RABBI DONIEL FRANK | Director, M.A.P. Seminars, Inc., Marriage and Family Therapist

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The Torah tells the story about the blasphemer, the son of a Jewish mother and an Egyptian father who gets into a fight with a fellow Jew and ends up cursing Hashem.

We know that when people fight, it can get nasty. But how does someone unravel to the point of becoming so irreverent?

The Torah starts the story by telling us that the blasphemer “went out,†which, according to the midrash, means that he went out as a loser from Moshe’s court. The case was that he had pitched his tent in the camp of Dan, his mother’s tribe, but was thrown out because his father wasn’t Jewish, and he’s the one who determines the family’s tribe. Moshe sided with the tribe of Dan, and from there he went out and did his deed.

What is this all about? Why did this cause him to fall apart?

The answer lies is in another explanation that Rashi gives for his “going out.†He says it means that, “He went out from his world.†What does that mean?

The Gemara says that everyone has to believe that the world was created for him. We learn that from Adam who, when he was first created, was the only ba’al bechirah, the only created being with choice, that was around. Because of that, he was the one to whom the world looked for meaning. And he couldn’t try to be like someone else, because there was no one else to be like. And for that matter, he couldn’t dump his responsibilities on someone else, and he couldn’t blame anyone else if things went wrong. The world was his in the sense that it was up to him to make the difference. And for him to fulfill his purpose, he had to know his purpose, while everything around him provided the circumstances with which he was uniquely suited to achieve that purpose.

The same is true with us, but on a microcosmic level. We all have a world and a reality of our own in which we have to take the center stage, with all of the implications that it had for Adam. And it’s only in our world that we have direction, purpose, and real sense of being.

But when we stray into someone else’s world, when we try to be someone else, or when we look over the rainbow for fulfillment instead of searching our own backyard, we lose access to our personal road to greatness. When we assume the mission of others as our own, our very core resists and rebels and, instead of being positive, purposeful, and productive, we end up being sarcastic, negative, and outright destructive. And that’s when we are at risk of unraveling.

The blasphemer left his world and pitched his tent in another, and the existential struggle that followed ultimately led him to lose his footing to the point that he tried to pull everything down with him, including Hashem.

This story is an urgent call for us to stay within our respective worlds. It encourages us to give our children and ourselves the license to live a natural life in which we stay true to our individual calling, and that we resist the superficial shackles of conformity that alienate us from our core interests, abilities, and personality. Ultimately when we find and know our place, when we are comfortable within our own worlds, we gain access to a road to greatness that is paved especially for us. That’s how we become the people we were designed to be.

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