The text reads: "Walk before me and be perfect." However, the Hebrew reads
"hitalekh lifanai ve'heyeh tamim." The Hebrew "tam" is not generally used to
imply "perfect" but "innocent, simple, pure, whole-hearted, complete." A more
accurate interpretation would be "Walk before me and be whole." And that cannot
be a command, but an expression of what will happen: "if you (Abraham, or any
one of us) would walk in God's ways, we would be complete."
A Hassidic story tells us that before his death Rabbi Zusya said, "In the world to
come, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses' they will ask me: 'Why were
you not Zusya?'" How many of us try to become people other than ourselves, set
for ourselves goals based on images of masculinity or beauty that are external
and modeled by others?
People are often perplexed by the accounts of the biblical heroes, all of
whom are imperfect. In order to save his life, Abraham hides the fact that Sarah
is his wife. He easily accepts Sarah's demand that he expel Hagar and Ishamel
(whose birth was caused by Sarah's own encouragement)! Isaac easily goes along
with his father's intention to sacrifice him and plays along with his own son
Jacob's ruse of getting the paternal blessing. On and on. The answer, of course,
is that the biblical characters are depicted as fully human (like you and I) not
angels, or "gods."
No one expects us to be perfect. Sometimes we are confused by the English
translations of Biblical texts. For example, in Genesis (17:1) it appears as
though God commands Abraham to be perfect. The text reads: "Walk before me and
be perfect." However, the Hebrew reads "hitalekh lifanai ve'heyeh tamim." The
Hebrew "tam" is not generally used to imply "perfect" but "innocent, simple,
pure, whole-hearted, complete." A more accurate interpretation would be "Walk
before me and be whole." And that cannot be a command, but an expression of what
will happen: "if you (Abraham, or any one of us) would walk in God's ways, we
would be complete."
One of the kids' favorite books that I'd read to them in Hebrew was by Shel
Silverstein, "
The
Missing Piece Meets the Big O." In it a little wedge-shaped piece imagines
that it is the missing piece of some other "thing." That it needs to fit into
another being in order to be whole and move in the world. Some fit, but can't
move, others have too many chunks missing from them.... Eventually the "Missing
Piece" learns that it can reshape itself -- round its corners -- and is actually
whole and able to move in the world.
We often feel that we are broken and unable to move. The brokenness is
understandable and real, but, what we do with our broken selves depends on us.
Ernest Hemingway said, "Life breaks all of us, yet many of us are strong in the
broken place." Novelists, like Hemingway, tell stories with beginnings, middles
and ends... a clear trajectory that the writer constructs to make sure the story
has meaning. But our lives are lived in the flow of history with many
overlapping beginnings, middles and endings and no single trajectory. We have to
find and make the meaning for our own lives.
The story is told of a king who had a wonderful jewel. He would gaze on it
often, wondering at its beauty. One day, something startled him and he dropped
the jewel causing it to fall. As he picked it up from the hard stone floor the
king noticed that the jewel now had a deep crack in it. He sent messengers out
to find a craftsman who could repair it, but, no one came forward. Finally after
a very long search he found an old jeweler who said he could repair the jewel,
but, that the king would have to promise to give him free reign in his work.
With no other options, the king assented. The old craftsman set up his workshop
and worked continuously for many days (taking time off for Shabbat). Finally he
emerged and showed the king the jewel. There in the jewel, the old man had
worked the lines of the crack into the pattern of an exquisite flower that
appeared deep inside the precious stone. The king gasped and realized that the
crack itself had led to the jewel becoming even more precious.
Yet another story of a crack.
This one was of a simple man who walked every day from his home to the stream
with a pole across his broad shoulders and two buckets hanging one from each
side. He walked down to the stream, filled the two buckets and walked back up to
his house and there emptied the buckets into a large basin from which the family
drew water through the day. However, one of the buckets had a crack in it and
every day the man had only one and a half buckets of water to pour into the
basin. Day after day, this went on. Eventually - late at night after everyone
had fallen asleep - the cracked bucket spoke to the man: "I am embarrassed that
every day I only bring half the amount of water needed for the basin. Please get
rid of me and get a new, whole, unbroken bucket." The next morning the man took
his buckets down to the stream. As he did, he spoke to the cracked bucket. "Why
do you feel so bad about yourself? Do you see this path we walk every day? One
side of it has flowers growing along it, the other side is barren. I knew about
your crack -- what you have considered a flaw. Because of your crack, I planted
flowers along that side of the path from which you hang. Every day, as I walked
back from the stream you have watered these flowers... flowers that we have cut
to beautify our simple home. If you did not have a crack, or, if I was to get
rid of you and get another bucket without a crack I would need to make special
arrangements to water our flowers. I appreciate you because of your
crack."
This however is a word from me, Be yourself!
"A Hassidic story tells us that before his death Rabbi Zusya said, "In the world to come, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses' they will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?'" How many of us try to become people other than ourselves, set for ourselves goals based on images of masculinity or beauty that are external and modeled by others?"
I cannot begin to say of how often I have found myself trying to do this same thing! Trying to be others, Great tzaddiks and the like? But Hashem speaks! He says, I already have Moses, I don't need Moses, I need you!
"We each have a role to play. And no role is more important then any other role, there just roles in the drama... Now the issue of love, Its important the distinction be made between the verb love which takes a object. And the being, the state of being which is love. Your afraid that if you don't try to be loving you'll be awful. But the fact is behind loving and awfulness we are. And where we are is love."
Life is a journey, and each moment is are destination! We are here now in each moment on this journey, and where we are is exatctly where we should be. G-d wants us to be ourselves. Not someone else. This message seems very universal. I think we all need to stop and ask ourselves, Am I being real with myself? Am I being me? Or someone else?
What is it I believe? Who am I? How can I best serve G-d being who I am, from where I am at? Thomas paine wrote this;
"But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this?"
So whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you believe.., Serve G-d, Be yourself, whoever that self truly is.
Yaakov
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