What do you do when your efforts don’t yield visible results? Do you keep going or do you give up?

Is perseverance always a virtue? Might it sometimes be a form of vanity—an unwillingness to admit failure?

As with so many such questions, the answer is: it depends.

It depends on why you are doing what you are doing. Are you doing it to showcase your personal greatness or out of dedication to something greater than yourself?

A man named Morris once visited his friend who was in charge of evaluating recruits for the Israeli army. He was invited to observe a fitness test and watched a group of young men running under the hot Israeli sun. After a while, one of them collapsed and had to be carried off the track by medics.

"That one definitely won't be given an important assignment," Morris remarked.

"You couldn't be more wrong," his friend replied. "He'll be among the most valued."

"But he was the first to fall! What use does the army have for someone that weak?"

"It’s simple. In our army, what we value most is commitment. That young man gave every last drop he had. The physical weakness we can address through training; unconditional dedication like that can’t be taught."

We live in a world that prizes the individual, personal rights, and personal interests above all. And this is not entirely wrong. The Talmud affirms that each human being is irreplaceable. "No two people are alike," our sages say.1 But does it end there? What about the value of community? How do we reconcile the value of independence with the value of belonging — and the dependence that comes with it?

To answer this, we must first ask: Does belonging to a community diminish or enlargen me? Weaken or strengthen me?

In this week's Torah portion, Bamidbar, G‑d commands Moses to take a census. Two data points were to be recorded: names and numbers. In other words, how many people composed each family and tribe.

A name expresses individual identity; a number, by contrast, disregards individuality and emphasizes belonging to a collective. The Torah teaches that both are equally important and, in fact, mutually reinforcing.

When individuality is expressed within a community, it is elevated and strengthened by being part of something greater. And the community is strengthened when it honors the unique contribution of each person. It is hard to put it more elegantly than Hillel the Elder did: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?"2

To return to the original question about perseverance: if you are persisting at something for personal reasons and seeing no results, continued effort may well be a form of pride and unwillingness to admit failure. But if you are persisting at something whose value extends beyond yourself, perseverance in the face of every discouragement is a sign of genuine strength and nobility.

I am reminded of a conflict I witnessed between a couple.

“Why do you dedicate so much time to work and never make time for me?” the wife complained.

“Because I prefer to dedicate myself to something where I know how to succeed, rather than trying again and again at something I always fail at,” the husband replied.

What do you think, dear reader? If a husband who tries again and again to satisfy his wife and repeatedly fails refuses to give up and keeps trying, is that admirable or deplorable?

The answer, once again, is: it depends. If he insists on trying yet again his own way, it is an expression of ego, and, according to the formula attributed to Einstein, the very definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But if he adjusts and tries according to what his wife asks of him, that is a sign of genuine nobility. This may in fact be implicit in the Talmudic principle that spells out marital priorities clearly: to love one’s wife as oneself, and to honor her more than oneself.3

The tool for this week: Continuing to dedicate yourself to tasks that produce successful results without resting because of what you’ve already achieved is certainly commendable. But it does not come close to the value of someone who persists in fulfilling their responsibilities and commitments even when they have not yet seen the fruit of their labor.