These past few days, the entire country has been riveted by the fate of the passengers on the Titan. The Titan was what is known as a submersible, a submarine-type vehicle that was able to travel all the way down to the depths of the ocean. The travelers, each of whom paid $250,000, were on a journey to explore the ruins of the Titanic. Tragically, it appears that the Titan imploded two hours into their journey. (Parenthetically, when five human beings die, regardless of their politics, regardless of their net worth, it is a tragedy. In this day and age, there are people celebrating their death which is obscene.)
Let me ask you all a question – there has been a lot of discussion of safety concerns on the Titan, but let’s just say, those concerns are addressed, and the company that runs these tours, OceanGate, goes through a proper safety audit, and they are now open again to the public. Would you take a tour on a submersible? Let’s ask our Bar Mitzvah boy, Ben, would you go down to the bottom of the ocean on the Titan 2?
It costs $250,000 for a ticket. Ben is going to need a lot of money. So please think twice, ladies and gentlemen, before writing him a check for his Bar Mitzvah.
When I was your age, Ben, I probably would have. When I was a little older than you, I had a bucket list of crazy things I wanted to do; bungee jumping, skydiving, backpacking around foreign countries. To my parents’ utmost horror and dismay, I knocked everything off that bucket list. Though for the record, I would NEVER dream of jumping out of a plane at this age. I don’t know when, but something switched in my brain and now I go on the ski lift ride around Dutch Wonderland, we’re like twenty feet off the ground, and I am freaking out: WHY ARE WE RISKING OUR LIVES?!?!
What drives people to jump out of planes, to climb tall mountains, to go to the depths of the ocean?
Ambition, drive, a sense of purpose and the very human desire to break free from the stifling regularity and monotony of life. In the words of one man who was asked why he attempted to climb Mt. Everest – “Because it’s there.”
Ambition is not a bad thing, nor is it limited to extreme activities. If we didn’t have ambition, we wouldn’t show up to work. If we didn’t have ambition, we would never push ourselves to be better at what we do. If we didn’t have ambition, we wouldn’t have retirement funds. The Medrash Tehilim (37) writes that without ambition people would not get married or build a home. It’s what keeps the world going, it’s what drives us forward. Sometimes it’s expressed in silly things like extreme activities, and sometimes it’s expressed in life-saving discoveries and companies that make our lives so much better.
In fact, Wendy Rush, the wife of Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate who tragically died this past week, is the great-great-granddaughter of Isidor Straus, a co-owner of Macy’s, the famous department store. Isidor was an incredibly ambitious person. He came to the United States at the age of 9. His family was discriminated against because of their Jewish faith; the business his father had hoped to start failed. But by the age of 16, Isidor had started a successful business that grew and grew until he became one of the wealthiest and most politically connected people in the country. Thank G-d for Isidor Straus’s ambition – how many pieces of clothing have you purchased at Macy’s? Half the ties I own I bought at Macy’s! And clearly, his ambition was passed on from generation to generation. His great-great-granddaughter, aside from growing her family’s wealth, had gone on three expeditions in the Titan.
However, sometimes I fear that we are stifling ambition. I was watching a video from a graduation speech in a Jewish school the other day, and the principal was calling up a student to speak on behalf of all the students. “Every student is special,” she said. “Every student could have been called up to speak, but we had to pick one. So I am calling up this person even though I could have called up anyone. And you know I would really love to call up each student because they are all so deserving…” When I was graduating high school, the principal got up and said, “We are now calling up our valedictorian, our brightest, most impressive student who we believe will accomplish great things.” The rest of us understood the implication quite clearly.
This sentiment of everyone is special was actually the argument made by Korach in this week’s parsha. Korach led a rebellion against Moshe with a slogan that would be incredibly popular in the 21st century – “Kol ha’am kulam kedoshim/ The entire nation is holy! Why do you, Moshe, stand above us all? Aren’t we all the same? Aren’t we all holy?” That resonates, doesn’t it?
