What does “lo bashamayim hi,” it is not in heaven, teach about taking responsibility?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches that the Torah’s words “lo bashamayim hi,” it is not in heaven, apply to your own situation: “It’s right here, close to you, yours to do.” What you need was never out there and never waiting on luck; it is “always close enough to touch.”
Most people put the answer somewhere else. The economy, the boss, a bad break: each excuse hands the steering wheel to someone else, and “if you didn’t cause it, you can’t fix it.”
So, he says, “touch it. Stop waiting on heaven. It’s always in your hand.”
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In A Soul at Peace: It Is Not in Heaven
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
“It is not in heaven”: what you need to change is close to you and yours to do.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
Blaming outside forces puts the solution out of reach.
What may be behind it
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that blaming the system or the circumstances is a way of putting the solution “in heaven,” which is exactly what the verse rejects.
Deepest human truth
In A Soul at Peace he writes that saying “I am the reason” is not a moment of shame but of freedom: you take back the steering wheel.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Wealth, Work, and Divine Sustenance · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz