Chukat - THE WILL TO KEEP TRYING
Numbers 19:1 - 22:1 | Judges 11:1 - 33
Summary: It can be deeply demoralizing to “not get it” after trying really hard. How do we find the will to keep trying, even after we produce sub-optimal results?
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One of my favorite Talmud stories: Rabbi Pereida had a student who had trouble learning. Sometimes the rabbi would have to teach him something 400 times until the student was able to absorb it.
That’s the story. I mean, there’s more, but this part is a story in itself.
I’m not looking at this story as a teacher who has to overcome his impatience in order to embrace his precious students and give them the educational experience they need in order to grow and thrive. I’m looking at it as a student. It takes me SO frustratingly long to learn how to do things well. I often have to fail SO many times before I get it right. Frankly, it’s starting to wear me down.
It has become wiser to focus less of my attention on questions like “what are some methods I can use in order to learn things quicker?” and more toward questions like “how do I treat myself when I fail, yet again, to learn something that seems so basic? How do I care for my heart and my morale as I once again face the reality of my own shortcomings?” Needless to say, this is humbling.
What I’m wondering is, after Rabbi Pereida and his student learned the material 324 times, and saw that it still didn’t take, what gets them both to show up for the 325th time? And they would have to show up with a good attitude! If either of them is too demoralized, it won’t go well. If the student cannot open up again, try again, listen again, and ask questions again, then it won’t work. If the teachers conveys, or even feels, that this is hopeless, then it won’t work.
So, what allows them both to enter the moment with hope, or at least free of despair, without giving up on themselves or each other?
It must be that Rabbi Pereida wasn’t only, or even primarily, focused on successfully conveying this material to his student. He must have been focused on teaching his student something much more important: literally how to show up, again and again, with a good attitude. He successfully embodied (through his own showing up) this eternal value of not giving up on your ability to learn. I would imagine that, eventually, they both understood that the very fact that they showed up to try again was the actual point.
With that in mind, I can take solace in knowing that I might never fully internalize the successful patterns and approaches that I need in order to succeed in my endeavors. I might be producing less-than-fully-effective weekly parsha things and podcasts and classes, and doing a mediocre job as a dad, husband, friend, neighbor, etc. for quite some time, if not forever. But I do believe that, in showing up every time, trying again every time, I am expressing some faith that the process of showing up and putting in effort is in fact worthwhile.
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Please imagine yourself going through a process like this, in slow motion. You’re with Rabbi Pereida. You have met 323 times in hopes that he could help you understand some fine point or approach or interpretation of some Torah matter, and now you are in #324. And, yet again, it didn’t work. But, time’s up! You have to go walk your donkey. Maybe you’ll get it next time. As you’re about to leave, Rabbi Pereida says something like, “OK! See you tomorrow!”
What would you be thinking as he says that? Imagine all the thoughts you might be thinking at such a time. “It’s a waste of time.” “I’ll never get this.” “I’m dumb.”
What would you have to know, or believe, in order for those thoughts not to be the deepest thoughts that would be happening to you? Of course thoughts like those will arise. But what could you know or believe that would be deeper than those thoughts, such that if/when they come up, there will be another, bigger, deeper, higher, more-true thought/belief in place to defang those menacing thoughts, preventing them from derailing you?
We all know that thin optimism - like “this time it will surely work!” - won’t cut it. Showing up for meeting #282 can’t only be because it might just work this time. It’s got to be something deeper. We’re going to have to find some sense of mission, purpose and meaning in the showing up, in the trying-again. Some reason why, even if it doesn’t “work”, it’s still worthwhile.
Everyone needs to have a way to answer this question. Everyone has to have a place to plant their feet which makes this try worthwhile, even if it fails. Whoever doesn’t have this is in danger of falling off the next cliff.
Along these lines, I learned something this week that illuminated a path forward: what if the whole point of this life is not about getting it right, but about the teshuva we do when we don’t get it right? What if that’s the coin of the realm that we need in order to move on to the next world? Not that we should intentionally screw things up in order to do teshuva - I would assume that there is plenty of material to do teshuva on without adding more fuel to the fire. But if I remember that teshuva is the point - that the apologies and humilities, the reframes I build and the encouragements I muster - that these are the point, and the failures and shortcomings and missed opportunities and dropped balls are actually the means to the end - then I’m right on track for a very successful life.