Lifetime Achievement: This relates to the first version of the tzadik with the soul, represented by the yud, facing the body, nun. This person continuously seeks to bring down the insight and inspirations from his soul into the world. As his soul is “facing” his body or the physical, the emphasis is placed on grounding insights. The entrepreneur at this level may spend his entire lifetime developing one insight. An example of this is a CEO of a one company, who while expanding his companies’ product line and service offerings over the years, always relates back to that initial idea or inspiration that started it all.
Serial Entrepreneur
This level relates to the creative-minded soul that stares off to the “sky” as it were. Like the yud that has its back to the nun, the serial entrepreneur prefers to think about the next idea rather than to further develop the first. Whereas a lifetime achiever has an easier time running a solo-operation, performing whatever tasks are needed to see the idea through, a serial entrepreneur does best when delegating the manifestation of his creative dreams to others. Now with platforms such as Quirky.com, and business incubators in most major cities across the world, serial entrepreneurs have access to the infrastructures they need.
Lifetime Achievement Award
In his Geek Time article entitled “And the Geeky goes to…” written to announce the winners of the Geek Awards, Avi Schneider includes this comment about the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Dov Maron:
“Serial entrepreneur and inventor of the Disk-On-Key [called the USB Flash Drive in the US]; Moran accepted his award remotely as he was attending the CES event in Las Vegas. Moran was honored but at the same time playfully offended making it clear that this award should in no way signify that his life achievements are over.”
As a result of our meditation from before, this is the thought that we would like to conclude with. The Jewish people are called “a nation of tzadikim (righteous people).” And while this is said of the future, our job is make bring more of this future state into present-day reality. A tzadik both continuously exerts himself maximally and enjoys the fruits of his efforts as in the verse, “may the tzadik bear fruit in his days.” Tzadikim enjoy the fruits of their efforts both in this world and the world to come.
This then is the blessing we should all give to Avi Schneider, Dov Maron, and all those involved in writing about and developing the Israel tech industry. That their efforts should bear fruit, be successful, both physically and spiritually, and we all go from one “fruit” to the next, from one achievement and award to the next, while keeping in mind the verse that we began with that, “a tzadik eats to sate his soul” (i.e., to elevate the holy sparks of this world with the proper intentions in mind).
It is Jewish custom to eat many different kinds of new fruit on Tu B’Shevat, and to say the blessing shehechiyanu. Just as our plates should be filled with fruits of the tree, so too should are technology “plates” always be full with new opportunities to offer thanks and blessings to the Source of all positively motivated endeavors.
* For the original version, please read “we are all tzadikim” (Hebrew) from Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh and Gal Einai.