Rav Yosef Soloveitchik explains that Korach was right – to a point. We are all innately holy, we are born with a pure soul which we believe to be connected to G-d Himself. But that’s only part of the story. We are then instructed to build on that holiness, to use that soul to transform ourselves, and change the world around us. What Korach was arguing for was the notion that whatever you do is okay, whatever you accomplish is enough. You’re all special, you’re all equally holy.
Ironically, Korach, we are taught was exceptionally wealthy. When it comes to our professional life, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, “You know, I started as a temp getting minimum wages. This is who I am. I’m okay with that.”
No! We have ambitions. We want to climb that ladder. We want more. And that’s fine and that’s great. But where are our spiritual ambitions? Why is it that when it comes to giving more to others, to being a better spouse or parent, how we pray, how much Torah we study, that only there do we seem to be content with what we have, with the inherent holiness that we were born with? When it comes to spirituality, ambition goes out the window.
We need to have BOTH material AND spiritual ambitions! Isadore Straus wasn’t only a business mogul, he and his brother, Nathan, who co-owned Macy’s were two of the most generous people of their generation, giving to a wide variety of causes, in their community and beyond. The city of Netanya in Israel was seeded by Nathan Straus and is named after him – Nentanya from the name, Nathan. And perhaps most famously – Isadore was on the Titanic with his wife when it started to sink. According to eyewitnesses, Isadore, because of his incredible stature was given a seat on a raft which was being filled up by women and children. He refused to get on the raft because he would be taking a seat from a woman or a child, who he felt should go before him. Seeing what was happening, his wife, Ida, got up and left the raft to be with her husband. “Wherever you go,” she said, “I go.” In the movie Titanic, there is a scene in which an elderly man and woman are embracing one another as the ship goes down. That was as a nod to Isadore and Ida Straus who died on the Titanic. That is high level selflessness, dedication, love, that’s called not settling for mediocrity.
We probably all have a detailed list of where we want to vacation, of an exact number of how much we want to retire with, but does anyone have a spiritual bucket list? Not just a vague idea of wanting to be a good person. I’m talking about an ambitious and detailed list of spiritual ambitions. I want to be the type of spouse who is so selfless that I will not get off a sinking ship without my loved one – not just in the Titanic, but every day in my home. I want to be a non-judgmental friend. I want to be a parent who is 100% engaged. I want to pray like my soul is on fire and I am standing before G-d. I want to use my strengths and resources to build the community around me. I want to finish shas, I want to know the entirety of Tanach.
Ben, you are an ambitious young man. You were gifted natural athleticism, but you worked hard to become an even better athlete. You are not content with being just okay. And it’s not just in the physical realm that you are ambitious. Ben was not content with leining this morning – which you knocked out of the park, he wanted to do more, so last night, he led davening in our shul. And that wasn’t enough so he asked if he could lead davening on the day he turned Bar Mitzvah, which he did. But that wasn’t enough, so he asked if he could lein in shul on Thursday, which he did. And learning for his Bar Mitzvah and school wasn’t enough, so he spent time weekly learning Mishnayos. Ben, don’t ever allow your spiritual thirst to be quenched.
You’re lucky, you have wonderful role models of spiritual ambition. They put so much thought into your education and your spiritual well-being. They are ambitious in their middos, in their character and in their love of family. Had your parents been on the Titanic, it would have been them embracing one another with selflessness.
Ben, you’re young, you’re full of energy. Now’s the time to create a spiritual bucket list, and I hope to G-d, you knock everything off that list and then you start a new one and then do that again and again and again. And I hope you inspire us to strive a little but higher, to ask ourselves this morning, what are our spiritual ambitions? What is on our spiritual bucket list? And not be content with spiritual mediocrity.
Isadore Straus sank on the mighty Titanic. His great-great-grandson-in-law’s company will probably never set sail again. Macy’s will likely not be around in ten years. It is only our soul, our spiritual ambitions and accomplishments, that will live on.