Better, Not Best; Improve, Not Perfect
Sermon for Kol Nidre Eve 5782
September 15, 2021
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
In the spirit of Kol Nidrei, I have to confess to a pet peeve. It isn’t anything really big, and in the scope of things I probably shouldn’t even react to it, but that’s what pet peeves do. They may be little, but they irritate.
So here goes: It’s the verb form of the word “perfect,” as in “to per-fect.”
Something about this word has always bothered me. I’ve heard piano students use it as they make progress on a piece they’re working on. And b’nai mitzvah kids working on their speeches or putting the finishing touches on their Torah reading. And here’s the thing: You don’t “perfect” a piece or a speech, or almost anything else you might be working on. I admit that The Gettysburg Address is about as perfect a speech as anyone can give, but I’m sure that when President Lincoln was writing it, onboard the train to the bloody battlefield in Pennsylvania, he wasn’t thinking about “perfecting” his speech. Putting down on paper what was weighing so heavily on his heart on that day was hard enough. And even the great Beethoven used to make corrections on his scores down to the very last minute, even as he was just about to deliver a new symphony or sonata to his publisher.
The best one can hope for is to achieve mastery of your technique. You can hope that your thoughts and emotions come across to your audience as you yourself feel them, from the heart. But from first to last, it’s all a struggle to make it better; to add another layer of paint; to polish over and over, or start from scratch if necessary, until you’re exhausted from simply trying.
Perfection is an awfully high bar to reach—or live up to—even if your gut tells you that it’s as good as it gets. The next morning you still wake up and realize you’ve left something undone, something that can be done better if you give it just one more try.
And that’s true for everything in life, from art and athletics to zoology and Zen.
Speaking for myself, as someone who has absolutely no athletic ability, it seems to me that Olympian athletes are as close to perfect as possible. Yes, I see the tremors, the occasional fumble, and the heartbreaking fall. But there are still those breath-taking moments, when the seemingly impossible is accomplished, and I wonder how in the world such a routine can be judged as anything less than perfect. But I guess that’s because my eye is untrained, and I must have missed something that a more experienced observer caught. That’s why they’re the judges, after all, and I am only a spectator sitting on my living room couch.
Some of these athletes never stop amazing us. Maybe that’s why we were so shocked when the incredible Simone Biles withdrew from the Gymnastics Team Finals earlier this summer. Some of us took it almost personally, as though WE had invested the time and money, as though WE had endured the injuries, the abuse, or the bullying by small-minded individuals who fail to understand what makes a person reach for perfection or the price they pay for it.
I was dumbfounded by the attacks that were directed at Ms. Biles after she made her unexpected announcement. It couldn’t have been an easy decision. And yet, on one website, one wannabe expert heralded that her “breakdown was imminent.” Meanwhile, a New York City daily went so far as to list the breakdowns she had endured from her childhood on, including the number of therapy sessions she had to have for the many challenges she has had to face in her life. And keep in mind that she is only 24 years old. What was our claim to fame when we were 24? Why were so many so quick to judge her?
It seems that there is something implanted within us, a force both deep and powerful that propels us to reach ever higher. It’s a drive that, even when we fail, leads us to expect others to excel, to be the best, flawless, even perfect. And though we know that, at least for most of us, we are nowhere NEAR perfect, we get angry when someone in whom we put all our faith fails to reach this potential, as though they had failed us personally.
Deep inside, we may know that perfection is impossible. Yet so many of us strive tirelessly to “perfect” ourselves, or at least what we do. And then we wonder when, inevitably, we break down. We see our imperfections as failures, something we can’t forgive ourselves for, baggage that we carry with us always, until we break.
One of the toughest lessons in life is realizing that we can only be better, not best. And this is actually one of the most important lessons that Yom Kippur has to teach us.
We ask for forgiveness, but finding forgiveness isn’t easy. Just look at our Prayerbook, see how thick it is! Through an entire night and day, we pray; we fast; we supplicate. In tears, we ask for mercy, for compassion, for atonement.
