There’s a great motivational quote, attributed to Nelson Mandela:
“I never lose, I either win, or I learn.”
That’s an empowering way to look at mistakes, and it touches on a Jewish message too.
One Hebrew word for sin is “chet” which means to “miss the mark.”
Our Rabbis teach that one who repents from a place of love has the power to turn transgressions into merits.
In interpersonal relationships too- sometimes arguments, when resolved empathetically and lovingly, can make us closer.
In the Torah story where the Jews worshiped the golden calf, they were essentially (if unintentionally) practicing idolatry. This is considered one of the most serious transgressions in Jewish history. Once Moshe begged and was granted forgiveness for them, G-d commanded him:
“Carve yourself two new tablets like the first ones.”
The word He used for “carve” is the word “psal” – not the usual term. It’s seemingly ironic because it is identical (in Hebrew letters) to the word “pesel” which means “idol.” One might have thought that G-d would want to steer clear of anything that sounds even remotely like “pesel” when rectifying this sin of idolatry, but instead He deliberately uses the very word itself.
Yet there are two other meanings to the root of this word, all connected: one is “the unwanted part” (as in the word “pesolet” which the commentaries note) and the other is to disqualify as in "posel" or “passul”.
Maybe a way to explain this is that when we mess up and then appropriately regret and repent, we’re learning something about ourselves and our moral values. We’re learning to disqualify (posel) behaviors and traits that don’t serve us or society well.
And just as there is “ochel and pesolet” (food and waste) for the body, in the realm of human behavior, we also nourish and discard for our souls. The filtering process refines us and allows us to see more clearly who and how we want to be. When we have failed at something, we now know what to disqualify, what to add to the list of “don’t”s so we can learn and grow from the experience, and redirect toward better choices.
Maybe that’s why G-d specifically used the word “psal l’cha” – carve/ idol for yourself.
He was saying:
“Take the p’solet, the waste, use it to carve ‘psal’ (cut into the whole in order to create something unique and specific), disqualify (posel) what you’ve learned doesn’t serve you and your connection to G-d, and then even this idol, this ‘pesel’ becomes part of Torah, sanctified along with the original broken tablets they replaced.
We call them the “shivrei luchos” the brokenness of the tablets. But the word for broken is the same root as the words for hope and for nourishment. From within the humbled, broken hearts of remorse, hope and renewal begin to sprout.
The Japanese have an art form to symbolize this: Kintsugi, where they repair broken vessels with gold, so the cracks become new expressions of beauty.
We don’t hide, mitigate, justify, or gloss over colossal national mistakes. On the contrary, we canonize them, study them, and learn the pitfalls of being human, and how to repair and rise from them wiser, humbler, better.
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