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The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.

Nitzavim-Vayeilech
Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30

The movie “Whiplash” shows both the appeal and the disastrous consequences of being too hard on yourself. 

The 2014 film tells the story of Andrew Neiman, a young and ambitious jazz drummer who enters an elite music school in New York City. In this school, Andrew begins to look up to his instructor, who is played brilliantly by J.K. Simmons.

Andrew becomes enamored with his teacher’s ruthless approach to making his students excel. The young jazz drummer gets so caught up in the allure of greatness and impressing his teacher that he practices for hours and hours every day. He plays the drums until his hands bleed. He breaks up with his girlfriend so he can spend all his time practicing. He becomes myopically focused on drumming.

I won’t spoil the end of the movie, but Andrew’s obsession with greatness and the abusive pressure his teacher puts on him eventually reach a breaking point.

The movie does a fabulous job exploring both the allure of putting a lot of pressure on yourself and the self-destruction that can come from this.

Sometimes it’s natural to push yourself as hard as you can go. I know the appeal of this firsthand. I had a basketball coach in high school who put a lot of pressure on us as his players. I never became very good at basketball, but this coach had a big influence on me. He relentlessly asked more from us, and I translated the pressure he put on us to other parts of my life.

Many of us at various points in our lives put this type of pressure on ourselves when we’re trying to achieve greatness in some way.

This type of pressure exists in many forms. For example, when we have a lot of time on our hands, we can beat ourselves up over not getting more done. Whether we’re retired, in school or trying to do something really well, we all sometimes gravitate toward being overly harsh with ourselves.

Our Torah portion this week Nitzavim-Vayeilech can help us think through this problem of when and how to put pressure on ourselves.

This week we read one of the most memorable lines in the Hebrew Bible. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day,” Deuteronomy 30:19 tells us. “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life.”

As I reread this passage this year, I was especially struck by what surrounds it: the description of how to choose life. The Torah tells us in the very next verse that we can choose life “by loving your God Adonai, heeding God’s commands, and holding fast to [God].” According to the Torah, we fulfill our purpose, we “choose life,” by living Jewishly.

In the Jewish tradition, we do not strive to arrive at a final resting place of spiritual achievement. Instead, we are traditionally called to halachah, which we translate as “Jewish law” but literally means “the path” or “the going.” The idea here is that living asks of us a continuous correction, that life is a never-ending balancing act.

Of course, elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, God puts pressure on the people Israel. For example, in our portion, God rebukes the Israelites. For example in Deuteronomy 29:19, God threatens to punish the people should they engage in idolatry: “Adonai’s anger and passion will rage against them, till every sanction recorded in this book comes down upon them, and Adonai blots out their name from under heaven.”

The problem is that as the movie “Whiplash” and the subsequent turmoil in the Bible indicate, this extreme amount of pressure almost always leads to some sort of breaking point.

It seems then that we should strive to motivate ourselves, but to retain a certain amount of gentleness. Despite how some observe halachah in a harsh manner, one can actually see a quality of patience inherent in halachah. Unlike other religious practices that aspire to arrive at a final resting point, with halachah we accept that we will always be on a path of aspiring to do the best we can.

Similarly, in various forms of meditation, one learns that when one’s mind wonders, it makes sense to gently bring oneself back to focus. With the types of meditation I’ve tried, I’ve found that if I expend harsh energy trying to get my mind to refocus, that harshness then creates another reaction from which I have to recover.

It’s the same with the type of pressure exerted by God in this parashah and by Simmons’ character in “Whiplash.” A biting, negative energy is ultimately unhealthy and unstable.

It’s important to acknowledge the appeal of being hard on yourself. Whether you’re striving to improve your drumming, trying to be a better parent, aspiring to some kind of greatness, seeking to live out the best retirement, trying to excel at work, or if you happen to be God cajoling the people Israel, it makes sense to push ourselves sometimes.

But if we’re not careful, intense negativity can become unsustainable and destructive. Instead, we should appreciate that we are engaged in ongoing journeys. We are each on paths that require us to motivate ourselves — and also to show ourselves compassion.