The Perfect Excuse

A one-liner from comedian, Steven Wright:

"They told me in school that 'practice makes perfect.'  Then they told me, 'Nobody's perfect.'  ...So I stopped practicing."

A droll observation.  But it raises a serious issue.  Between these two truisms, which one is really true?  Or is the truth somewhere in between.  Is perfection attainable or is it not?

If we're talking about proficiency and skill -- like a major league hitter batting a thousand -- then perfection may be pie in the sky.  But if we're talking about matters of integrity and decency, then perfection is actually our bottom line.  Indeed, perfection doesn't seem like such an unreasonable expectation if we are to think of the alternative as an employee who doesn't steal 99% of the profits or a spouse who is faithful 99% of the time.

Chasidic Self-Help

The first Rebbe of Chabad, R' Schneur Zalman of Liadi, known as the Alter Rebbe, wrote a whole book as a step-by-step guide for  actualizing one's complete personal potential.  The book is called Tanya and its premise is that anyone who earnestly applies the methods clearly outlined in the book will be able to attain personal perfection and, with continued effort, consistently maintain that state for the rest of his or her life.

I Am, I Do

In Tanya, The Alter Rebbe points out an interesting dichotomy in the human condition.  On one hand, man is fallible by nature, prone to selfishness and self-justification.  On the other hand, man is in control over his impulses.  He is not an animal and has free will to act as he wills at any given time.

In other words, we might not be perfect, but we have the choice to do perfect.  Or to put it in psychological terms, not everything that is wrong with us on the inside do we necessarily have to bring into expression on the outside.

This is the perfection which the Alter Rebbe tells us we can achieve -- to become a person who despite being rife with imperfections on the inside, chooses to behave perfectly on the outside.

The Lie of Being Genuine

There is a common knee-jerk reaction -- at least from some people --  to brand this advice as a prescription for hypocrisy.  "If you're flawed on the insides, how dare you project perfection on the outsides?"

But is impulse control hypocrisy?  If you cover your mouth before you cough, are you a hypocrite?  Do you have to say every random thought that pops into your head in order to be "real"?

The correct definition of a hypocrite is one that preaches one set of standards to others while personally adhering to another.  But that's not at all what we're talking about here.  Feeling like doing something selfish and rotten but forcing yourself to do something altruistic and noble isn't called hypocrisy; it's called being a healthy, normal, decent human being.

Whenever we overcome our impulses to behave in a particular way, we aren't pretending not to be something we're not; we are making the decision to do what ought to be done.

"My Name is... and I am a Human Being"

In 12-Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, members introduce themselves at every meeting, "My name is so-and-so; I am an alcoholic."

Essential to his survival is the alcoholic's recognition of the difference between being and doing.  On the one hand, he is an alcoholic.  He says so at every meeting.  And since that's who he is, it's obviously not his fault.  On the other hand, he can't drink.  He must maintain total abstinence.  Because drinking or not drinking is something he does and it is entirely up to him what to choose.

It is axiomatic that if we are human, then we suffer from the human condition.  That's just who we are and we're not responsible for it.  At the same time, the human condition is a poor excuse for misconduct.  Whatever our foibles and flaws, behavior is a choice and if we choose to do the wrong thing, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Jimmy Carter's Heart

When Jimmy Carter first ran for president, a journalist asked the candidate if he had ever been unfaithful in his marriage.  Carter's solemn response was, "I've lusted in my heart," to which he added, "But G-d knows I will do this and forgives me."

What is that supposed to mean?  Was Carter admitting to having natural urges and desires?  And, indeed, if that was the case, should we care?  What kind of news is that?

Imagine asking a Jew, "Did you ever eat on Yom Kippur?" and he answers, "I felt hungry in my stomach."

You felt hungry.  That's not a moral issue.  It's a physiological issue.  You were hungry.  And even if you say that you felt hungry when it was only an hour into the fast and your stomach was still full from Erev Yom Kippur, then it is still just an emotional or psychological issue.  The bottom line is that you did not eat!  You didn't do it.  You didn't talk about doing it.  You didn't even entertain it as an actual thought.  You felt it.

That's why Carter's statement that he "lusted in his heart" makes no sense.  If he was trying to convey that he had felt urges, then what substance is there to his "confession"?  It seems rather like admitting to having driven 50 mph in a school zone... "in your heart".

