By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel in Chula Vista, California
It takes almost zero effort—and frankly, zero imagination—to stage a private pity party. We all know the routine: your brother makes varsity without breaking a sweat, your sister somehow looks effortlessly put-together in bad lighting, and that cousin who invested in something bafflingly lucky is already shopping for a second vacation home.
The default human reaction is practically programmed into us: “Why does everyone else get the good hand while I’m stuck holding a handful of Uno draw-fours?”
How do we handle our own personal catalogs of stalled momentum and unfulfilled dreams?
Before feeling uniquely singled out by fate, consider Moses. If anyone had a legitimate reason to leave a one-star review of his life’s journey, it was him.
Right at the finish line, in Parshat V’Zot HaBerachah, the Almighty takes him to the top of Mount Nebo, points across the horizon, and essentially says:
“This is the land that I swore to your forefathers… I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over.” (Deut. 34:4–5)
Talk about a cosmic anticlimax. The Midrash paints an agonizing portrait of Moses negotiating with the Almighty like a desperate passenger at an airport gate whose flight just closed: Can I go as a commoner? Can I enter as a bird? Just let me flap my wings over the border for five minutes to see how they’re doing! And the answer was still no.
Moses had every reason to feel cheated. For 40 years, he served as tour guide, complaint department, and mediator for several million chronically vocal travelers wandering through a desert. Whenever they ran out of water or missed the onions of Egypt, Moses took the heat. And how does it end? He is barred from setting foot in the land because of one lost temper at the rock of Merivah.
If most of us were handed that scenario after four decades of unpaid overtime, our parting words would probably not be suitable for a sacred scroll. We would walk away grumbling, “Good luck with the crossing; you’re on your own.”
Instead, Moses blesses every single tribe from the bottom of his heart. No passive-aggressive parting jabs, no grudges, no lingering resentment.
Why conclude the entire Torah on such an apparent heartbreaker?
Because it delivers a grounding, unavoidable truth about the human condition: the great always run out of clock before they run out of vision. Every Moses inevitably leaves his final Jordan uncrossed. Abraham Lincoln didn’t get to oversee the healing of the nation he preserved; Martin Luther King Jr. was taken long before his mountaintop dream was realized.
As Rabbi Tarfon famously reminds us in Pirkei Avot (2:21):
“It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
We often freeze up because we think an unfinished job is a failed job. But failure isn’t falling short of the finish ribbon; failure is refusing to lace up your shoes because the marathon is too long. Life isn’t a tight little movie with a tidy post-credits resolution; it’s an ongoing relay race where passing the baton in stride is the real victory.
That applies whether you’re trying to fix the world, raise a family, teach a classroom full of restless kids, or simply get your own spiritual house in order. Some people view religious growth as an intimidating, all-or-nothing gauntlet: If I can’t be a tzaddik by Tuesday, why bother trying at all? But nobody dives to the bottom of the deep end without passing through the surface first. Don’t aim to conquer the entire coastline in an afternoon; pick two mitzvot you actually connect with, start there, and do them well.
As the Chofetz Chaim put it, our job is simply to take the action—the outcomes belong strictly to the Almighty. Or, as Oscar Wilde quipped with his usual bite: “There are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting what you want.”
Moses teaches us to be skeptical of finish lines that come too easily. If you reached your ultimate Promised Land before breakfast, you probably set your sights too low. As Robert Browning wrote: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what’s a heaven for?”