Torah asks us to become ourselves

The conversation ended hours ago, but it keeps replaying in your mind. You know the feeling. The meeting is over. The argument has ended. Life has moved on. And yet something lingers. Perhaps it was not what you said, but how you said it. Perhaps you were technically right, but not particularly kind. Or perhaps you missed an opportunity to be more patient, more generous, or more courageous than you were. The discomfort is difficult to explain because nobody else may even know about it. But you know. You caught a glimpse of the gap between the person you are and the person you mean to be. In Parshat Shoftim, the Torah commands: "Justice, justice shall you pursue" (Deuteronomy 16:20). Why does the Torah repeat the word "justice"? One possibility is that there are two pursuits taking place at the same time. The first is the pursuit of justice in society. We need honest courts, ethical leaders, and laws that protect the vulnerable. A healthy society depends on them. But there is another pursuit that takes place much closer to home. It is the pursuit of becoming the person we were meant to be. Jewish tradition teaches that when G-d calls out, "Abraham, Abraham," or "Moses, Moses," He is addressing both the earthly person and the heavenly one. One represents who we are today. The other represents who we are capable of becoming. Imagine two portraits. One is hanging on heaven's wall. The other is walking around on earth. For Abraham and Moses, those portraits were nearly identical. Their actions reflected their deepest values. The people they were in practice matched the people they were in potential. Most of us are still working on that. We know the moments when the two portraits drift apart. The promise we intended to keep. The kindness we meant to show. The courage we hoped we would find when the moment arrived. Few disappointments sting more sharply than realizing we have fallen short of our own standards. Yet that recognition is not meant to discourage us. It is meant to guide us. That is why the Torah repeats the command to pursue justice. Before we can build a just society, we must become more just people. Before we can bring integrity to the world around us, we must bring integrity to the world within us. The pursuit of justice is not only about changing institutions; it is also about closing the gap between our ideals and our actions. The prophet Jeremiah teaches that God delights in "kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth." Those qualities are not merely legal ideals. They are personal ones. They describe the kind of people we are meant to become. The good news is that the Torah does not demand perfection. It asks only that we keep pursuing—that we continue moving, one choice at a time, toward the person we know we can become. And every time our actions come a little closer to that higher portrait, justice has been served in more ways than one. The Torah does not ask us to become someone else. It asks us to become ourselves. I wish you a good week and Shabbat Shalom. Rabbi Yonatan Hambourger can be reached at y@tasteoftorah.org.

Torah asks us to become ourselves

Contact Us