If, on the other hand, what he was saying is that he hadn't just felt impulses but actually calculated and made plans to act out them out but never actually gone through with them, then that might be worthy of mention.  But then the tag-on "G-d knows I will do this and forgives me" makes no sense.  Why should G-d give out a free pass for a person's scheming just because the All-Knowing is aware of it before it happens?

The Jewish Dichotomy

Either way you read the statement, both it's logic and its belief system seem weak.  At the very least, we can say that it's not a very Jewish answer -- which is perfectly understandable coming from a Baptist. 

1) The very notion that I am condemnable for impulses and feelings is consummately un-Jewish.  Humanity is not damned for being human. 

2) The idea that I am entitled to forgiveness for wrongdoing because my human frailty and fallibility excuses me is equally un-Jewish.

On the one hand, a Jew doesn't need to "come clean" about the fact that he is human but neither does he assume absolvence for misdeed on those same grounds.  Judaism teaches us that we are innately imperfect, but at the same time, G-d has high enough expectations of us to judge our actions against a standard of perfection.

When Benjamin Franklin wrote about self-perfection in the late 1700s, his ideas were thought to be very un-Christian by many of his coreligionists.  After all, the chief tenet of that religion, the need for salvation, is predicated upon the assumption that we are all hopelessly imperfect.  Self-perfection has no place in such a belief system.  It throws a wrench into the theological gears.

But we Jews don't have that stumbling block.  We don't look to G-d for salvation from our imperfections but for direction how to heal the world from its imperfection.  Our job -- the job we were chosen for -- is to put our own imperfection aside and take actions that help make a perfect world.

A Jew thus has not only the license but the obligation to pursue perfection in his or her deeds.  After all, there is really nothing stopping us.  Or as the saying goes, "Everyone is just as much of a mentch as he wants to be."

The Talmud says that for every concept, King Solomon had three thousand metaphors.

Chasidus explains that these metaphors weren't parallel tracks for explaining the same idea.  The three thousand metaphors weren't horizontal but vertical -- one stacked on top of the other.

In other words, King Solomon could take a lofty concept that was totally removed from other people's capacity to understand and bring that self-same concept down three thousand levels until anybody could grasp it.

About a millenium later, the Sage, Rebbe Meir, was said to be able to come up with three hundred metaphors for every concept.  That means that he could get anybody to understand a concept that was three hundred levels beyond that person's intellect.  That's only a tenth as far as King Solomon was able to go, but it's still pretty impressive. 

Metaphor is the intellectual, verbal art of making the abstract accessible.  It means teaching us something that we are unable to relate to by comparing it to something that we already relate to.  More aptly stated, a metaphor solidifies for us a lofty idea by pointing to how that very concept is manifest on a lower plain of reality.  The one who is proficient in the art of metaphor uses the language of our experience of the mundane world as a platform upon which to build for us a scaffolding to the sublime.

A good metaphor lifts us to intellectual heights to which we could not even dream of, let alone reach, on our own.

A good metaphor takes us up, above and beyond what we could normally understand.

A good metaphor.

What's a bad metaphor?

One that uses lofty terms to describe what is course and crass.

One that brings us down.

"Mysticism" is a word we throw around quite a bit when talking about spiritual beliefs and practices. 

I once gave a lecture that was advertised as "Jewish Mysticism 101."  It had a massive turn-out.  Why wouldn't it?  After all, it was about mysticism.  I asked the students to indicate, by show of hands, who had come because they were attracted to mysticism.  They all raised their hands.  Next, I asked if anyone could define the word mysticism.  A few brave souls took a stab at it, but no one was really sure what it meant.  As one fellow said, "I don't know what it is exactly, but it's something spiritual.  It's deep stuff."

"Mysticism" is from the same root as the word "mystery."  When we're talking about mysticism, we're talking about things that we cannot really understand.  It's not a mystery we can solve.  It's fundamentally mysterious.

Now, why would people be drawn to come and learn things that are fundamentally unknowable?  Why would they want to be presented with concepts that are so profoundly abstruse that they cannot be understood?

Life is mysterious enough on its own.  What we need is clarity, to shed light on the meaning of life, not to obfuscate it behind a cloak of abstraction.

Chasidus is a teaching which demystifies the mysteries of life.  It uses spiritual language to tells us who we are, what we are supposed to be doing and why those things are important to G-d.  Absent this kind of practical application to the here and now, spirituality can be just another euphemism for a self-indulgent trip.

Chasidus lifts us up to the heavens in order to give us a perspective which we can then bring with us upon our return back to earth.