The pursuit of success is healthy. After all, who doesn’t want to be successful?
Yet the definition of success can be elusive. All too often it’s used in a relative manner. As in comparing one’s self to another as a barometer of success.
In this week’s Parsha we read of Joseph — the only person in the Torah described as successful.
Joseph was to become the second most powerful man in Egypt and presumably the world. That is success at the highest level.
However, it’s not at the peak of his achievements that he’s described as successful it’s at the lowest points of his story that the Torah refers to him as a “successful man.”
You see, success was “his attitude”. His reaction to his predicament and his unwavering cognizance that all comes from G-d.
Success followed, to be sure — but it wasn’t this result that was termed success it was his faith, strength, demeanor and fortitude that was “success-full”.
Yesterday, raw footage of six hostages (coined the beautiful six which included Hersch Goldberg-Polin) lighting Chanukah candles and singing the Shehecheyanu blessing in the tunnels and dungeons of Gaza was released.
It’s truly unfathomable what they endured yet that footage is a direct portal into the soul of the Jew. The Shehecheyanu, the ultimate prayer of thanks and joy — in the tunnels — even more unfathomable —yet despite it all……
“Lighting Hanukkah candles in that dark place captures the essence of the Jewish spirit: light prevailing over darkness," the families of the six said in a statement published by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
As we prepare to usher in Chanukah, let us all resolve to be “successful” in the strongest of fashion. Recognize that our very existence and success rests in our belief, trust, faith and fortitude of mind — and it’s this that we celebrate on Chanukah full of joy and gratitude!