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But then things start to go wrong, and continue going wrong. Moses’ first appearance before Pharaoh is disastrous. Pharaoh refuses to recognise God. He rejects Moses’ request to let the people travel into the wilderness. He makes life worse for the Israelites. They must still make the same quota of bricks, but now they must also gather their own straw. The people turn against Moses and Aaron: "May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us." (Ex. 5:21)
Moses and Aaron return to Pharaoh to renew their request. They perform a sign – they turn a staff into a snake – but Pharaoh is unimpressed. His own magicians can do likewise. Next they bring the first of the plagues, but again Pharaoh is unmoved. He will not let the Israelites go. And so it goes, nine times. Moses does everything in his power and finds that nothing makes a difference. The Israelites are still slaves.
We sense the pressure Moses is under. After his first setback, at the end of last week’s parsha, he turns to God and bitterly complains: "Why, Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Is this why You sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and You have not rescued Your people at all." (Ex. 5:22-23)
In this week’s parsha of Vaera, even though God has reassured him that he will eventually succeed, he replies, "If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?" (Ex. 6:12).
There is an enduring message here. Leadership, even of the very highest order, is often marked by failure. The first Impressionists had to arrange their own exhibition because their work was rejected by the Paris salons. The first performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring caused a riot, with the audience booing throughout. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime despite the fact that his brother Theo was an art dealer.
So it is with leaders. Abraham Lincoln faced countless setbacks during the Civil War. He was a deeply divisive figure, hated by many in his lifetime. Gandhi failed in his dream of uniting Muslims and Hindus together in a single nation. Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison, accused of treason and regarded as a violent agitator. Winston Churchill was regarded as a spent force in politics by the 1930s, and even after his heroic leadership during the Second World War was voted out of office at the first General Election after the war was over. Only in retrospect do heroes seem heroic and the many setbacks they faced reveal themselves as stepping-stones on the road to victory.
In our discussion of parshat Vayetse, we saw that in every field – high or low, sacred or secular - leaders are tested not by their successes but by their failures. It can sometimes be easy to succeed. The conditions may be favourable. The economic, political or personal climate is good. When there is an economic boom, most businesses flourish. In the first months after a general election, the successful leader carries with him or her the charisma of victory. In the first year, most marriages are happy. It takes no special skill to succeed in good times.
But then the climate changes. Eventually it always does. That is when many businesses, and politicians, and marriages fail. There are times when even the greatest people stumble. At such moments, character is tested. The great human beings are not those who never fail. They are those who survive failure, who keep on going, who refuse to be defeated, who never give up or give in. They keep trying. They learn from every mistake. They treat failure as a learning experience. And from every refusal to be defeated, they become stronger, wiser and more determined. That is the story of Moses’ life in both parshat Shemot and parshat Vaera.
Jim Collins, one of the great writers on leadership, puts it well:
The signature of the truly great versus the merely successful is not the absence of difficulty, but the ability to come back from setbacks, even cataclysmic catastrophes, stronger than before ...The path out of darkness begins with those exasperatingly persistent individuals who are constitutionally incapable of capitulation. It's one thing to suffer a staggering defeat…and entirely another to give up on the values and aspirations that make the protracted struggle worthwhile. Failure is not so much a physical state as a state of mind; success is falling down, and getting up one more time, without end. 1
Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner once wrote a powerful letter to a disciple who had become discouraged by his repeated failure to master Talmudic learning:
A failing many of us suffer is that when we focus on the high attainments of great people, we discuss how they are complete in this or that area, while omitting mention of the inner struggles that had previously raged within them. A listener would get the impression that these individuals sprang from the hand of their creator in a state of perfection . . .
