I bought an entire book for these two paragraphs, but they are worth much more than I paid:
“Rabbi Tarfon would say:
You are not obligated to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it.
Do not be daunted
by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now,
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now."1
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Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages: A Modern Reading of Pirke Avot, p. 41. ↩︎