It really is great to be imperfect
The giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai created the Jewish people and brought purpose to their freedom. If we pause a moment and reflect, for Hashem to give His Torah to us was quite a gamble. It’s not simple being human. I think Hashem recognised that when he instructs Moshe- כֹּה תֹאמַר לְבֵית יַעֲקֹב וְתַגֵּיד לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל: So shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel. Rashi explains that the house of Jacob refers to the women. Say it to them in a gentle language, whilst the men can be spoken to directly, harshly if needs be. We know how complicated male female conversations are, at times it seems we speak different languages, for example:
A young married couple rush to the Rabbi they are having trouble communicating. The Rabbi takes them through the following
Women say- they mean
I need – I want
We need – I want
I’m not upset-I’m upset
Yes-No
No-Yes
Men are simpler
I’m hungry-I’m hungry
I’m tired- I’m tired
Your hair looks great- for all that money it looks no different
I liked the first dress you tried on- pick anything and let’s go!
Human beings are complicated. But what does it mean to be human?
Descartes worked on the principle, cogito, ergo sum—”I think therefore I am”. Reason was regarded as the specific feature of man.
The First Noble Truth of Buddhism: “Life is suffering.” To be human is to experience pain. In his book, “Eastern Wisdom for Western Minds,” Victor Parachin tells of a great tale about an old farmer and the Buddha. He writes:
An old farmer went to the Buddha seeking help for his problems. First, he had professional problems. In his part of the world, farming was extremely difficult and his work completely vulnerable to weather. Even though he loved his wife, there were certain things about her he wanted to change. Similarly, he loved his children, but they weren’t evolving the way he had hoped and anticipated. Listening carefully as the man explained his frustrations with life, the Buddha responded, “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“What do you mean?” questioned the farmer. “You’re a highly regarded great teacher who has insight into all of life’s problems.”
“All human beings have eighty-three problems,” the Buddha explained. “A few problems may go away, but soon enough others will arise. So we’ll always have eighty-three problems.”The farmer, both indignant and frustrated, asked, “So what good is all of your teaching?”To which the Buddha replied, “My teaching can’t help with the eighty-three problems, but perhaps it can help with the eighty-fourth problem.”
“What’s that?” the farmer asked with great curiosity.
“The eighty-fourth problem is that we don’t want to have any problems.”
Parachin goes on to explain that even the most spiritual among us have problems.
Because we live in an imperfect, messy world, we will always have “eighty-three” problems. Expecting not to have problems is one of our great illusions about life.
In 1734 Alexander Pope wrote a poem An Essay on Man It is an effort to use philosophy in order to “vindicate the ways of God to man”
It is concerned with the natural order God has decreed for man. Because man cannot know God’s purposes, he cannot complain about his position in the Great Chain of Being and must accept that “Whatever IS, is RIGHT”.
The first verse paragraph of the second book:
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
But how well do we truly understand ourselves? Many of us repeat patterns of behavior for years without ever realizing. We are forever stuck in the middle, neither one thing nor another. Does this make us perfectly balanced or merely mediocre?
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Created half to rise and half to fall; Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all, Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun; And quitting sense call imitating God; As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!
As the passage develops, Pope illustrates the many ways in which we fall between extremes.
Pope’s resounding declaration that man as “The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!” is both unforgettable and full of good sense. Perhaps it could be argued our very imperfection is our pride and glory. Perhaps it is only when we celebrate our maddening confusions and inconsistencies that we come closest to sanity.
Pope says that man has learnt about Nature and God’s creation by using science; science has given man power but man intoxicated by this power thinks that he is “imitating God”. Pope uses the word “fool” to show how little he (man) knows in spite of the progress made by science.
The Essay on Man is a warning that man himself is not, as, in his pride, he seems to believe, the centre of all things.
If we have any illusions that humanity might be worthy of an encounter with G-d, William Golding talking about his novel Lord of the flies reminds us that we are in essence quite beastly.