The result of this feeling is that when an ambitious young man of spirit and enthusiasm meets obstacles, falls and slumps, he imagines himself as unworthy of being "planted in the house of God"(Ps. 92:13)…
Know, however, my dear friend, that your soul is rooted not in the tranquillity of the good inclination, but in the battle of the good inclination...The English expression, "Lose a battle and win the war," applies. Certainly you have stumbled and will stumble again, and in many battles you will fall lame. I promise you, though, that after those losing campaigns you will emerge from the war with laurels of victory on your head...The wisest of men said, "A righteous man falls seven times, but rises again." (Proverbs 24:16) Fools believe the intent of the verse is to teach us that the righteous man falls seven times and, despite this, he rises. But the knowledgeable are aware that the essence of the righteous man’s rising again is because of his seven falls. 2
The result of this feeling is that when an ambitious young man of spirit and enthusiasm meets obstacles, falls and slumps, he imagines himself as unworthy of being "planted in the house of God"(Ps. 92:13)…
Know, however, my dear friend, that your soul is rooted not in the tranquillity of the good inclination, but in the battle of the good inclination...The English expression, "Lose a battle and win the war," applies. Certainly you have stumbled and will stumble again, and in many battles you will fall lame. I promise you, though, that after those losing campaigns you will emerge from the war with laurels of victory on your head...The wisest of men said, "A righteous man falls seven times, but rises again." (Proverbs 24:16) Fools believe the intent of the verse is to teach us that the righteous man falls seven times and, despite this, he rises. But the knowledgeable are aware that the essence of the righteous man’s rising again is because of his seven falls. 2
Rabbi Hutner’s point is that greatness cannot be achieved without failure. There are heights you cannot climb without first having fallen.
For many years, I kept on my desk a quote from Calvin Coolidge, sent by a friend who knew how easy it is to be discouraged. It said:
"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
I would only add, "And seyata diShmaya, the help of Heaven." God never loses faith in us even if we sometimes lose faith in ourselves.
The supreme role model is Moses who, despite all the setbacks chronicled in last week’s parsha and this week’s, eventually became the man of whom it was said that he was "a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were undimmed and his energy unabated." (Deut. 34:7)
Defeats, delays and disappointments hurt. They hurt even for Moses. So if there are times when we, too, feel discouraged and demoralised, it is important to remember that even the greatest people failed. What made them great is that they kept going. The road to success passes through many valleys of failure. There is no other way.
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QUESTIONS
1. What kind of responses to failure does Rabbi Sacks encourage?
2. "God never loses faith in us" – could this idea help you to believe in yourself?
3. Does it inspire you to think about how even the people who have achieved great success have also suffered great disappointments, rejections and defeats?
-To engage further with Rabbi Sacks’s teachings, or to sign up to his mailing list, please go to www.rabbisacks.org
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 8- "Answering Questions on the Kuzari's Proof from Mass Revelation
Rabbis in Midrash
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Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 9 - "Seeing is Believing" (parag. 21-30)
These paragraphs elaborate on the theme that seeing and knowing is better than any attempt to prove logically, and begins explaining the difference between Israel and gentiles.
Ein Aya Various Universal Stages of the Geula Process
Rav Kook examines the various stages of redemption, explaining how (in addition to the obvious oft-mentioned stages of ingathering the exiles, reviving the Hebrew language, army, state etc.) the messianic dream of world prosperity, the State of Israel and world unity can and are realistically and logically gradually coming true.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 8- "Answering Questions on the Kuzari's Proof from Mass Revelation
How do we know that the "claim" of mass revelation to 2,000,000 witnesses at Mt. Sinai is really true? This important class answers all of the questions skeptics ask about this claim of the Kuzari.
Ein Aya Armies Still Necessary for Balance & the War Against Wars
Rav Kook explains why the world was originally divided into the various seemingly contradicting ideologies and cultures, in order to develop each one respectively. Swords or armies symbolize how each respective ideology defends themselves, as well as deters their opposing ideologies and cultures. On the other hand, the messianic era will be one of peace, and Rav Kook explains the transition to that stage, which mankind is already undergoing.
The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
