The portion of the Torah we read this week describes how Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt after she looked back at Sodom while she was fleeing.
There is an interesting insight gleaned from the connection between
‘looking back’ and ‘salt’.
Salt is never the goal, it is not the actual meal – we merely add it sparingly to bring out the best flavour of the real ingredients. Salt enhances the flavour of a dish, but too much can ruin the food.
It is a good lesson for dealing with past mistakes and previous regretted behaviour or experiences.
While we need to learn the appropriate lesson and grow from our mistakes in order to do and be better, we must make sure not to fixate on the past. We must treat it like ‘salt’ – use just enough to bring out the best of our present and future, but not too much that it overpowers and taints future possibilities.
This preoccupation of the mistakes on our past is the salt of the future… a little too much and everything is ruined, flavours and possibilities destroyed. Use it cautiously; just enough to learn from it and move forward to a better place, add a pinch to improve and enrich all that is yet to come.
Look forward, move onward, and be kind to yourself: the better is yet to come.
