”.
The pilot replied, “One would think. But in bad weather it’s very hard to tell. This little dial tells us exactly where we are going. Without this dial we would not know how to reach our destination!”
So too, we must know where we are going. Just like pilots, we cannot use our assessment of the situation to guide us. We can’t only listen to our emotions, because they change our perspective. We feel like doing different things each moment. That is why we have the Torah to guide us throughout our lives. Just focus on what the Torah is saying to do because the Torah is the emet—truth, and it will lead us on the life we are meant to live.
Reprinted from Parashat Vaetchanan 5785 email of Jack E. Rahmey based on the Torah teachings of Rabbi Amram Sananes.
