Who are you? Where do you come from?
You are the sum of uniquely miraculous conjunctions of different DNAs, a complex recipe of hundreds of thousands of ancestors meeting in the distant past, resulting in you. It can be humbling, and it can be intimidating, although it’s worth remembering the first time the Torah discusses pedigree, suggesting how much we ought to value it – פר בן בקר.
After assuaging God’s wrath and ending the plague, the Torah hails Pinchas and his pedigree:
פִּינְחָס בֶּן אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן הֵשִׁיב אֶת חֲמָתִי מֵעַל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּקַנְאוֹ אֶת קִנְאָתִי בְּתוֹכָם וְלֹא כִלִּיתִי אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּקִנְאָתִי – Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Ahron HaKohen, has turned My anger away from the Children of Israel with his zealously avenging Me among them so that I did not destroy the children of Israel in My zeal. (25:11)
The Torah’s usual naming convention is to name someone the son of their father – פִּינְחָס בֶּן אֶלְעָזָר. Rashi highlights how in this instance, the Torah traces Pinchas’ ancestry to his grandfather, Ahron – פִּינְחָס בֶּן אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן אַהֲרֹן – because people had mocked Pinchas as having mediocre pedigree, being a grandson of Yisro, a former pagan druid, so the Torah goes out of its way to identify Pinchas as having good pedigree; that God didn’t see him as any less than.
What this seems to indicate is that past a threshold level, lineage and pedigree are things humans get caught up with; God doesn’t actually care! Because in other words, you do not need to be somebody to make things happen, because a nobody in our eyes is still somebody to God.
Nowhere is this illustrated clearer than the opening of Yirmiyahu, where God appears to Yirmiyahu in his adolescence, and Yirmiyahu doesn’t think he has what it takes to be the prophet God wants him to be, that he’s just a kid and isn’t one for public speaking:
וָאֹמַר אֲהָהּ ה’ הִנֵּה לֹא-יָדַעְתִּי דַּבֵּר כִּי-נַעַר אָנֹכִי. וַיֹּאמֶר ה אֵלַי אַל-תֹּאמַר נַעַר אָנֹכִי כִּי עַל-כָּל-אֲשֶׁר אֶשְׁלָחֲךָ תֵּלֵךְ וְאֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר אֲצַוְּךָ תְּדַבֵּר – I said, “Alas, God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am just a kid!” And the Lord said to me, “Do not tell Me “I am just a kid!” Because wherever I send you, you will go, and whatever I command you, you will say!” (1:6-7)
R’ Nosson Vachtvogel wonders how many potential greats have been lost to self-doubt. . There is no reason to suspect Yirmiyahu of self-effacing humility; he’s not lying! He has honestly assessed and evaluated his abilities and concludes he doesn’t have what it takes, yet God still dismisses these excuses – not because they are wrong, but because they ultimately don’t matter. Although God doesn’t talk to us the way he did to Yirmiyahu, we can have no doubt that God speaks to us through Yirmiyahu just the same – אַל-תֹּאמַר נַעַר אָנֹכִי
R’ Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin teaches that you ought to believe in yourself in the same way you believe in God. If you think God doesn’t believe in you, you don’t properly understand what believing in God entails. Your consciousness is rooted in your soul, a fragment of God – חלק אלוק ממעל. God saw fit to send that part of Himself into the world in the shape of you, which is to say that God very literally believes in you, and we know that because you are here.
It’s easier to believe in yourself if someone else does it first. And God believes in all of us!
God saw fit to share you with us; you’re already somebody.