A scorpion was once looking to cross a river and asked a frog to give it a ride on its back as it swam across the river. The frog was hesitant as after all the scorpion may decide to sting the frog and the frog could die. The scorpion sensing the hesitancy of the frog said don't worry I need to get across the river and I won't sting you. The frog agrees and the scorpion jumps on the frogs back and off they go across the river.
For a while all seemed to be going well, but suddenly the frog felt a sharp jab and sting in its back and realized that the scorpion had just given it a sting. Within seconds the frog feels its strength begin to drain and it stops swimming and they both begin to drown. With its last strength the frog turns to the scorpion and says "but you told me that you won't sting me". The scorpion which is also losing its strength as it drowns, responds "sorry, but that who is I am, and I can't change my character".
In this week's portion, we read about the very first Jews, Abraham and Sarah. In the first major conversation that is recorded between G-d and Abraham, the very first thing that G-d tells Abraham is "leave your land, your parent's home and your birthplace and go to the land that I will show you". On the literal level this was an instruction for Abraham to leave Mesopotamia and to go and live in the Land of Israel.
Chassidic teachings explain that on a deeper level, G-d was telling him that in order to grow and develop and become the person and ultimately the nation that G-d wants him to become, first and foremost he must be willing to move beyond himself. In other words, until that point Abraham had been a good person, but in order to take his relationship with G-d and in turn his mission and purpose to its fullest, he would need to move beyond his emotional, logical and intellectual comfort zone and be willing to move into a new space and sphere.
Iudaism tells us that life is about growth and developing and refining oneself and in the process having a similar impact on the world around us. In order to succeed at that, we need to learn to move beyond our comfort zone that may sometimes stifle our growth and inhibit our ability to live up to our full potential, or sometimes even be negatively impacting ourselves by being stuck in our ways.
As humans it is only normal to have a few weaknesses, flaws, or things which we get stuck in and perhaps detract from our life purpose. But in the very first conversation with Abraham, G-d sets the tone of what defines a Jew, and that is, not being stuck in the past or the character that we may have become. Rather it is all about growth and development of oneself and learning to refine, improve, and upgrade the character that we have been endowed with. By doing so, not only we will not shoot ourselves in the hip, but instead we will refine the world around us as we beautify our own lives.
Good Shabbos
Yisroel