Let’s not worry about the word “failure.” Failure (or whatever synonym you choose to use for it: sin, alienation, missing the mark) is an inevitable part of the process of becoming truly human. As Samuel Beckett says: “Fail. Fail again. Fail better.” As Mordecai Kaplan reminds us, though failure is inevitable, repentance is always a possibility.
The first failure is “the failure to integrate our impulses, habits, social activities and institutions in harmony with those ethical ideals that make God manifest in the world.” (The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion, 182) If we’re not integrated, we don’t trust ourselves and we become frustrated. Insecurity and frustration lead to many acts of unkindness, often hidden to ourselves.
When we work to integrate ourselves, all of who we are, internally and externally, individually and socially, we are acting as the image of God, whose character we experience as integrated. This is one of the meanings of affirming in the Sh’ma that “The Lord our God is One.”
Kaplan draws this conclusion: “If human character is to reflect the divine, it must be integrated and self-consistent. This involves a working synthesis of individual self-expression and social cooperation. Such a synthesis is, therefore, evidence of atonement won and the fruit of effective repentance.” (182-183). One might say this is another way to interpret Hillel’s famous counsel: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?" (Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14)
Some of us are very integrated individually. Some of us are very integrated socially. How are we doing on the synthesis in our lives?
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