Hope in the Face of Failure

 

I hate failure. I hate it in all its forms when it is my own failure. I can at times hate it in others as well (hate the failure – not the person). I can hate it when someone of a sports team I’m following doesn’t succeed in advancing his team’s fortune.

 

It can be comforting at times to know that great people have failed as well. Elvis, Dr. Seuss, and Edison all failed on their way to great success. Even Babe Ruth struck out hundreds of times on his path to 714 home runs.1 And in those times, even when it was through no fault of mine, though I may feel less guilty, the task was not completed.

 

Even Moshe Rabbeinu, says the Chizkuni, did not understand the nation’s difficulty in listening to him and instead he focused on solely on his failing his task.  "Behold the Children of Israel did not listen to me,”2 he says. He was charged with the task of taking his nation out of Egypt. Yet three of his first four attempts at creating change among his people and among Par’oh ended in failure – his people had no patience for him and Par’oh mocked him3.

 

I am not convinced that Moshe could have done anything differently at that point. And he experienced failure. He may even have done everything right, but nothing changed. Not only did he not get the job done – hey, it even seemed that his intervention made it worse for the people.

 

I was excited to see Chief Rabbi Sacks tackle the topic of apparent failures of great people. The former Chief Rabbi of England writes: “Defeats, delays and disappointments hurt. They hurt even for Moses. So if there are times when we, too, feel discouraged and demoralised, it is important to remember that even the greatest people failed. What made them great is that they kept going.”4

 

Getting defeated then is not the end. It creates the challenge. When people feel stuck in therapy, I often use the following verse from Scripture: “Seven times a righteous man may fall yet he gets up.”5

 

Everyone falls – even the righteous. Yet the righteous man is not judged by how many times he falls, rather how he finds the way to get back up. That is his measure.

 

Defeats, delays and disappointments hurt…So if there are times when we, too, feel discouraged and demoralised, it is important to remember that even the greatest people failed. What made them great is that they kept going. Rabbi Sacks

 

One of the three parts of Dr. Viktor Frankl’s “tragic triad” is suffering. We all fall, we all fail and we all suffer from things that happen to us in life. Exactly at that moment, we are faced with a decision of either remaining a victim of circumstance or a victor in our individual story.

 

We all possess what Dr. Viktor Frankl calls a ‘defiant power of the human spirit’, to help us through difficult situations.6

 

Do we have the ability to draft that power when times are difficult? No one can blame us if we don’t. It certainly isn’t easy being in that position. It can hurt – a lot. And it may take time. We are not computer programs to be reprogrammed if something goes wrong.

 

Rather, we are challenged to find a new path – either through the hurt or by using the pain in order to help others with similar issues. What Frankl describes as optimism in the face of tragedy, can help us transcend the difficulty and continue in a meaning-filled path.

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

 

Footnotes

 

  1. He actually struck out more often than he homered – 1,330 times according to https://www.mlb.com/player/babe-ruth-121578. He is often quoted as saying – “never let the fear of striking out  keep you from playing the game.”
  2. Shemot 6:9. Only in 4:31 did they listen to him and believe him
  3. 5:2 and Par'oh was unphased as well in 7:13
  4. https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/vaera/overcoming-setbacks/
  5. Mishlei 24:16. writer’s translation based on Ralbag.
  6. Frankl, Viktor E.. Man's Search for Meaning (p. 147). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.

 

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