A Foundation of Imperfection

Any one who has sat through an Aish HaTorah Discovery Session, or through a session by Rabbi Mechanic, or really anyone else who speaks of the greatness and truthness of Yiddishkeit will know that one of the beauties of the Torah is that it includes the Jewish Nation's imperfections. Unlike any other religion, we study stories of Adam Harishon and his children sinning, Yaakov Avinu, and his children sinning, even Moshe Rabeinu, the first leader of our nation sinned. This somehow is vitally important to our beliefs otherwise it would not be written in the Torah. The obvious question is, why do we have a book filled with role models who sinned in ways that we are forbidden to do? Why not leave out the stories of Kayin killing Hevel, Yaakov cmplaining about his Tzaros, Moshe hitting the rock, Dovid sinning with Batsheva, the list goes on and on...

The answer, while being an obvious one that is emphasized strongly in Judaism is one that can and should shed so much light on the way we conduct ourselves everyday. G-d does not expect perfection from mankind. Rain falls, the sun shines, and humans sin. It is in our nature. While we strive not to sin, the real test is how we recover from the sin and take the necessary precautions to not let it happen again. Temptation exists and sometimes we will fail -some more than others- and without sin ultimately the world would be a useless place. At the end of our days, everyone will have sins to account for, but it is the Tzadikim who more often than not did not sin, and when they did, Teshuva was done. Sins are shameful but they teach us lessons. If the Torah did not include sins of Bnei Yisrael, it would be incomplete.

One story in particular sticks out in my mind. Shimshon was a Navi, which just to put into perspective is greater than the holiest Tzaddik of our generation or of the past 3000 years. We're talking about a man who spoke to G-d. His wife, a double agent who was working for the Plishtim asked him night after night what his weakness was. The first couple nights Shimshon told her lies, which she clearly exploited at night when he was asleep. On the third night when he confessed that it was his hair that gave him strength (i.e. his Nezirus and total devotion to Hashem) she exploited that and cut his hair. WHAT WAS HE THINKING??? Obviously she was going to cut his hair. I could have known that, Surely the Holy Shimshon Hanavi could have figured that out. My Rebbe Rav Ari Heller told me that Shimshon knew what would happen. He was seduced by a woman and fell into her trap. This teaches us such a valuable lesson of the powers of temptation and seduction; while sometimes we will know the consequences of our actions but perform them anyways because the challenge is too great to overcome.
These are timeless lessons here! The shortcomings of our role models teach us how much harder we have to work-us who don't merit to talk to G-d-in order to overcome our challenges.

We sin everyday. Our Rebbeim sin sometimes. The Israeli army sins once in a while(yes, it's true, even the most ethical army in the world is not greater than Moshe Rabeinu) Let's not look at the sins of our foreparents and say "if they sinned, and they were so holy, then surely I will sin" rather let's say "The Torah taught us this story so we can learn from it and not repeat the same mistakes as those before us". And when we do sin, instead of letting ourselves spiral downward in depression, or further sins, as is human nature (Well if I already sinned once, I might as well go all the way), Let's pick ourselves up and prevent ourselves from coming close to that sin ever again. Such is the Jewish way.