Know the feeling of walking into a room and immediately feeling small? Not physically. The other people seem more put-together, successful, or sure of themselves. Did you ever think: I don’t belong here?
This week’s portion, Eikev, describes the desert our ancestors crossed toward the Land of Israel: “the great and awesome desert, of snake, serpent, and scorpion, and thirst where there is no water.”
That great desert is the exile mindset that lives inside a person. One looks out at the world and sees other peoples’ successes and assumes they have it all figured out. Then concludes: I am just a small fish in a big pond. The moment you decide the world is bigger than you, you’ve handed it a power over you it never actually had.
When a Jew is connected to Hashem, nothing in the world holds real authority over him. The haftarah this week says it clearly: kings will be your caretakers and their princesses your nursemaids.
So why do we feel small? We run the numbers wrong. We look in the mirror and see someone unimpressive. We look out the window and see something enormous. And here’s the sneaky part: it doesn’t feel like a spiritual problem. It feels like humility: “I’m just being honest about my place in the world.” But that’s not humility, that’s the opening move of exile. Real smallness before Hashem makes you bigger because you’re plugged into something infinite. Smallness in front of the great world out there just shrinks you.
Recently I started reading a book about major gift fundraising. The very first thing it tells you is that you have to change your mindset. Instead of thinking of yourself as someone asking, or, dare I say, begging, for support, recognize that what you’re really doing is making sure your mission and the donor’s own goal to make an impact (on Jewish life) are aligned. You’re not schnorring, you’re just checking whether alignment exists. It is the same conversation, yet a completely different approach.
That’s exactly our situation. Often we feel insecure, like the underdog, while someone else has all the power. But that’s not the truth. We are a piece of Hashem placed deliberately in this world to change it for good. We’re not begging the world to let us in. We’re encouraging it to align with its G-d given purpose of being a home for Him.
The next time you catch that feeling, in a crowd, at work, scrolling through someone else’s highlight reel, run the numbers again. You are not small or insignificant. You are a piece of Hashem, here on purpose, with a job only you can do. Walk into the room like you belong there, because you do.
Good Shabbos, Rabbi Kushi Schusterman