By Rabbi Fischel Schachter
I struggled to focus in school as a child. I vividly remember that in third grade, the classroom was divided into three rows. One row was for the strongest students. The middle row was for the average group. And then there was the third row the one no one spoke about officially, but everyone knew what it was called.
The golem row.
That was my row.
It didn’t even bother me all that much. I assumed it was simply a fact of life. Some kids were smart, some were average, and some were... golems.
One day, the fluorescent lights above the golem row went completely dark. I thought it to be natural. After all, it was the golem row. So, my rebbe rearranged us.
“Everyone under those lights, move over,” he said. And so, I picked myself up and slid into the middle row. I was elated. I thought I had been promoted.
A few minutes later, the electrician fixed the lights. “Okay,” my rebbe said, “everyone go back to your places.” And just like that, I was back.
That night, I mentioned it casually to my father. “I thought I was finally moving out of the golem row,” I said. “Turns out it just needed a quick electrician repair.” My father said nothing.
Two weeks later, he took me out of the school.
I was confused. “Why?” I asked.
“There’s a new school opening,” he said. “They need students. This school has plenty.”
It took me years to understand what my father had really done. After all, a golem stays a golem—unless someone intervenes.
Years later, I asked him why he never explained the real reason at the time.
He told me. “The only one who ever gets to decide whether you’re a golem is you. If I tell you you were a victim, that you were labeled, you’ll use that story for the rest of your life. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
One of the most powerful weapons of the yetzer hara is a single sentence:
“You blew it.”
This is exactly what Rav Yisrael Taub of Modzitz, the Divrei Yisroel, underscores in explaining the famous Pasuk recited in Shema.
“V’lo sasuru acharei levavchem—Do not let your heart say, ‘I failed.’ V’acharei eineichem—And do not let what your eyes saw convince you it’s game over.” Rather, “V’asisem es kol mitzvosai—Perform the mitzvos.” You can still act. You can still choose. And the moment you decide to choose, everything changes.
I once went to Luna Park, where they have on exhibit a haunted house. It reminded me of the story I once heard of a boy who walked into one of these houses and grew terrified, like many do. There were ghosts, shadows and eerie music; the whole works. When he finally walked out, he realized he lost his yarmulke inside.
“Go back in and get it,” he was told by one of the employees. The boy couldn’t imagine doing so.
The man smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll turn on the lights.” He walked back in and suddenly the ghosts he sees are made of plastic and the shadows are cardboard. The fear instantly dissolved. Nothing was real. Everything was an illusion.
All the ghosts in our lives—the labels, the failures, the fears, the golems we think we are—lose their power the moment the lights go on. No one can say you blew it unless you agree with them. And when you refuse to say it yourself, even the golem row becomes a place of greatness.
So, turn on the light... and watch everything change.
Reprinted from the Parshat Vayigash 5786 email of the Torahanytime Newsletter as compiled and edited by Elon Perchik.
