None Can Escape Grief

Before we start, please read this, by the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.

I read it a few weeks ago, on the Shabbos of the applicable parsha, and I found it hit so many important points. 

As someone who has personally experienced the grief of losing a loved one SIX YEARS ago, I'm still unprepared for the welter of emotions I continue to experience. My next door neighbor has been motherless for seven years; we just understand each other. Grief has its own unspoken language. 

Rabbi Sacks provides a simple yet brilliant explanation for why Moshe hit the rock: He was grieving for his sister, who had been like a mother to him. 

MIND BLOWN. 

What continues from this idea is that even the greatest of our ancestors were HUMAN. The same humanity we experience, so did they. They loved. They lost. Then they became lost themselves. 

The education system they I went through, which emphasized the vast difference in madreiga between ourselves and our forebears, did me a disservice, I believe. We do know that they didn't always have the answers. They didn't always do the right thing. They were often torn between their hearts and their faith. 

They were not angels. The Torah was not given to angels, but to stumbling humans. Mistakes are a part of being human. We just have to go forward knowing and doing better. 

Then: 

What the parsha is telling us is that for each of us there is a Jordan we will not cross, a promised land we will not enter. “It is not for you to complete the task.”

What I took from this was: We each have our own task. It's not necessarily the same as someone else. Some of us have feelings of inadequacy, because they are incapable, for a myriad of reasons, of doing what another can with seeming ease. That is because we each have our OWN task. 

What @iwassupposedtohaveababy took it a step farther. 

In response, God has [Moshe] take a step back. Moshe is told he shouldn't be the one to lead the people into Israel. God knows that Moshe is about to lose another sibling and God understand that Moshe will need the coming time to grieve his losses. 

Although it may feel that Moshe is being punished for expressing his pain, this moment is more like a mentor telling you, "Hey, I see you have needs that aren't being met. It's time to take a break." 

It's okay that you're not okay. 

Moshe bore a lot in his life, and perhaps he reached a point when it became too much. Hashem then said, "It's okay. You're just one man, who did more in his life than ten men combined. Someone else can continue your work." 

I have my limitations, and I try to recognize them. I have a set time every night when I cease my labors. If I'm not feeling okay, I allow myself to rest when possible, even if I "should be" doing something else. Because I am only human, I'm not a machine, and I need to recognize when I'm at my breaking point.

We are all—ALL—too human.