Time to Get in Touch with Ourselves

According to Professor Weintraub, the full-blown concept of individuality is found for the first time only in the autobiography of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), generally considered the greatest writer in the German language, for only in that work do we find for the first time an awareness that had the author been born 25 years earlier or later, or in a different place, he would have been a completely different person. In other words, the totality of the circumstances of his life helped make him the unique individual that he was.

LONG BEFORE GOETHE, the concept of individuality — the idea that each person has a quality of character that distinguishes him or her from every other person ever born or who will ever be born — is found throughout Torah and in divrei Chazal. The distinct nature of each person and his or her unique mission in Hashem’s plan, and the consequences that flow from those facts, constitute the subject of Nurture Their Nature by Rabbis Yosef Lynn and Jack Cohen, based on the shiurim of Rabbi Beryl Gershenfeld. That work, writes Rav Aharon Feldman, Rosh Yeshivas Ner Yisroel, in his haskamah, brings a “breathtaking array of writings by Jewish sages and startling insight into their teachings [on the topic] of self-knowledge as the key to reaching each individual’s potential.” (See “Rediscovering Torah Individuality,” Issue 874). And Rav Ahron Lopiansky begins his new work Ben Yeshivah: Pathway of Aliyah with an extensive discussion of Torah sources on individuality.

Chazal noted that every coin stamped in the same press is identical. Yet every human being, despite each one being stamped b’tzelem Elokim — in the image of G-d — is different both externally and in his essential nature, i.e., partzufeihem v’dei’oseihem shonim.

Both the Maharal and the Vilna Gaon describe one of the basic three tasks of man in this world as self-completion, the discovery and development of his essential self. The very first nevuah given to Avraham Avinu — and thus the beginning of the saga of the Jewish People — begins, “lech lecha — journey to yourself,” for your own benefit.