Comparison cheats — as Rabbi Landau teaches it

By Rabbi Shalom Landau.

Rabbi Landau teaches that copying someone who succeeded feels smart until you see that their strategy was built for their strengths, their timing and their circumstances. Rabbi Landau points to David taking off the king's armor he had never tried. Learning from people is not the same as becoming them. Comparison also cheats by assembling one imaginary life out of another person's marriage, confidence and money. And wealth, he teaches, is sometimes not about having more but about having more than someone else. When that gap closes, you find out whether you wanted a better life or proof that you were better.