29 Aug KI TAVO: A TIME TO STOP AND THINK

There is a pasuk in the
Book of Yirmiyahu (8:6)
which, I believe,
encapsulates what this
month, the month of
Elul, is all
about. Yirmiyahu made the following
observation about the people in his time:
There is no one regretting his evildoing,
saying, “What have I done?!” They are all
continuing to run like a galloping horse
going out to war.
When a horseman is racing out to the
battlefield, the horse is not thinking about
anything except reaching its destination. It’s
galloping at full speed, its mind focused on
nothing else. Yirmiyahu bemoans the fact
that the people were always running,
always rushing, always hurrying to do
something, like a horse running out to
battle. And when we’re always running, we
have no time to stop and think, to ask
ourselves, “What have I done?” or “What
should I be doing?”
Many years ago, a friend of mine was
telling me about someone who, he believed,
owed him about half a million dollars’

worth of goods, and refused to pay
him. This issue consumed my friend, and
gave him no rest. He was determined to get
those half-million dollars.
I tried explaining to him that he was
already very wealthy, and this half-million
was not going to ruin him.
“Why don’t you just let it go?” I asked
him. “Wouldn’t your life be so much better
if you just forgot about it? Is this worth all
the time and emotion you’re investing in
this? Isn’t your focus and energy worthy so
much more?”
“Are you crazy?!” he replied. “You want
me to just forget about this, when somebody
is refusing to pay me the half a million
dollars he owes me? How can I do that?!”
For two years, he was entirely consumed
by this problem.
Years later, I was speaking to a friend of
his who had partnered with him in a number
of business ventures. He was telling me
about a certain very successful venture that
he embarked upon, and I asked him whether
he had partnered with that friend.

“No, I couldn’t,” he explained. “He was
too consumed with the half-million
dollars. He didn’t have the time or focus for
this venture.”
This fellow told me that his friend would
have made $50 million dollars off this
venture – which he could not get involved
in because he was too busy trying to collect
the $500,000 he thought he was owed.
This is what happens when we don’t stop
and think, when we live life like a horse
galloping to the battlefield. We become
irrational, and we involve ourselves in
things far less valuable than other things we
could be doing.
We all believe in Hashem. We all believe
that Hashem governs the world. We all
believe that He gave us the Torah. o why
do we not always follow the Torah? Because
we don’t think about this. We make
ourselves so busy with so many things –
some important, some not – that we don’t
have the time or focus to think about what
we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and
whether we’re doing the right thing.
This is true about our relationship to

Hashem, and also about our relationships to
other people. Why do so many married
couples become unhappy, even though they
love and care about each other? Because
they don’t stop and think about what the
marriage needs. They get so busy and so
involved in many different things that they
don’t focus on each other.
Elul is the time to stop and think, to stop
the “galloping,” to take time out of the
constant race, and to think about what
we’re doing. This is the first and most
important step we need to take as we
prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur, and work to make next year, and
the years after that, better, happier, and
more fulfilling.