We are made up of many parts. Some of us are ‘big picture’ people and some of us are ‘detail people’. Whichever category we fit into, the other can present challenges for us. We struggle either with how to assimilate the big picture or how to deal with the small details in a situation.
We were given a simple but impactful exhortation at Rabbinical School. Of course some rabbis are at home swimming in the minutiae of texts, data, law and historical fact, some rabbis are more at home in the great vortex of visionary thinking; but the teaching is applicable to all walks of life.
You may be planning some great program, we were told, and be filled with passion about the impact it will make in your community or in the world. Someone from left field will approach you days before the event and ask: “How many cookies will be needed for that program?” And it will infuriate you 🔥🔥.
You will think: “I’m teaching great ideas and they want to know about cookies?!?”
And here was the warning:
“The cookie counter may be the most important person in your organization! If people come to your ‘big idea lecture’, and there aren’t enough cookies … you may have no return audience for session number two.”
The people who keep track of how many cookies and forks are needed, and what time the tables need to be set are the people who keep programs running – thereby allowing for the sharing of those precious big ideas.
In the details of the big picture, we are all needed. We form a team and a partnership. It is that way everywhere..
We create sacredness through the use of bits, routines and data. We create sacredness startling concepts and new perspectives as well.
Blessings both large and small to us all this Shabbat,
Rabbi Mark Biller