On Goals and Means

There are goal and there are means. Never should the twain be confused. Perhaps someone opens a yeshiva or help organization. At some point he may find that his yeshiva is not needed, or his organization superfluous. Or maybe the organization is necessary, but he recognizes that someone else is more suited for the job. Is he willing to give over leadership in the organization, or close the yeshiva? Usually the answer is NO. Why not – after all, he created the organization solely because of the need for it, because a problem was not being addressed. Now that it can be addressed better through having someone else take over the organization, why not hand over the reigns?

The answer is that having the yeshiva, having the organization, having himself run it, – all of these, which originated as means to an end, – have turned into ends unto themselves. And this is so dangerous.

The Chashmonoim were glorious, fighting against Hellenism and driving out the Greeks. But they then took up the reigns of Kingship. And eventually they all became Hellenists themselves, the very same as those they had worked so hard to oppose. How could this have possibly occurred? Well, they wanted to stay in power, did they not? The price was Hellenization. The means, i.e. controlling the nation so that they could keep out the Hellenists, became an end unto itself, and so perverted things that they were ready to Hellenize in order to keep their power. (A Torah-true Jew could not justify a Kohain acting as king, only a Hellenist could).

So we learn from their example; always keep before ones self what one aims to gain by any endeavor, and don’t let the endeavor become an end unto itself.