An Award-Winning Journalist
Last year, I learned about a series of awards given out to journalists who write for Jewish publications. I had a bit of a Yetzer Hara to be able to call myself, “award-winning,” as if I was a fine wine or amazing invention. Surely, if you heard that the person who authored this column was award-winning, you would be more prone to listen to what I had to say. If others have already given me their approbation, you don’t have to decide for yourself if you like what I have to say. If you don’t, the problem is clearly with you, since I am an award-winning journalist!
To that end, I joined the association which gives out the awards. Then, when the time came for the competition, I submitted several entries. I was hesitant at one point, since each entry cost money (that’s how they keep the association running, I’m sure, plus they might give the judges some stipend for their time) but then I decided it was a worthwhile investment. Not because I thought the odds were in my favor, but because I knew the judges would be obligated to read the Torah I wrote. [Yes, I consider these columns to be Torah, as they are intended to help us live as Hashem intends.]
I spoke to one of the officers of the association who mentioned that he’d been submitting for years, and only won one time, getting an honorable mention. I wasn’t ready to invest a huge amount of time in researching past winners and trying to emulate them, because I am who I am and I didn’t want to put in so much effort for what I knew to truthfully be more important to my ego than to anything else.
I Won! Or did I…?
Well, as time went on, I finally heard from the association that I had won an award! They didn’t tell me exactly what it was, because that would be announced at their conference. I was unable to attend, but when the list came out, I quickly searched and found I’d received an award for Excellence in Personal Essay. I didn’t get First Place, and I didn’t get Second Place. I got an Honorable Mention.
At first, I was disappointed, but then I realized what that really meant, and it gave me the idea for this column. When it comes down to it, what’s the point of winning an award? It isn’t so much about the award, nor about the bragging rights. It’s about the statement being made when an award is presented.
Certainly, people will be proud of what they produce. They will want other people to recognize the genius of whatever it is they’ve done, from a piece of art, to a finely-tuned machine or thriving agricultural success, to a clever understanding in Torah. Even a well-written and delivered joke is a piece of art in its own right, and we enjoy when others see the greatness that we see.
Honorable Mention – The True Winner
I thought about winning First Place. It means that I’m competing with others, and in a field of battle, I’ve won. I’m better than the rest. To be honest, it doesn’t mean I was any good. It just means that relatively speaking, it was the best of what was out there. Second Place is even worse, because not only is it relative, but it wasn’t even the pinnacle of achievement! But Honorable Mention? Now that’s a different story.
Winning an award of this type means the judges have read through the entries and feel this piece deserves special attention. It’s not viewed in a field of other competitors, per se. Rather, the message is: “This is something worthwhile; a job well done.” It is a compliment to the author or artist irrespective of what others can do. It is an affirmation of what he or she has done.
We Can All Deserve An Honorable Mention
In life, we often compete and compare our success with others, but when it comes down to it, we’re really only competing with ourselves. Hashem has imbued each of us with special skills, talents, thought processes, and abilities. The question is what we do with them. We don’t have to compare ourselves to anyone else because they weren’t given the same tools we were. We need to ask ourselves if what we’re doing is worth mentioning, and representative of our putting in a good effort with what we’ve been given.
So much strife has been caused in the world by people competing with each other and trying to keep up, or even keep others down. When we’re focused on the relative success, our friends can become enemies, and sinas chinam – baseless dislike – can blossom. No one is a barrier to our success but ourselves, and if we remember that, we’ll be less likely to hate others and want to see them fail. Their success doesn’t come at the cost of ours, because we’re not being judged relatively, but rather on our own merits.
If we remember this, we will be more focused on maximizing our own abilities and strengths, and less focused on how those around us are doing. Not only that, but we’ll be able to appreciate and compliment others for their efforts, too. We’ll then be awarded for our own achievements, without feeling we need to outshine others. In that way, we’ll all become – honorable menschen.
By Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz
Rabbi Gewirtz (Operation Inspiration) welcomes comments and feedback. Write to him at info@JewishSpeechWriter.com to share your thoughts. You never know when you may be the lamp that enlightens someone else.
