Success has many fathers

There are few things we are better at than explaining our own success. 

We tell ourselves that we worked harder than everyone else, made wiser decisions, took risks others were afraid to take, saw opportunities that everyone else missed. 

There is usually some truth in all of that. Effort matters. Judgement matters. Discipline matters. But if that were the whole story, the world would look very different. 

The hardest-working person many of us know is probably not the wealthiest. Our gardener works harder than we do. The woman who cleans offices before dawn works harder than we do. The man laying tar on the highway in the middle of January works harder than we do. They work until their backs ache and their hands are worn, yet they are unlikely to retire early. 

So what made the difference? 

Perhaps we were born into a family that valued education. Perhaps someone took a chance on us when we were young. Perhaps we met the right mentor at exactly the right moment. Perhaps we married into a family that opened doors we could never have opened ourselves. Perhaps we enjoyed good health while someone equally talented watched illness derail a promising career. Perhaps we were lucky to win gold in the IQ or EQ lottery. 

We like to tell the story of our success as though it is almost entirely our own doing. Life is never that simple. There is no such thing as a self-made person. 

As the Jewish people stand on the threshold of entering the Land of Israel, Moshe looks ahead to a prosperous future. Homes will be built, vineyards planted, wealth accumulated. There will be genuine achievement. People will work hard for what they have. And then comes the warning: Be careful not to say, “My strength and the power of my hand made me this wealth.” 

Notice what Moshe doesn’t say. He doesn’t deny that they worked. He doesn’t tell them that effort is meaningless. He simply refuses to let them edit Hashem out of the story. 

Perhaps that is our greatest temptation. We are all editors of our own biographies. We instinctively place ourselves at the centre of every success while quietly pushing Hashem into the acknowledgements. We remember the late nights, the difficult decisions, and the risks we took. We forget the opportunities we never created, the talents we never earned, the people who believed in us, the health that carried us, and the countless moments where things simply fell into place. It takes a village. 

The Torah asks us to tell a truer story. Work as though everything depends on us, but remember that everything we have to work with came from Hashem. Intelligence is a gift. Health is a gift. The family we were born into, the country we grew up in, the resilience to recover from setbacks, even the ability to recognise a good opportunity when it appears, are all blessings before they become achievements. 

Humility isn’t pretending we accomplished nothing. It’s remembering that every achievement is built upon gifts we could never have given ourselves. 

Thank you, Hashem!

• Rabbi Levi Avtzon, Linksfield Shul