Far from Perfect

I was recently at a talk given by Rabbi Erez Moshe Doron, where he was talking about how Hashem prefers a sinner who knows he’s a sinner, to a tzaddik (saint) who knows that he’s a tzaddik.

What did he mean by that?

He meant that every single one of us slips us every single day. Every single one of us, even the most righteous, has what to make teshuva (repentance) on every single day. That’s why Rebbe Nachman put such a lot of emphasis on people doing an hour of personal prayer a day, precisely so that they could go over the previous 24 hours, and try to catch some of the things they did wrong, and to make teshuva and try to improve in those areas.
 
This sort of introspective hitbodedut is far from easy. In Forest Fields, Rav Arush explains that often, the first few times you try to remember your sins, you draw a complete blank, because the evil inclination makes it so hard for us admit that we still have a lot of work to do.
 
I’ve found this myself: often, I’m trying and trying to remember all the slip ups, the forgotten blessings, the evil speech, the casual cruelties, the clothes that aren’t quite 100% OK – and my mind goes completely blank.
 
Hey, wait a minute! What’s going on here? I know that I said something stupid when I was talking to X yesterday. Why can’t I remember the details now, and make teshuva for it?
 
You should know, this hasn’t been going on for days, or even weeks: it’s been going on for months. But I haven’t given up, because slowly, I am starting to remember more of the things that I’m doing wrong. Even better, Hashem is giving me a much greater sensitivity, so I understand in the middle of something, or straight after, that I’ve just slipped up, and I try to make teshuva for it on the spot.
 
I have a lot of work to do. I am doing my best to be a sinner who knows that I’m a sinner – and it keeps me very humble. When you know that you are sinner, you know that you have what to work on, and what to fix, even if you aren’t quite ready to admit it.
 
But when you’re a tzaddik who knows you are a tzaddik, you’re perfect. You’ve arrived. You are doing everything A-OK and there is nothing more you need to do.
 
One of the things that drives me absolutely bonkers is when I talk to ‘perfect’ people who really and truly believe they are doing pretty well, and don’t really have anything much to fix. OK, they may concede that they still talk a little bit too much lashon hora (evil speech) – it’s such a tough one to eradicate that even tzaddikim struggle with it a bit – but in general, they are doing p-r-e-t-t-y well, thank you very much.
 
They reel off all the amazing mitzvot they do – and they are right, that each mitzvah is truly amazing. But doing a lot of mitzvot doesn’t make someone a tzaddik. In fact, a key ingredient of a genuine tzaddik is that they usually have a profound understanding of just how small they really are, and just how far from perfect they really are.
 
A real tzaddik would never dream of describing themselves as doing ‘p-r-e-t-t-y well’. Talk to a real tzaddik, and they’ll openly admit all the areas they are still struggling in. They won’t spend half an hour extolling their own virtues; quite the opposite.
 
In one of his torah lessons, Rav Arush explained that people who are already ‘religious’ at least externally, but who don’t appreciate that they are still sinners, and still need to make daily teshuva, are in the darkest dark there can be.
 
They are so convinced of their own righteousness, that it never crosses their mind that maybe, just maybe, they aren’t as perfect as they think, and that there is still a whole bunch of things that need to be examined, and changed.
 
I’ve met a lot of people who are stuck in that terrible darkness; people whose outward observance of mitzvot seems to have inoculated them against developing a more sincere, humble, genuine desire to do what G-d wants.
 
“I’m already doing what He wants!” they exclaim. “I eat kosher; I cover my hair; I keep Shabbat.”
 
But there is more, so much more, to being a sincere ‘good’ Jew.
 
The point is not to be perfect. The point is to be honest, because honesty leads to humility, and humility leads to a real relationship with G-d. The point is not to be a tzaddik who knows they are a tzaddik, but to be a sinner who knows they are a sinner, because sinners can make teshuva and grow and change.
 
If you don’t admit that you do things wrong, you’ll never work on improving. And you’ll be stuck in a very dark place, where on the outside you are as pious as can be, but on the inside, you are the furthest away you can get from the Creator.