Great Blue Heron : One Bite at a Time
This is a Great Blue Heron. He’s had a successful morning finding breakfast. Maybe. This huge fish could unquestionably provide a full meal, but it may actually be too much of a good thing. It’s certainly the largest fish I’d ever seen taken by a heron. I watched him for quite a while. He’d try to swallow the fish - whole of course - but find it misaligned. So he’d drop it. Then he’d spear it. Then he’d drop it. Then he’d try to align it again. This went on and on and on. I will confess to being utterly mesmerized, wondering if birds know their own limits, or could their eyes be bigger than their bellies? For a bird that weighs just 5-6 pounds, swallowing this carp was a serious commitment!
Rabbi Tarfon, a Temple-era Sage, teaches a lesson about study and active devotion. He says, “You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” Tarfon was a scholar and a famously charitable and generous man. He lived his life predicated on compassion and used his enormous talents and capabilities in the service of others’ needs. His ancient aphorism, still so relevant, clarifies that the perfected world is not one we must achieve, but a path towards a perfect world is absolutely one which we must travel. He recognized perfection is a daunting goal but insists it’s one we must embrace, even knowing full well we may make only incremental progress - or even reveal our own insufficiencies.
Rabbi Tarfon taught in Temple times, two millennia ago. Has “the work” been completed since then? Hardly. Today’s leaders must be cognizant of the global challenges we face, both material and spiritual. “The work” is a vastly larger enterprise than in Tarfon’s era. And that is as it should be. From parenting and education to global climate and human rights, we face the most challenging spectrum in human history. The reminder we need is that completion is an incremental process, that perfection comes in fits and starts, and that it is our Divinely-inspired nature to progress day-by-day. The Heron ultimately - astonishingly! - swallowed the entire fish. Rabbi Tarfon reminds us leaders of our potential and responsibilities.
[Don’t believe me??? Watch the slow motion video here.]