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Thought for the Day: Stretch Goals Are Great, as Long as You Understand the Goal

It is sort of a joke, but it's a frightening reality for many people: Whoever dies with the most toys wins! Substitute pretty much anything for "toys" and you have the same problem. Here's a good one: Whoever dies with the most "dahf gemara"s wins! How about, "Whoever has the longest seder wins!"? I have a whole TftD on keeping priorities straight.

What do Chazal say about it? There is a machlokes between R' Meir and R' Yehuda (Nedarim 9b) regarding how to read a verse in Koheles (5:4)
ט֖וֹב אֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹֽא־תִדֹּ֑ר מִשֶּׁתִּדּ֖וֹר וְלֹ֥א תְשַׁלֵּֽם/It is better not to make a pledge, than to pledge and not pay.

The basic issue is that this seems too obvious to mean what is says. This verse comes on the heels of a verse that warns us not to delay making good on our vows. R' Meir reads this as: "If you do make a pledge, then you need to pay; but it is better not to make that pledge in the first place, as you may come to not pay it." R' Yehidah reads this as, "Pledges are good, as long as you pay, but not paying a pledge is worse than not making a pledge at all." The Ran explains that you might think that making a pledge is always good; even if I fail to pay, at least I tried. R' Yehuda says that is a case of "there is no try, only do."

But it gets worse. The gemara (same daf) records that Shimon HaTzadik, would (generally, with one notable exception, see the gemara there) not eat the guilt offering brought by a nazir because he considered it to be a non-consecrated animal brought for an offering. Bringing such an animal into the sanctuary is punishable by spiritual excision! The Ran explains that many young men would take the vow of a nazir, then regret how many restrictions he had for so long. It wasn't really a non-consecrated animal, but Shimon HaTzadik treated it that way because the nazir was just going through the motions to check off another box on his "things I have to do so people will think I am a tzadik."

The goal in everything is to align our priorities with the Creator of the world. Since He created us, that's not a stretch goal at all. Our deviation from that focus is ultimately the source of our feelings that we are just not getting what we want out of life, that feeling of non-specific, "I want/need more."

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