The Ultimate Selfie: Judging Oneself (Shoftim 5776)

Think for a moment about the screen image you see looking at your smiling face about to snap a selfie. Now compare that first, screen image to the actual photo that gets stored when you snap the selfie. Both are you; but they are not exactly the same!

The first screen image is reversed in the saved photo image. The first image is just like looking at yourself in the mirror. The saved image is the reverse. The first image is the one we know best; it is the most familiar to us. We've been looking at it for years. 

But other people see us in reverse. They see, in effect, the saved photo image. We see the mirror image; we've conditioned ourselves to see it whenever we brushed our teeth or adjusted ourselves in front of a mirror. 

Free Throws or Free Will: "See I Am Putting a Choice Before You Today" (Re'eh 5776)

At the start of a school year there are lots of promises about trying harder to do the ‘right’ things or to make better choices. As schools are so filled with learning that we sometimes confuse what it takes to do the right thing or make better choices. We sometimes think that learning will move us to make the right choice. But, for most of us, that’s not true. We already know right from wrong; we already know which choice is better for us. The challenge lies somewhere else.

The extraordinary career of one of my childhood basketball heroes, Wilt Chamberlain, illustrates this. I am grateful a Malcolm Gladwell podcast about him reminded me of this. If Wilt were still alive he would have turned 80 years old this month. He was extraordinary. Although he retired from the NBA in 1973, he still holds more NBA records than any other player - ever.

Wilt was a prolific scorer. He accumulated 34,419 points in 14 NBA seasons at a time when there were no three-point shots. By way of comparison, Steph Curry has played 7 NBA seasons and accumulated 11,089 points. At Curry's pace, if he played as many seasons as Wilt, Curry would fall short of Wilt by about 9,000 points.

But Wilt’s free throw percentage was dreadful.