The Tzadik In Training

A Torah anytime original series. The Gumarian condition says something shocking about the greatest spiritual collapse in history. It says is trying to figure out how in the world could the holiest Jews who ever lived commit such like an egregious act immediately after receiving the Tyra. So the Gumar says that in truth they were on a much higher loftier level than committing such a sin. However, Hashem lowered their guard, so to speak, so that they should sin and then thus be forced to do chuva and introduce to the world the concept of chuva. That's what the Gamarra says. Let's ask an obvious question. Are you serious? That's when you teach us about chuva. I I'm all into chuva. It's important. There's no doubt. Can you wait a few minutes before orchestrating the most catastrophic publicly talked about sin in all of world history? Does it really need to be 10 seconds after we get to Tyra? Can't you wait until some random cloudy day in October? The Jews are sitting around in the desert counting sand and minding their own business and there is nothing else going on and then you lower their level and they do the ego and we do chuva and we teach the whole world for all time the concept of chuva. Why orchestrate it to coincide with the giving of the Torah? Oh, only the single greatest holiest moment in all of world history. That's when you teach me about chuva. The answer is that Hashem chose that moment on purpose right after mantra because he wanted to make something crystal clear once and for all. Don't you ever dare think that the Tyra is only for its sadikim. Don't you ever dare think it demands perfection, that it's only for people floating in some holy spiritual incubator where everything is peaceful and pure. No, that's not real life. The reason the eagle had to come immediately after maantara is to show us that a Torah life without failure and more importantly without knowing how to get back up doesn't work. The Tyra was given with failure in mind. The Tyra doesn't just understand failure. It expects it. It anticipates it. For the same God that gave us the Tyra gave us the ninness and the challenges to strengthen us and to eventually bring us back to him through the most powerful force in the world, a force called Chuva. Hashem was sending a message not just to the Jews of the Midbar, but to every single Jew for all time. That pit in your stomach when you mess up, that ache, that guilty feeling, that anxiety, that feeling that you should be spiritually more than you are right now, that's not something that gets in the way of your hashem. That is your being real, being raw, coming to Hashem, not with perfection, but with honesty, with the bruises, with the baggage, with the regret, with the burning desire to pick yourself up and keep going. That's not a flaw in the system. That's not a bug in the system. That is the system. Hashem didn't give the Tyra to angels. He gave it to people. Real people with jobs and bills and screaming kids and skilled coffee and annoying co-workers and sore backs and overflowing schedules and breaking points. And somewhere deep inside of all of that, a spark that just wants more. The fact that you wish you learned more terra. The fact that you regret you don't davin better. That you cry when no one else is looking because you really want to give more stuck and you wish you could. That you carry spiritual dreams you never had time to chase that still nag at your heart. That's not failure. That's the spark. That's not something that gets in the way of your yearning to be better in aem isn't a detour. It's the highway. And yet, how often do we walk around saying, "Hey, I'm not a gudo, so I'm a failure. I don't dive in like the stone or rebel, so I'm a failure. I don't learn like fancy, so I'm a failure." What a mistake. Hashem doesn't expect you to be an instant gull. He wants to see you learn to grow. He knows your life. He knows your struggles. He knows your limitations. He made your limitations. Of course, he doesn't expect a 13-year-old or a 12year-old girl to be perfect on their bar mitzvah day. What he wants is that you're climbing the ladder, not settling on the floor. Hashem never asked you to be a gull overnight. He asked you not to give up on becoming one. So stop disqualifying yourself. Stop comparing your beginning to someone else's end. Stop calling growth failure just because it's not finished yet. If you're climbing, even if you're out of breath, you're exactly where you're supposed to be.