Two “special” kids went into a supermarket. One of them saw a 9% cottage cheese and said to his friend anxiously: “Yow, that needs recharging soon!”
The route to perfection is an arduous and windy one. At certain points it is far from easy. One needs tremendous willpower to continue to advance towards the target.
Even when starting one's route with fresh ardor and lots of good energy and motivation, one needs to recharge one's batteries and become “charged” again in order to reach the goal.
The goal- it should be emphasized – is no less important than the route to that goal.
Perfection in Trials
“And G-d tested Avraham…and said: Please take your son, you only son that you love, Yitzchak” (Bereishit 22:1-2)
The Gemara in Sanhedrin (89b) says about this: “Rabbi Shimon Bar Aba said: “Please” implies a request. This can be compared to a king who had fought many battles and he had one warrior who had won them for him. Later on the king faced a big battle and said to his warrior: “Please help me in this battle so that they won't say that the first ones were of no consequence. Similarly Hashem said to Avraham: I tested you with a number of trials and you withstood all of them. Please withstand this one too, so that they won't say the first ones were of no consequence.”
Avraham Avinu successfully passed nine tests. He had one test left to reach ten tests and thus achieve his own personal perfection. Hashem begged him: Please, withstand the final test so that they won't say “the first ones were of no consequence.”
Why though would they say that? He had withstood nine difficult tests!
We can learn from this that one cannot despair of perfection! One must always strive to reach the summit, to invest all of one's energy into the effort to achieve this. If one gives up before the end, it casts a shadow on the early work as well.
We can see this in everyday life. A person can be loved by the public, respected and admired for many years. He could be an important rabbi, or a minister in the government, a singer or any other famous individual. For one reason or another, he stumbled and was caught in his crime.
Immediately all the media have decided his guilt, ruined his reputation and are busy repudiating his behavior from every possible angle.
Why? Why do they do this? For decades the public had revered this person and had expressed their love for him. Just because of one wrong act, should all of his good and/or important and /or admirable actions be forgotten?
Indeed. We expect perfection from others, even though we ourselves are far from perfection…
I'm a Good Person
Who decides whether I have achieved perfection?
Each of us – if he doesn't have an inferiority complex or suffer from low self-esteem – believes that he is a good person “basically”. He doesn't of course murder, steal, abuse cats. On the whole, he's a good person who tries not to hurt people.
That's fine. The question is – is this enough?
What is this analagous to? A student writes himself a test, answers it, checks it and grades it himself. In the long run he also gives himself a diploma signed by him.
When a person says :”I'm a good person”, he is basing himself on the criteria of “good person” which he himself created. He is checking himself against those criteria. The truth is that he is rather biased, as Chazal teach us: “A person sees all faults except for his own” (Mishna, Negaim, chapter 2), and he is the one giving himself a geade as well as a diploma of “good person”. In order to determine whether he is indeed a “good person” one should ask what his wife says about him, what his children think of him, what his colleagues at work think of him. It should also be checked what the Torah would say about him, and this will be the most objective and true assessment which accurately represents his state of affairs.
Never Wrong
Doctor: You'll live until 60
Patient: But doctor, I'm already 60!
Doctor: You see, I told you!”
It's no embarrassment to say “I don't know” or “Sorry, I made a mistake”. It only reveals greatness and not weakness.
To summarize: Just as a cake recipe, if it's missing one element, causes the whole cake to come out totally different – the same is true of life.
Every trial and stage is important and one cannot skip any of them on the way to perfection. The character trait of wanting to achieve perfection is to be found in man as opposed to other mammals. The goal of this trait is to enable a person to aspire to a high spiritual level.
Our drive for perfection makes it hard for us to forgive, even a one-time failure. In order to attain the right perspective and act properly, we must remember: Yes, it is worthy and important to aspire to bigger and better. Despite this, it is likely that on the way there will be difficulties. Different things will no go as we planned and wanted them to go. For this reason one eye should be focused on the goal, while the other should assess what we have accomplished until now….
