The Intersection of Goodness And Greatness: Reflections on the Words of Rabbi Joseph Potasnick at the Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative
Article by Herb Rubenstein
Introduction
At the conclusion of the ceremony for the induction into the Hall of Fame of the Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative in 2017, Rabbi Potasnick spoke of how each of the honorees has lived a life synthesizing “goodness and greatness.” This article is dedicated to his short talk and explores this notion of the “intersection” of goodness and greatness.
The intersection of goodness and greatness has been featured in business books such books as Good Company: Business Success In the Worthiness Era, by Bassi, Frauenheim, and Costello, Conscious Capitalism by Mackey and Sisodia, and Screw Business As Usual by Sir Richard Branson. However, today, as we approach 2018, the intersection of goodness and greatness is eluding companies, nations, and even, in some cases, eluding religious organizations.
This article describes a path to finding the intersection of goodness and greatness, and recognizing it, and acknowledging it when you see it as Rabbi Potasnick did honoring the inductees into the Hall of Fame.
How Goodness and Greatness Get Started
Often, we see a baby giving a little piece of food to her or his mother, or even a stranger who is near the child. While we cannot say whether goodness is an instinct with which we are born, or a learned or socialized behavior, we can say that goodness starts with small people in small doses. I would say the baby offering someone else a morsel of food is demonstrating a “drop” of goodness.
From a drop we get to a “drip,” a repeated activity or set of behaviors. This is where children learn to listen to other children rather than bully them and where adults learn to respect other people rather than seek to dominate them, marginalize them, or “other” them. It is that this stage that discernment comes in. As drops turn to drips distinctions between good and bad are developed. Hopefully, good is rewarded and acknowledged as good, and bad is acknowledged as bad, and not rewarded and even punished by the child’s surrounding and nurturing environment.
Drips turn into trickles, a steady set of similar occurrences where the pattern becomes obvious to the doer and the observer. This is where a person regularly supports another person or group of people who might have less than the giver. From a trickle, then there comes a stream of activity. What distinguishes a stream from a mere trickle is not only more water or fluid in the system, but also the presence of a good and supportive typography, ground that goes “downhill” and has edges on both sides (often formed by the water itself) to channel this stream of fluid.
The role of parents and those who contribute to the goodness of children (and adults) represents our social “typography” that helps promote and even guide the stream of good behavior. At this stage, as the stream turns into a river the behavior becomes a “habit” and goodness becomes engrained in the behavior of the individual. Habits become “identity” and people begin to define themselves as “good” and others begin to agree, even if this is unspoken.
The river of goodness then naturally flows into either a pond, lake, reservoir, a waterfall, a canal, a bay, a bayou, a bigger river, and eventually, an ocean. We will come back to the concept of goodness coming into an ocean after we look more carefully at the question, “How does greatness get started.”
The amazing thing is that the way greatness gets started is very similar to how goodness gets started. We now embark on the journey to greatness.
Journey to Greatness
First, there some declaration of a goal which represents a step on the path toward “greatness.” The declaration of the goal could be a parent encouraging a child to walk or talk, spell, or add, draw, play an instrument or sing. It could be a child, teenager, young adult or a person of any age deciding and then declaring that they will become great at something or many things.
Then, there is effort to achieve a goal on the way toward greatness. This is the drop. The drip comes into existence when the pattern of consistently improving behavior begins. Then the trickle gets moving when the behavior and actions of the person to become great develops their own pattern and regularity, with increasing intensity.
The trickle towards greatness becomes a stream as the doer’s environment continues to support and acknowledge the positive behavior of the person seeking greatness. The practice, the dedication, the effort, the concentration, and improvement all speed up as the individual, and his or her supporters, realize how much work and dedication it takes to be truly great at anything.
As the identity of the individual becomes aligned with the goal of becoming great at something, or achieving great success in any field, the stream becomes a river as one becomes even more focused on actively seeking to be great in a field or very successful in an endeavor. The pursuit of greatness or success at this stage could be at an individual level or a team level. The notion of “we will be great” can often be even more empowering to an individual and their supportive environment as the idea of “I will be great,” or “I will be successful.” Here, again, the environment, the typography, physical and social, must be there to promote and support this extraordinary effort to achieve greatness.
The river now has momentum, significant mass, clear direction, supportive typography and the effort towards greatness or success flows quickly. It moves over rocks, goes through barriers, makes its own path, and seeks to move as efficiently as possible towards its destination.
This river naturally flows into either a pond, lake, reservoir, a waterfall, a canal, a bay, a bayou, a bigger river, and eventually, an ocean.
The Intersection of Goodness and Greatness
It is possible that goodness and greatness can intersect at any point along their journeys from the drip to the river flowing into the ocean. From here on I will speak of the two, goodness and greatness, intersecting both all along the way and intersecting in the vast ocean.
Seeking to achieve greatness without goodness can lead to actions without regard to others, a focus on self rather than the common good, a devotion only to one’s own goals and the impoverishment of empathy. Further, pursuing greatness without goodness can easily lead to conflict as one seeker of greatness, without shame or remorse, seeks to take advantage of another seeker of greatness or others in general to achieve greatness in a field or success in an endeavor.
With goodness and greatness either flowing together through the stream or rivers of life, or joining up in the ocean, we see that in either case, the intersection of greatness and goodness is ultimately huge, an ocean. In fact, it is bigger than an ocean, it is infinite. For the intersection of goodness and greatness is not static, nor does it only have waves or borders like an ocean.
Examples of people who live, work, and perform their lives at the intersection of goodness and greatness show others what is possible in both domains. Some people know that as they get close to “greatness,” as currently defined by society, they want to not only achieve the current standard of greatness but go beyond that standard and expand what the term greatness means (as athletes love to set “records”). Therefore, both goodness and greatness are not bounded, but, rather, can be viewed as having infinite properties and possibilities.
Conclusion
By honoring those who have lived their lives at the intersection of goodness and greatness we are doing more than publicizing examples of how best to live. We are delivering to everyone a set of standards of what it means to be good and be great, and to be both at the same time.
We now can know that the intersection of goodness and greatness is as big as the oceans and that all of us can strive to live at the intersection of goodness and greatness. We can honor those who have lived and continue to live their lives at the intersection of goodness and greatness and we can all learn from their example.
Rabbi Potasnick gave us a gift by talking about the intersection, the synthesis, of goodness and greatness, when he honored those inducted into the Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative’s Hall of Fame. The inductees into the Hall of Fame gave us a gift by the example they show us of how living at the intersection of goodness and greatness can contribute to a better world.
Each one of us has the capacity to seek and achieve greatness in endeavors we believe to be very important in life. And each of us can follow, create, and maintain the path to goodness so that it becomes a key element of our identity. Ultimately, each person is an example to the next person. You get to choose what example you want to be for the next person. If you want others to seek to live in the intersection of goodness and greatness, you can influence them by being their example to how to work hard, seek goodness, and expand the ocean where goodness and greatness intersect.