The Wrong Door

Why is the world so different from how it really should be? Why does a key fit into the door instead of the door fitting into the key?

R’ Biderman gives a parable about an ox that saw a bird flying and decided it wanted to fly as well. It walked to a cliff, jumped off, and began waving and kicking its legs with all its might. It mimicked the bird exactly. But no matter how hard it tried, it still fell painfully to the ground.

A second ox witnessed what happened and understood something different. Although it did not have wings, it did have horns. It looked at the effort the bird used to flap its wings and applied that same effort to its own strength, to what it was actually built to do.

We often try to fit the keys that Hashem gave us into the wrong doors and then wonder why we are not seeing success.

Maybe nothing is wrong with the key.

Maybe we are just trying to open the wrong doors.