I am currently on holiday in the USA with my family, so my Machshavot will be brief.
A thought struck me as I flew to America from London.
When you fly westwards, you find yourself avoiding sunset. You can take off from Heathrow with 5 hrs till sunset. When you land in New York 8 hrs later – sunset will still be a few hours away. If one carries on moving westwards towards LA, you may reach LA before the sun has set. However eventually it will set –no matter how far you run, eventually it catches up with you.
We can use this idea in terms of our personal journeys, running away from our problems, maybe denying they exist –till eventually they catch up with us.
We can use this in terms of politicians of all stripes who can dig them further and further into a hole – but eventually they are found out (The current Labour leader seems to be an exception- his hole is as deep as they come- but he still remains!)
And we can use this in terms of running away from Hashem and our responsibilities – there is a little bit of Yonah in all of us.
However, all of this denial stems from the same root- a lack of a realisation in a Creator and a justice system for all. An arrogance that we are in charge and there is not absolute truth or morality.
As we learnt is this weeks’ Parsha:
‘V Amarta bilvavecha, kochi v etzem yadi asah li et ha chayil hazeh’ ‘and you say to yourselves, “My own power and the ha – might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.”’
There is always the bigger picture and when it comes to Divine justice, it really doesn’t matter how far or fast you run…
You can’t hide!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Andrew Shaw