Just Do It!

If you’d like your week to include regular exercise or workout time, don’t sit around making spreadsheets; just do it. If you want your days to start with prayer or meditation, don’t write out proclamations; just do it. If you’d like to learn to read financial statements, don’t explore articles about how important it is; just do it. Anything that you’d like to bake into your personality, habits, or lifestyle, will more quickly and easily become part of you if you just do it.

In other words, thoughts, intentions, or contemplations will have little lasting impact, whereas actions do a great deal. Actions actually change our mental and spiritual makeup. The habitual smoker who undertakes the significant action of stopping often becomes an anti-smoking activist. That life changing action transformed his being into someone who is not only a non-smoker but into someone who cannot tolerate the idea of anyone harming himself by smoking.

The individual who diligently works on himself to control his temper and end his angry outbursts eventually becomes, not only a calmer person, but someone who is extraordinarily sensitive to anger in others.

Scripture informs us of this little understood quirk of human nature.

You shall not see your brother’s ox or sheep wandering astray and hide yourself from them; you must return them to your brother. (Deut. 22:1)

And if your brother is not close to you and you do not know him, you shall gather [the lost property] into your home and it shall remain with you until your brother requests it and then you shall return it. (Deut. 22:2)

And you shall do the same with his donkey and with his garment and so too shall you do with any property that your brother loses and you find, you will not be able to hide yourself. (Deut. 22:3)

What a gloriously loving framework for civilized life is described in these three verses. Just imagine: My workday is over, and I am on my way to the pub for a beer and a sandwich before going home. All of a sudden, I spot animals belonging to someone in the village and my entire plan for a relaxing evening is upended. No more pub; instead, I must round up the goats and get them back to their owner. And if I don’t recognize to whom they belong, I must take them to my home where I must feed and care for them until their owner hears that I have his lost goats. When he knocks on my door to inquire about his livestock, he gets his goats back. (I do get reimbursed for any costs I incurred in caring for those pesky goats.)

But wait! There appears to be a redundant repetition in the verses. Verse 1 instructs me that I may not ignore the goats and just proceed indifferently to my pub. Having seen the lost animals, I am automatically obligated. Then in verse 3 we see apparently the same phrase.

The beautiful but not always accurate King James Bible translates the key words in both verse 1 and verse 3, “you may not hide yourself.”

However, the actual words in Hebrew, the Lord’s language, are a little different. Verse 3 does not contain a repetition of the admonition in verse 1, “you shall not hide yourself (and pretend that you did not see the missing animals or items).” Instead, verse 3 enlightens us with the astonishing information that after taking care of our brother’s property on his behalf, we’ll not be capable of acting indifferently toward his interests. The very act of caring for our friend’s property described in verse 1 brings about a change in our makeup ensuring that never again will we even be capable of ignoring our neighbor’s problem.

The Hebrew word A-L–M translated by the King James Bible as “hide” literally means vanish. It is closely related to the word O-L-M meaning universe, that is to say infinite space, and forever, which is to say infinite time. Here, the Torah is hinting at an easy to miss point. It is warning us that occasionally we can ignore the important things of life right in front of our eyes by withdrawing towards remote and mighty matters.

I can’t get down on the floor to play building blocks with my child because I must contemplate the economic implications of a recent Trump tariff. I can’t tell my wife how much I appreciate her because I am writing an eagerly awaited and earth-shattering article on the decline of marriage. I can’t take care of the property my friend lost because I am too busy with really important things like, well, I guess, going to the pub. Or I can follow the Torah’s advice and just do what I am supposed to do.

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