In many languages, we conflate the terms right and straight. Intuitively, this makes sense: if you are trying to get somewhere the quickest way is to go straight there. And yet, my mind wandered onto a memory of a few weeks ago when my wife and I were at Keystone. Shortly after departing the summit, we got separated: she took the fun and open blue run on the left that we’d planned to take, and I, the getting-too-old for this snowboarder ever subject to the whims of the slopes, took the black run on the right. I signalled that I’d weave back through the trees to join her, one of my favorite ways to push myself these days, but as I slogged through moguls and cut ever to the left, I couldn’t find a way back: all paths to her were up. After several minutes, I was in the thick of the woods by myself, wondering if I’d made the wrong decision when I didn’t unstrap and lumber my way back to the right run, but after several more grueling minutes, a few falls, one I’m-gonna-need-a-new-wax-job scrape, and a snack break to rescue my dropping blood sugar, I could finally see the lift in the distance, but the path there was once again: up. Luckily, I spotted a path to there that was down-ish, checked in with my wife to let her know I’d join her soon and headed down the “Coyote Caper”. Downish meant I needed to keep momentum, and when I missed a turn, I strayed off the crazy path and into a flat open field just down the slope. Admitting defeat, I unstrapped and took my first step directly towards the lift, and promptly sank in 3 feet. Troubleshooting, I popped my board on top to spread the pressure, crawled out, and pulled myself forward, towards the lift, the least graceful commando. After 5 minutes, I checked in with my wife again to tell her it would be a bit longer, and then after several more minutes, I scooted forward only to find a stream blocking my path. Finaly, after re-admitting defeat, I crawled back the whole distance to the downish path once again.

While Rabbi Yehudah was doubtless not thinking of my situation, I find his advice questionable. Each time I took the path that was admirable to me, the fun one that would also bring me back to my wife, admirable in the eyes of others, for are you not impressed by a nearly 40 year old man who can still go off-road?, and the straight path, back to the lift, but each time the decision turned out to be the apparently wrong one. When we make our decisions to choose this path or that, we are not always privy to the knowledge of where the path leads. We all knew college would lead to a successful career, but we millennials didn’t know that the economy would collapse, twice, during critical growth phases of our working years. Our books, vinyl, tapes, CDs, VHSes, and DVDs, all made since to ourselves, and to our peers, to organize, collate, and lug from home to home, protecting in their sleeves and preserving their booklets, all to be replaced in 10 short years by a device that contains all of them and all of everyone else, more content than we could ever consume. But is it fair to judge our decisions based on the outcomes or the intent? Do we side with Mills or Kant? Judaism has historically focused on outcomes, while Christianity on intent, and yet the phrase ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions” lingers nearby.

Most commentators have interpreted this misnah as a call to moderation; advice to find the middle ground between what is advantageous for you and advantageous to others, echoing Hillel’s maxims from a few weeks ago. However, the question here relates to choice of the straight path, not the balance of self and other in one’s actions. When the wisdom of our Sages proves challenging to accept, I tend to try to flip it around to look at the other side, perhaps rephrasing this as “Choose not the One that is dis-admirable in your eyes, and dis-admirable in the eyes of others.”; but who would do such a thing? I wonder where is the wisdom here, or did Rabbi’s followers just not have his same skill for capturing important sayings and garbled one of his own? I do see one path out of this, though it may not be the most straightforward at first blush. In revisiting the narrative of our choices, we can see them as wrong or right for the time, the intent, the outcome, but we have the luxury of controlling at least part of the narrative. If I’d stayed on the blue run with my wife, I wouldn’t have discovered my limits. The chaotic, exhausting, winding path turned out to be the one that led me straight to my humility. While we never know the future, we can frame the journey to be the right one. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

– Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

Rabbi said: which is the straight path that a man should choose for himself? One which is an honor to the person adopting it, and [on account of which] honor [accrues] to him from others.

Open Mishnah

Rabbi spricht: Welches ist die rechte Handlungsweise, die sich der Mensch auswählen soll? Diejenige, welche zur Ehre gereicht dem, der sie befolgt, und ihm Ehre bringt vor den Menschen.

Mischnajot mit deutscher Übersetzung und Erklärung. Berlin 1887-1933 [de]
Source: talmud.de
Digitization: Sefaria License: [missing]

RABBI SAGTE: WELCHES IST DER RECHTE WEG, DEN SICH DER MENSCH WÄHLE? DER ZUR EHRE GEREICHT DEM, DER HIN EINSCHLÄGT, UND IHM ACHTUNG BRINGT BEI DEN MENSCHEN.

Talmud Bavli. Lazarus Goldschmidt. 1929 [de]
Source: nli.org.il
Digitization: Sefaria License: Public Domain

Rabbi disait: «Quel est donc le droit chemin que l’homme doit se choisir? Toute ligne de conduite qu’il considèrera comme honorable tant pour celui qui l’applique que pour les autres hommes.

Rabí dice: ¿cuál es la senda correcta que debe elegir el hombre? Aquella que lo dignifica frente a sí mismo y frente a sus semejantes.

Rabi [Yehuda haNasi ] disse: Qual é o caminho certo que uma pessoa deve escolher para si mesmo? Qualquer que seja o caminho que seja [louvável] para a pessoa que o adotou, e louvável para ele de [outros] povos.