THE ART OF NEVER GIVING UP ON YOURSELF
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THE ART OF NEVER GIVING UP ON YOURSELF
If you ever felt disqualified, or wanted to give up on yourself, this article is for you. Sometimes we feel that we don’t have the rights to speak up, make a difference in the world, because of something we may have done. But your past does not decide your future.
Yehoshua bin Nun once sought to silence the spies who slandered the Land of Israel. But they mocked him and said, “Shall this man, whose head severed, speak?” (Sotah 35a).
What did they mean by this? There are different explanations for this.
The son of the Vilna Gaon explains this with a mind blowing Midrash, that some believe is controversial. Still, the Vilna Gaon’s son, brought it down, Megaleh Amukot brings it, and so does Rabbenu Nissim Gaon. Here it is.
Yehoshua’s father was a righteous man. He and his wife had no children. He prayed passionately for a child, and at last, Hashem answered his prayers.
Yehoshua’s mother noticed that although she had become pregnant, her husband was still not happy. He was crying and fasting even more than before. Overwhelmed by his constant sorrow, she turned to him and said, “You should rejoice! Hashem has heard your prayers! We are going to have a baby!” But still, he remained troubled. Pressed daily by her concern, he eventually revealed the reason for his sadness: a message had come to him from Heaven—the boy who will be born to you is destined to behead you.
His wife believed him, for she knew her husband was on a great spiritual level. When the child was born, and it was indeed a boy, she quietly made a small box, coated it, placed the infant inside, and set him afloat upon the Nile.
One day, Pharaoh held a grand feast for all his ministers. Among the royal delicacies brought to the table was a very big fish. When it was cut open before the king, to everyone’s astonishment, a crying baby was found inside. Struck by the wonder, Pharaoh adopted the child and raised him within the palace. In time, the boy grew and was appointed Chief Executioner.
Years later, Yehoshua’s father fell into disfavor with Pharaoh. The king ordered the executioner to behead him and seize his wife, children, and possessions, as was the cruel custom of the time. After beheading his own father, Yehoshua met his mother, who revealed to him the truth of his origins: how she had cast him into the river to save him, and how the big fish at the banquet had swallowed him. He believed her—he remembered being told that he had been found at a banquet inside a fish. Though he had not known until that moment that the man he beheaded was his own father, he was overcome with remorse and did teshuvah. From that time on, he was called “Yehoshua bin Nun“, because in Aramaic, the word Nun means fish.
And so, when Yehoshua stood to protest the spies and defend the honor of the Land, they mocked him, saying, “Shall the one who beheads, speak?”—as if to say: A man whose hands are stained with his father’s blood should not offer us moral rebuke.
Even if people mock you, reject you, or say, “Who are you to talk?”—talk anyway. Because the people who’ve been to rock bottom often speak with the most truth. The people with the darkest pasts often carry the brightest torches. You’re much more than your worst moment.
Never, ever, give up on yourself, because the world needs your voice. Yehoshua became the faithful student of Moshe Rabbeinu, and all the Torah of Moshe, we received through Yehoshua. He was the one chosen to bring us into Eretz Yisrael.
How did Yehoshua become so great, if he started from so low?
Yehoshua stuck to Moshe Rabbeinu like glue. He refused to leave the tent, even when nothing exciting was happening. He chose to stay near greatness—until he absorbed it. Because the most important question in your life isn’t: What you do. How you do it. When you do it. Or even why you do it.
The most important question is: Who are you doing it with?
The person you will be is not the person you were. The person you will be is shaped by who you choose to be around.
The art of never giving up on yourself is choosing to believe that Hashem hasn’t given up on you either.
