Perfection and Forgiveness

When parents, teachers, spouses, or friends focus on what we’ve done wrong, our sense might be that we are disappointment to those who matter in our lives.  It should be no surprise that the Yom Kippur service focuses on our wrong-doings, but not to make us feel that we are a disappointment to G-d.  The message of Yom Kippur is that we can learn from our mistakes, turn ourselves around, and grow.  Of course, wrong-doing is not treated lightly.  Yet, the message of Judaism is that we are not expected to be perfect but we are to strive to be the best that we can be.  We are to try to avoid being cruel to others, while feeling the pain of others and showing them compassion.  Part of being human is suffering losses yet continuing to be resilient.  We are not perfect but even so, we can still be whole. 

There’s a short novel that I read about called “The Crooked Shall Be Made Straight” written by S.Y. Agnon, the Israeli author, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966. It tells the story of a decent individual named Menashe.  Menashe owned a grocery store, but was unable to make a living there because he found it hard to ask poor people to pay him money, and he didn’t have the heart to match the tactics of his competitors.  As a result, he resorted to begging to earn a living.  Before he went from town to town, he received a letter from his rabbi testifying to the fact that he was a decent and honest human being who deserved help.

Menashe went out to collect money and the rabbi’s letter helped him immensely.  After one year, he had enough money to go back home and start a business again.  However, on the night before heading home, a thief who was also a liar approached him.  He saw Menashe’s letter and asked Menashe to sell it to him.  Not needing the letter anymore, and tempted by the money he could make by selling it to the requester, Menashe sold the letter.  He then went to a tavern, got drunk, and was robbed of his belongings and money.  Now he really had to begin asking for tzedakah.

The thief on the other hand, left town with the letter and was killed by highwaymen.  His body was mutilated beyond recognition so when it was found, the only thing known about the individual came from the letter found with Menashe’s name on it. 

Word made it back to Menashe’s village, that Menashe had died and his wife was declared to be a widow so she could be free to remarry. 

As you might guess, the real Menashe arrived home but it just happened to be on the day when his wife and her new husband were celebrating the brit milah of their newborn child.  Menashe who had compassion for others, faced a dilemma.  If he announced that he was alive, his wife would be declared an adulteress and the child would be declared illegitimate.  He loved his wife too much to do that to her, so he went off to live in the town cemetery. 

The custodian of the cemetery heard Menashe’s story and brought him food daily.  When Menashe died, the custodian buried him by the tombstone that had been set up for him by his wife when he was believed to be dead two years earlier.

Was Menashe perfect?  No.  Was he a good person?  Yes.  He did act brashly when he sold the letter and in effect gave away his good name.  But he never lost his humanity.  Even though timing did not allow him to re-establish his relationship with his wife, he acted decently refusing to ruin her life after she believed him to be dead.  The point of the story according to Rabbi Harold Kushner is that  “Menashe got his name back.  He found his final resting place beneath a gravestone with his name on it.” He was not perfect. He made a mistake, but even so he tried to act with integrity and not harm others.

(p. 174) 

We all know individuals who feel they need to be perfect and we can sense that such perfectionism can be quite paralyzing.  Either they are afraid to act, for fear of making a mistake, or they do act and beat themselves up emotionally afterwards because they did not meet their own expectations of perfection. 

Life is complex.  We are not always going to get every word and every action right.  What we can strive for however, is to get more of our words and actions right than wrong.  We can hope to live with integrity and with a sense of resiliency so that when we do fail we can pick ourselves up and engage in life fully once again.

Resiliency is very much a part of our Jewish identity.  We spoke about this on the evening of Selichot.  Without it when the Temple was destroyed we would never have created Rabbinic Judaism.  Without it, when the Holocaust occurred we would never have put the energy into building a new homeland in Eretz Yisrael.  Without it we wouldn’t be here today on Yom Kippur asking for forgiveness of our wrong-doings and making plans for how we are going to right the wrongs of the past year. 

Anyone who goes through life establishing relationships with others, realizes soon enough that those with whom they interact also make mistakes.  There may be harsh words between individuals or hurtful actions that cause schisms.  At times such as these, it is important to remember that just as we are not perfect, neither are others.  We can still love others and find it in our hearts to forgive them when they approach us with words of apology, admitting their wrongs. Perhaps if we think of ourselves being created in the image of G-d we can employ the concept that just as G-d forgives our shortcomings, so too can we forgive the failings of those who have wronged us.  The message of Yom Kippur is that we are forgiven although we are not perfect.  And we too can forgive those with whom we interact who are also have room for improvement.

May we all use this time to accept the fact that we do have limitations while aiming to improve ourselves. May we be grateful for opportunities in the coming year to live with integrity and to model our ability to be resilient even during challenging times.

Amen.