Yom Kippur: The Blessing of Failure
Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2015/5776
This morning I would like to talk to you about the blessing of failure.
Moses - known as the greatest leader of the Jewish people, began his career reluctantly, terrified of the task placed before him. As you may remember, Moses first encounters God at the burning bush. God says to Moses: “I am the Lord your God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I have heard my people cry out to me from their enslavement and it is time for me to set them free. I will send you to Pharaoh to bring forth my people. Moses’ responded – and I paraphrase: “You must be kidding. You want me to go up against Pharaoh? You think that I can help you? You definitely have me confused with someone else. No one will ever believe that I have God on my side. I am just a shepherd with a lisp. Please God, choose someone else.” In this moment Moses had no faith in himself. He was afraid that he would fail and an entire nation would suffer the consequences.
I make light of this dialogue, but Moses’ trepidation was very real. We have ALL experienced doubts and concerns associated with the possibility of failure – whether in our professions, our relationships, our schooling or our finances. We might know, intellectually, that taking a risk is the right thing to do… but wow is it scary. What if we can’t do it? What if we fail? We might be humiliated, we might cost our company, we might lose our job. Life may not be exactly the way we want it, but what if we take a chance and end up worse off? This is the reason we try to protect ourselves and our children from failure. We are afraid that if we step outside our comfort zone there will be dire consequences rather than great reward. We forget that so many of the most successful people – Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey - took big risks and faced failure. And here’s the thing – they needed to fail in order to succeed.
What better example of this than the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs? Jobs, who never graduated from college, was fired from Apple – the company he created! In his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, Jobs recalled the devastating public humiliation of being ousted, yet states “…. getting fired was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything, freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. I had been rejected, but I still loved what I did, so I decided to start over.”
I know what you are thinking. It is easy to consider Steve Jobs failing. He had the resources to take risks and not worry about paying the bills. It is easier to take a chance when we do not have anything to lose – either because we have nothing, or because we are extremely successful. This is why many of the wealthiest people continually try new endeavors. This is also why sociologists teach that, in the United States, 1st generation immigrants are particularly innovative. They come here looking for a better life; they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Political Junkie Ken Rudin suggests that to solve the immigration crisis we should all emigrate after three generations, and start over. I am not advocating that we all get up and leave, but it is interesting to think about what happens once we are comfortable. This is when the fear of going backwards restrains us from being creative. Yet, even if we may not all invent the light bulb, we will all face disappointment in our lives and recognizing how to handle this may determine the outcome of our struggles.
Knowing that failure is often critical to success, the question becomes how do we accept setbacks gracefully, and teach our children to do the same, when we are so afraid of it? To do this we need to remember that failing rarely brings the dire consequences we anticipate. There is a famous story about one of the first IBM computer designs. This computer had serious flaws and was quickly dropped from production. The project manager, expecting to be fired, asked his boss if he should clean out his desk. The supervisor replied: “We just spent several millions dollars training you. Why would we want to fire you?” This man cost his company and yet his boss understood that this would make him better at his job. He learned so much about the consumer from his failure. In addition the employee became more valuable because he showed IBM he could 1. Learn from the mistake, 2. Own it, 3. Fix it, and 4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the same mistake was not repeated. What an amazing lesson to know that failures are to be learned from, not to be ridiculed.
If we can take risks and learn from our mistakes then we will set an incredible example for our children. When my aunt was in her mid 40s – after raising three children – she decided to go to law school. She had been out of school for years and had no idea if she would be able to get in, let alone do the work once she was there. She ended up having an amazing three years of school and loved every day she practiced as a litigator. She faced the possibility of failure and it changed her life for good. She also set a powerful example for her children and nieces and nephews that it is never too late to fulfill your dreams.
We have a hard time allowing children to fail. We tolerate misjudgments when we teach them to ride bikes, ice skate, even drive a car. They fall and we insist that they get back up and keep going. Yet when it comes to school or relationships we have a much harder time letting go.
I will never forget how impactful being allowed to fail was for me. I was 15 and it was my first time behind the wheel of a car. I was with my dad in his new sedan and we went for a drive around the neighborhood. He told me to turn right, but I did not turn fast enough. I ended up driving over the curb and over a sapling. Yes, I drove over, not into, a tree. The bottom of his car was punctured and, adding insult to injury, we had to go buy the city a new tree. I was so embarrassed. We then went home to tell my family what had happened. My brother was relentless with the teasing comments. I assumed that as far as my father was concerned, I was done driving for a while, and frankly in that moment I would have been happy to never drive. Still, the next day, my dad made me get right back in the driver’s seat and try again. I learned more about being a safe driver from my mistake – my failure – than from hours of drivers ed.
Not only did I learn about driving, I learned about making big and expensive mistakes. I learned they are painful, they are embarrassing, and they are scary. I also learned that I have the ability to fail and that I have the resiliency to pick myself back up and continue. Unfortunately, this cannot be taught any other way. When we protect ourselves and our children from defeat we rob them of these lessons. When we protect our children from failure we do not give them the tools to tackle the world on their own. We end up with young adults who do not believe in their own abilities. Renowned therapist and author Dr. Wendy Mogel tells a wonderful story about getting into trouble as a child. When she would present her predicament to her father he would answer: “That is very interesting, how are you going to solve it.” Mogel’s parents intuitively understood that children usually get themselves into age appropriate trouble and given time and encouragement they can get themselves out of their dilemma.
Psychologists agree that although, at the time, we feel that failure is the end of the world, it actually helps us to move on to the next stage of our lives. Letting kids mess up is tough and painful for parents. But it helps kids learn how to fix slip-ups and make better decisions next time. Children who are allowed to fail, have a stronger sense of self. “When they step into a situation, [resilient kids] have a sense they can figure out what they need to do and can handle what is thrown at them with a sense of confidence.”
Failing is not the end of the world, it is the beginning of a new challenge. Failure only becomes a serious problem when we confuse it with our self-identity. Failing is not the problem; it is how we frame it that is the obstacle. Rather than admitting we made a mistake we need to fix, we call ourselves failures. We define ourselves by the setback. This definitely does not help us learn from our blunder and move forward with new knowledge and confidence to face whatever comes in our way.
Moses, our teacher, leader, and law giver who is arguably the greatest individual of our tradition, failed over and over again. Even with God's help, he had to go back to Pharaoh 10 times before the Israelites were freed. After the crossing of the Red Sea, he goes up to receive the 10 commandments and returns to find the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. Over and over again the people lose faith -- he loses patience and, finally, his temper. He fails to achieve his primary career goal, the ultimate promotion -- to enter the Promised Land. And in the end, his failures teach us as much as his successes. Moses teaches us that our goal is not to be perfect, but to improve the world even if it means we will face failure in the process. On this Yom Kippur, as we stand before God with all of our imperfections, our fears, doubts, and anxieties, let us pray not for certainty but for courage, not for ease but for resilience, not for finitude but for faith, not to reach our destination but to embrace the mystery and wonder of the journey of our lives.