The Spirituality of Imperfection

In a short while we will join in reciting the Viddui - the confessional which we will also recite several more times tomorrow. The Viddui is a cornerstone of our Yom Kippur liturgy in which we confess to a whole list of human foibles and ask God for forgiveness. According to Moses Maimonides, in his law code, the Mishneh Torah, our verbal confession of transgressions, whether committed willingly or inadvertently, is a positive mitzvah, a positive commandment. We know that, as individuals, we have not committed each of the sins enumerated in the Viddui. Yet, we confess to them as a community of transgressors, as a community of imperfect beings, as a community in search of wholeness, and healing. This Day of Atonement is about imperfection and wholeness. Reciting the Viddui sets us up for a year in which we will be less-than-perfect. How can we return to this same confessional, this same admission of error and imperfection year after year without losing a sense of our self worth? Do we not pay an emotional and spiritual price for our admission of such a lengthy list of human misdeeds? Even as it reminds us of our shortcomings the Viddui is important for it helps us to strengthen our resolve to do better. In confessing our failures we come to find a sense of healing and wholeness as we prepare to set about the business of living in the year that lies before us.

On Rosh Hashanah we celebrated the birthday of the world. We praised God's creation of this wondrous universe. Now, ten days later, we highlight the imperfections in God's creation. Before we can hope to better ourselves, and the world around us, we must first accept a simple reality: we are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world. It is a truth that is deeply embedded in our tradition. When we look at the earliest records of our people in the Torah, and in the other books of the Hebrew Bible, it becomes quite clear that ours is a world of imperfections.

In the Bible the garden of Eden, was perfect. Yet in the earliest chapters of the Torah, humanity is cast out of this perfect paradise. The world, God's creation, was supposedly perfect. Yet, in the story of Noah, God brings a flood to destroy the world, all that had been created washed away in a flood to root out the imperfections that had developed in God's creation. When Moses descended from Mount Sinai, he carried in his arms the tablets of stone which contained God's words, God's instruction. Yet, the tablets were destroyed because of the imperfect nature of the faith of the children of Israel who, in Moses' absence had created a Golden Calf to worship. The Temple in Jerusalem is considered by tradition the epitome of perfection as the dwelling place of God's Presence in the ancient land of Israel. Could there be a more potent visage of perfection than the home of the Shechinah, the divine Presence dwelling on the Temple mount. It, too, was destroyed. The Garden of Eden, God's creation, the tablets, the Holy Temple: Why is it that in our tradition everything that represents perfection is destroyed? Surely there is a lesson here for us. Perhaps God's creation as we encounter it was never meant to be experienced as perfection. Perhaps we are only to see perfection as a challenge, as a goal, albeit an elusive one.

Our tradition presents us with countless models of human imperfection as well. The Torah is filled with flawed role models. Abraham, Sarah, Rebecca, Jacob, Moses and more - all are flawed human beings. Abraham tried to save his neck by passing Sarah off as his sister. Rebecca led her son Jacob into deceiving both his brother Esau and father Isaac. Moses, God's spokesman had a speech impediment. And he had a temper! We are no better or worse than our role models, for like Abraham and Sarah, like Jacob, Rebecca and Moses, we are human. We are flawed. We are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world.

Perhaps the most important lesson any of us can learn on this holiest of days is that God does not expect us to be perfect. Perhaps we, ourselves, should be more forgiving as each year we fall short of the mark of perfection. Expecting ourselves to be perfect may not be in our best interest. As in baseball, errors are a part of the game of life. No one has a perfect batting or fielding record. In their book, The Spirituality of Imperfection, authors Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham write: "To be human is to be incomplete, yet yearn for completion; it is to be uncertain, yet yearn for certainty; to be imperfect, yet yearn for perfection; to be broken, yet crave wholeness... We are perfectly human, which is to say, humanly imperfect...This is the essential paradox of human life."

If the great models of our tradition are imperfect how can we expect perfection in ourselves? If our world, God's creation, is fraught with imperfections, can we not understand that we are destined to fall short of perfection? Yom Kippur, with its repeated listing of our imperfections and of the imperfections which surround us, enjoins us to give up the elusive goal of perfection. However, at the same time it asks us to set about the task of perfecting ourselves and our world. A paradox to be sure -- working for an elusive and unattainable goal. But surely this is not the only elusive and unattainable goal we set for ourselves in our lives. There is a difference between being perfect and working at perfecting oneself. It is this difference that we are called to recognize and embrace on this day of facing our imperfections.

John Paul Sartre wrote: "Man is the creature who wants to be God." Kurtz and Ketcham in their exploration of the Spirituality of Imperfection suggest that the first step in living successfully is to "quit playing God." Perhaps God is not so perfect. The fact that we, who are reflections of the image of God, are flawed may be a window onto one of the greatest secrets and mysteries of the universe. Maybe God is not perfect. Maybe that is why all humans, created b'tzelem Elohim, in God's image, are imperfect. And maybe that is why our world is imperfect. In truth, we cannot know. We cannot perfect God. But we can perfect ourselves and make the reflection of God's image better in our lives and in the world around us.

