Concluding chapter 10. We continue to discuss the incomplete tzaddik, focusing on how the incompleteness is due to a small minute amount of animal soul remains after it is vanquished. We explore imperfection and vulnerability along the way to becoming “perfect,” referencing a blog post, Vulnerability, from two days ago. We also discuss the ultimate goal of doing good as unification of the divine attributes, not spiritual growth as a means of the self desire to connect to Gd. From this, I offer a thought about spiritual growth in general as a continuous process that must go beyond self needs.
Do you want to work on taking the actions of your life and find meaning in all you do and who you are? Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com
Part of spiritual growth is being able to confront one’s imperfections. This confrontation allows us to hone in on those areas of weakness that we wish to work on. While most often we work towards cultivating our strengths and reinvigorating the tools we have to overcome weakness, we don’t always allow the discomfort of admitting to the weakness to be a tool as well.
In a recent article exploring The Role of Vulnerability in Jewish Life, the author, Akiva Garner, shed light on a few points which stuck for me as it relates to a spiritual/religious approach to the concept of being vulnerable.
Here are few highlights (I recommend reading the whole piece as it provides a thorough approach to this important topic).
In defining vulnerability, Akiva suggests the following thesis:
Vulnerability is not tantamount to one oversharing all their difficulties to the world; rather, it is more directly a person’s willingness to present themselves to others as someone aware of, and comfortable with, the fact that attempts to succeed are often inseparable from failures to get there.
Vulnerability is the ability to be honest about being human and being imperfect. From this premise, we can confront many aspects of religious/spiritual life. As an example, he offers the following reflection on prayer:
Prayer is a meditation on humanity’s dependence on God, an admission of the petitioner’s weakness. It is, in some sense, about realizing that what we have comes from God and that what we hope to obtain is possible with the help of God. Expressions of this approach span the wide sea of Jewish thought, from the Kabbalists[2] to Rambam’s Moreh Nevukhim.[3] By the same token, many modern figures have emphasized the importance of this notion in one’s encounter with God. Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein was fond of quoting Friedrich Schleiermacher, who understood the essence of piety as identifying “the consciousness of our absolute dependence… of our relation to God.”[4]
A third passage, one better known in the Orthodox Jewish community, as it relates to our imperfections, is a famous letter from R. Yitzchak Hutner to a student struggling against the weight of the great sages of our tradition:
Rabbi Isaac Hutner understood the importance of this very tension, and he depicted his attitude toward it strongly in a celebrated letter to one of his students:
It is a terrible problem that when we discuss the greatness of our Torah giants (gedolim), we actually deal only with the end of their stories. We tell about their perfection, but we omit any mention of the inner battles which raged in their souls. The impression one gets is that they were created with their full stature. For example, everyone is impressed by the purity of Hofetz Hayyim’s speech. However, who knows about all the wars, the battles, the impediments, the downfalls, and the retreats that Hofetz Hayyim experienced in his fight with the evil inclination?! As a result, when a young man who is imbued with a [holy] spirit and with ambition experiences impediments and downfalls, he believes that he is not planted in the house of Hashem.[8]
In responding to a student distressed by his spiritual shortcomings, Rabbi Hutner does not guarantee that if the student simply works harder things will turn out well, nor does he merely encourage the student to keep trying. Rather, R. Hutner instills within him the comfort that his trial and error will be worthwhile. He ensures the student that his struggles are normal and that authentic achievement does not come without failure along the way. In such an instance, vulnerability is thus not only the modality of being a struggling person but also the courage to expose oneself to others as being as such, allowing oneself to be seen as imperfect in an effort to affirm the normalcy of life’s difficulties and comfort those around us.
This passage always gave me a sense of resolve that we must remember that to be great means to try and try again and always keep trying. It also means when we presume others have achieved perfection, it might be that we are seeing the perfection from the standpoint of hindsight and veneration, not the reality in front of us.
Of course, being vulnerable can also be fraught with certain challenges that we must recognize. Akiva suggests the following in his conclusion:
Firstly, one might be vulnerable simply with the hope that others should resolve his problems on his behalf―with the assumption that the pity he receives from others might exempt him from contributing to his own efforts to overcome his difficulty. This must be avoided for vulnerability to remain a healthy trait…
Furthermore, the argument that has been made here is not that we should be vulnerable in order that we become complacent with our difficulties and collectively give up on them. There lies a tremendous distinction between being comfortable failing and being satisfied with failure;…
Lastly, embracing vulnerability should be done with the value of tzniut in mind. Sharing personal, emotional experiences must be done in a context which is comfortable for all parties; artificially attempting to accelerate a relationship by leaping immediately to sensitive information can wind up doing more harm than good…
Much of my work with others is in confrontation our humanity, imperfections and all, exploring the possibilities for the road ahead, building off the successes and failures of our lives before the moment of wanting a new beginning. We would do well to work on bringing our vulnerable, imperfect selves into all we do, from a place of strength, for it is within the recognizing our humanity is a strength, not a weakness that we can grow and support others in growing spiritually and emotionally.
Too often we fashion ourselves as experts in things we are quite unfamiliar with. This is a mechanism to protect the more vulnerable parts of our personality because we are afraid our not knowing is a sign of lacking when in reality no one knows everything. We feel scared when we are thrust into something we feel unprepared for and sometimes to protect ourselves we act like we know.
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, in Growing Each Day, expounded on the following Talmudic passage from Berachot 4a:
articulated by the Master: Accustom your tongue to say: I do not know, lest you become entangled in a web of deceit.
Rabbi Dr. Twerski suggested:
“While no human being can know everything, some people cannot admit any ignorance about anything. For them, any admission of lack of knowledge threatens their fragile egos… Furthermore, the only way we can acquire knowledge is by accepting that we do not have it. People who claim to know everything cannot learn. Therefore, many opportunities to learn pass them by, and their denying their ignorance actually increases their ignorance… (p.216)”
Saying I don’t know is not strictly an admission of not knowing. Rather it is an opening and invitation to explore. It is through this exploration that we can know, and remove the desire to “fool” ourselves or others. Unfortunately, it is common that our fears of being “seen” actually further hinder our growth and ability to make forward strides. It is that fear that keeps us stagnant and yet leaves us feeling antsy, anxious, unsettled. We are unsettled because we close ourselves off from the value of listening to others and truly listening to ourselves.
One of the core elements of my chaplaincy and now my coaching is to foster the dual listening in the space of care. By my listening to others and hopefully the individuals listening to the words they are saying, it allows us to cultivate the gaining of knowledge through exploration, questions and reflections. Together we open the gates to find new vistas to confront challenging and difficult situations.
May we be blessed to be comfortable in the uncomfortable space of not knowing.
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