Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are the founders of Instagram, which is one of the leading social media platforms today. It wasn’t Instagram that they set out to create. At first, they created “Burbn”, a platform that had many more functions and features. It was somewhat successful, and they worked hard at refining it and being better than their competitors. At some point they realized that the one particular feature that people were most interested in was photo sharing. Instead of further building the original idea, they dropped everything and focused only on photo sharing and that was when Instagram came to be. A few years later Facebook bought it for 1 billion dollars.

This story is a popular one in the tech world. It also has profound lessons for everyday life. We all have goals and we do many actions to achieve them. Most of what we do to achieve the goals can have different results, either to bring us nearer to the goal or farther. We have control on our actions, but we don’t have control on the results. 

Judaism teaches that if one does their best, the blessings will come forth either directly from their actions or from unexpected places. Sometimes we put our efforts in one area and then the success comes from somewhere totally unexpected. Our efforts create a vessel for the blessing to occur, but how it actually happens is not connected with our actions. This is basically what happened with Instagram, they put the efforts in one area, but the blessing came from somewhere else.

The upcoming Jewish Holiday of Purim (which this year begins on March 6 evening till March 7 evening) teaches us a similar lesson. Purim is Hebrew for “lots”. Haman cast lots to choose a date to kill every Jew in the Persian kingdom. The lot was overturned and whatever he did to advance his goal only brought the opposite and salvation came to the Jewish People.

The story of Purim, which is in the biblical book of Esther, is a fascinating one. Even if someone read it in the past, rereading a biblical story can give entirely new perspectives. Unlike the story of the Exodus, the story of Purim is without any other-worldly miracles. When the story transpired, every individual event seemed insignificant but when it’s all brought together it’s very clear that there is a Higher hand guiding it throughout. Whatever Haman did to promote himself and advance his agenda of genocide, really brought his own downfall. 

When we move in a positive direction, everything we do creates a space and a vessel to allow success to happen, and then it can happen in various ways.

There are two ends to the spectrum. One is a world that is totally by chance, the other is a world of judgement, in which every result is exactly according to one’s actions for good and for bad. Both are worlds that are impossible to live in. The Torah teaches the middle way, there are results to one’s actions, but it can come from unexpected areas guided by Divine Providence. Good deeds and good will end up bringing good results even if the effects are not directly tied to the cause. 

Rabbi Sacks puts it as follows “Faith is the defeat of probability by the power of possibility.”

Let me know your thoughts…

Email me: moshe@mosheunger.com