As we recite the Viddui we list many of the troubles which plague our world and our lives. We cite what the rabbis believed to be the impediments to the perfection of our world and our lives: failures of truth, failures of justice; sins in words and sins in deeds; abuse of power and disrespect for those around us; transgressions committed against our fellow human beings and transgressions against God. And as is the case with much of our Reform Jewish liturgy, the lists of sins to which we confess in the Viddui has been greatly shortened from the original. Long, or short, our list of failings must not prevent us from forging ahead into the New Year with a sense of optimism and hope. Our tradition recognizes the need for realism and pragmatism mixed with optimism and hope. This too, is built into the tradition: Kol Nidre - "let all our vows and oaths, all the promises we make and the obligations we incur to You, O God, between this Yom Kippur and the next, be null and void should we, after honest effort, find ourselves unable to fulfill them." We know we will not succeed in all that we promise to do in the year ahead. This is not a matter of fooling ourselves -- or God. Kol Nidre helps us to acknowledge: We are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world. Kol Nidre underscores the fact that we are not called to perfection but that we are called to make an "honest effort" at being and doing better. In Jewish life we speak of tikkun olam - our sacred task as God's partners in fixing or perfecting the world. Tikkun Olam is not about making the world perfect. It is not in our power to do so. Tikkun olam is about making the world better, about perfecting it. Cliche though it may be -- the place to begin is at home. We have to work at perfecting ourselves before we can reasonably expect much success in perfecting our world. And since we will never be perfect, we should, in reality, be working on ourselves at the same time as we are working on our world!

If we can accept that we are hopelessly stuck in a state of imperfection and, at the same time, embrace the notion that we can be better, we can do better, we can perfect ourselves. Kurtz and Ketcham write: "To 'survive our sins,' they must be acknowledged as sins: accepting our imperfection means accepting it as imperfection." Yom Kippur reminds us that even as we acknowledge our failings and imperfection, we must then turn from them and from this day to work at achieving wholeness. We cannot merely pray to God for wholeness. We must work at it day by day, year by year. And we must work at it together. Why do we confess our failings en masse? Because our tradition teaches that we are not alone in our imperfection. We are not unique in our flawed nature. We bring one another strength and comfort standing together before God at the time of vulnerability as we confess our failings. We save one another from embarrassment by owning our imperfection in community.

Even as we can acknowledge our failures together, so too must we share at least a part of the search for wholeness and healing together. A student of the Hasidic master Reb Bunam tells this story: For an entire year I felt a longing to go to my teacher Rabbi Bunam and talk with him. But every time I entered the house I felt I wasn't good enough. Once, when I was walking across a field and weeping I knew that I must run to the rabbi without delay. He asked, "Why are you weeping?" I answered: "I am after all alive in this world, a being created with all the senses and all the limbs. But I do not know what it is I was created for and what I am good for in this world." "My friend," replied Rabbi Bunam, "that's the same question I have carried around with me all my life. You will come and eat the evening meal with me today." We all have the same questions, and we all want to be better than we are. "Human be-ing never takes place in a vacuum." We need one another to be more fully human, to feel more complete, to perfect ourselves. Our lives are an upward spiral reaching from strength to strength, from success to success, from imperfection towards wholeness. To be sure we suffer setbacks and they often leave us feeling broken. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "There is a crack in everything God has made." This day we confess to heal the cracks, to make ourselves stronger. This day we break ourselves down through honest reflection, through the deep introspection our tradition calls heshbon ha-nefesh. This day we renew the process of healing and call ourselves anew to the task of perfecting ourselves and our world.

As those of you who participate in Shabbat morning minyan know, we have introduced the singing of a contemporary version of the Mi Shebeyrach - the prayer for healing as a part of our minyan service. We need healing as a constant in our never-ending journey of perfecting ourselves. The Viddui of this day of Yom Kippur is also a liturgy of healing. Just as doctors must sometimes break a bone in order to enable it to heal more strongly, so too, must we sometimes feel our broken-ness, our pain, our imperfection in order to move towards strength. Later this year we are going to re-introduce another opportunity for healing here at Temple Shalom. We are going to return holding "services of healing for the soul." I'm told it has been a few years since the last healing service at Temple Shalom. Now I know that for many of you these words conjure up images of services you've seen on TV. Put them out of your mind. There is no magic and no superstition involved in a Jewish healing service. It is simply a gathering of individuals joining together in prayer and song in order to find comfort and strength. The goal of a Jewish healing service is to draw people together in order that comfort and strength might be found in community. You will be hearing more about this service in early 2001 once Cantor Dower joins us. I believe we can do much to bring one another support, healing and strength as a community. We can help one another to feel more whole, more complete, and less imperfect if we will allow ourselves that chance. We are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world. True as that may be, we are nonetheless, obliged to work towards perfection, towards healing, towards wholeness.

A man once complained to the Baal Shem Tov, saying: "I have labored hard and long in the service of God. Yet, I have received no improvement. I am still an ordinary and ignorant person." The Baal Shem Tov answered: "You have gained the realization that you are ordinary and ignorant. This in itself is a worthy accomplishment." This day marks a beginning. May we go forth from the honest soul-searching of this Day of Atonement with a renewed sense of who we are and where we can go in the year ahead. May we see ourselves in all our glory, in all our strength and with our failings as well. May we go, individually and communally, from weakness to strength, from imperfection towards perfection, from broken-ness towards healing, towards that wholeness we call Shalom!

L'shanah tovah tikateyvu v'teychateymu!