Even in ancient days, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, was filled with complex rituals. There were many sacrifices, and of course the ceremony of the two goats. One, chosen by lot, was sacrificed, its blood used to cleanse the altar, symbol of the purification that the people were seeking. Then, the second goat—the scapegoat—was released into the wilderness, representing us being freed of our sins.
Over time, these practices were expanded even further. In its description of how Yom Kippur was observed at the Temple, the Talmud devotes an entire tractate to this day, and especially to the role of the High Priest.
We learn how, after preparing himself both physically and spiritually, after offering several sacrifices on his own behalf, on behalf of his family and then on behalf the entire People of Israel, it became the High Priest’s duty to enter the Holy of Holies, a room deep inside the Temple that only he could enter, on only one day during the year—Yom Kippur. He would do so in fear and trepidation, for that was as close as one could approach God’s Presence and—hopefully—not die. Moses could do it, and he did it almost daily. But he was Moses, and as Maimonides put it two thousand years later, “From Moses till Moses, there arose no one like Moses.”
Ironically, this most mysterious room in the entire Temple, the Holy of Holies, was almost entirely empty. There was only one piece of furniture in it: the Holy Ark that Moses had built for the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. Covered by a beautiful tapestry, the Ark held in it two sets of the Tablets of the Law, a.k.a The Ten Commandments. Brought down by Moses from Mt. Sinai, one set was intact, complete. Perfect, if you will, if you discount the fact that it was really a copy—dictated by God but actually written by Moses. Right next to it however, were some fragments and pieces—all that remained of the original Ten Commandments, the tablets of stone inscribed by God’s own Hand, but smashed against the rock by Moses when he saw the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf.
That was what the High Priest saw when he entered the Holy of Holies.
But at that moment, he understood something very profound: That forgiveness is possible. Just as God forgave Israel its greatest sin, so can our wrongdoings be put to rights. The only question was, how? By what process would the broken fragments be repaired and become whole again?
A famous story from the Midrash [Avot deRabbi Natan:4] tells how Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai were walking in Jerusalem one day, when they came upon the spot where the Holy Temple had once stood. Seeing the ruins of the Temple, Rabbi Yehoshua began to weep. “Why are you crying,” asked Rabban Yochanan. “Woe is ours,” answered Rabbi Yehoshua, “for this is the place where (through the rituals of sacrifice) Israel’s sins are forgiven!” Rabban Yochanan said to him, “My son, do not be distressed, for we have a form of atonement just like it. And what is it? G’millut chasadim, acts of kindness. As the prophet says [Hosea 6:6], ‘For I desire chesed, kindness, not sacrifice.’”
Rabban Yochanan’s great teaching enables us all to move forward, just as did the rituals of atonement performed by the High Priest in ancient days.
On this holiest day in the year, we, like the High Priest, are asked to look at our errors, to confront our failures without flinching. We know that we can’t turn back the clock or pretend things never happened. But we can learn to face the fragments left behind by our mistakes, as long as we also keep before our eyes a vision of our goals and ideals. To expect us—or anyone else for that matter—to be perfect, is to miss the whole point of our existence. We aren’t here to perfect anything. We are here to improve; to fix the brokenness; to bridge the error with its tikkun—its repair.
Like the High Priest, we can bring atonement and wholeness into the world—one step at a time, one kind deed at a time. We may never see perfection—and in fact we shouldn’t expect to. All we can hope for is progress. We work to make things better, not best. We can improve, but never perfect. And then we move on, to the next project, and the one after that. That’s the meaning of the Sacred Service, the task set before us, and to which, again and again, we commit our efforts and intentions.
On this holiest of days, may we, like the High Priest of old, find the proper atonement for our brokenness. May we learn to forgive ourselves—and more forgiving of others—for what we weren’t able to complete or achieve this past year. May we learn to live with our imperfections even as we try to better ourselves and the world around us.
May our prayers and meditations on this Yom Kippur be acceptable in the eyes of God and all Life. May our deeds in the year ahead overflow with goodness and kindness. And may we all be sealed in the Book of Life for a New Year of strength and resolve, of happiness and love, of peace and health. Amen.
© 2021 by Boaz D. Heilman
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