The boys try to construct a civilisation on the island; but it breaks down in blood and terror because the boys are suffering from the terrible disease of being human.
Golding implies that the instinct of savagery is far more primal and fundamental to the human psyche than the instinct of civilization. Golding sees moral behaviour, in many cases, as something that civilization forces upon the individual rather than a natural expression of human individuality. When left to their own devices, Golding implies, people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery, and barbarism.
“His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”
I will share with you a very strange story from the Talmud. The Sages encoded deep ideas into such stories. This story conveys a profound truth about who we are, what Torah is, and why we were given the mitzvot- commandments.
When Moses ascended to Heaven to get the Torah, the ministering angels said to the Holy One, praised be He, “Sovereign of the universe, what is one born of a woman doing among us?” In other words, what is this imperfect human being doing among perfect beings? How could mortal man ascend to the level of angels?
“He has come to receive the Torah,” responded G- d. “He’s not staying. He just came to pick something up—the Torah.”
The angels were even more upset. “What? Are You about to bestow upon frail man that cherished treasure which has been with You for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created? What is mortal man that you are mindful of him? And the son of the earth that You have visited him? Oh, G-d our Lord, is not Your name already sufficiently exalted in the earth? Confer Your glory upon the heavens.”
By saying, “Isn’t your name already sufficiently exalted in the earth?” the angels were cynically reminding G-d that human beings have consistently desecrated His name through all their evil deeds. They were saying, “How can You give human beings your holy Torah? Keep it in heaven. Give it to us!”
The angels did not know what was in the Torah. All they knew was that G-d must really cherish this mission if He had been holding on to it for so long time and had not yet appointed anyone to perform it. When Moses showed up to receive the Torah, they were in absolute shock. All this time, they had heard about this incredible, lofty, exalted mission, and who does G-d finally chose to entrust it to? A human. This is absurd. Humans are such lowly creatures, filled with base inclinations and evil deeds. Humans are going to act on G-d’s behalf?
G-d says to Moses, “You have to respond to these angels complaints.” In other words, you have to understand why you deserve this mission. What are your qualifications?
To accept Torah, you must have a tremendous amount of self esteem. You must believe that you are worthy to be G-d’s agent on earth you were sent here to fulfil a sacred mission.
G-d says to Moses, “I cannot answer for you. Unless you realize for yourself what your qualifications are, you can’t be entrusted with the mission.”
Moses holds on to the Holy Throne, and is charged with amazing confidence to face the angels. In their presence, he asks G-d, “What’s in Your Torah?”
“I am the Lord your G-d, who brought you out of Egypt.”
Moses then challenges the angels, “Did you go to Egypt and serve Pharaoh? What relevance is the Torah to you?” In other words, Moses argues, “Did you have to serve Pharaoh? Were you oppressed slaves for 210 years?”
The angels concede. They had lived only a perfect blissful life in heaven.
Moses continues, “G-d, what else is in the Torah?”
“Keep the Shabbat. Honour your father and mother. Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal.”
“Angels,” Moses challenges, “do you work hard? Do you need rest? Do you have fathers and mothers that you have to honour? Does jealousy exist among you? Do you have an evil inclination?”
These are the qualifications Moses presented to merit the mission of Torah for humankind: we are lowly beings. That’s right! And we are attacked by evil urges all the time. We live in a materialistic society filled with daily seductions. That’s why we should get the Torah! We qualify for this mission because we make so many mistakes. We are inundated with problems and challenges from within and without. We are perfect for this job, because we are so imperfect!
The angels are indeed impressed. They even want to befriend humankind, and give Moses useful secrets to help humans in their difficult mission.
Soiled with imperfections, problems, and challenges, this is our greatness.
G-d does not expect us to be perfect. In fact, if we were perfect, we could not have qualified for the mission of Torah. The Talmud teaches that a person can stand in Torah only after he has failed at it. In other words, part of the mission of Torah is to fail, regret, resolve, change, choose goodness, and succeed. We humans are the perfect candidates for the job.
Comments