The Journey to Perfection

The actor, Michael J. Fox once said, “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business.” I don’t think I could have asked for a better theological framing of this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim. 

As with every other parsha in the book of Deuteronomy, the Israelites have entered the final phase of their journey through the desert, on their way to the Promised Land. And this week’s portion continues the theme of instruction. In these weeks, Moses has not only guided the people in their physical journey through the wilderness, but has guided them practically, existentially, and communally. In the last few weeks, before the people enter the land and Moses takes his final breath, the people and their leader envision their future together. It is not a shared future per se, but a future that is at the very least imagined in partnership. Together, they dream big about how to build this next chapter– how to organize themselves socially, politically, legally, and spiritually. 

So this week’s parsha contains lots of practical rules and guidelines for establishing and growing into a functional, and successful community. In this week’s portion we read about the appointment of judges and magistrates, the establishment of courts, the various legal requirements pertaining to witnesses and testimony. We read about the prohibitions against idol worship, sorcery; as well as the special obligations of a king. We read again about the establishment of cities of refuge, our obligations to the land and the environment, and the rules of war.

Parshat Shoftim is replete with the practical, the scaffolding upon which community and society rest. 

But then, in the middle of the parsha, an interesting, and seemingly out of context verse appears:

תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ׃

You must be wholehearted with your G-d Adonai

This pasuk, this verse, appears to be a sort of coda to a long list of rules, an added reminder of their purpose. Being diligent in their observance will allow you to be wholehearted with your G-d, Adonai. The motivation and the reward are one in the same. 

In our verse, the Hebrew word for wholehearted, is תמים– which is commonly translated as pure or perfect. 

The Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanach explains in its commentary on this verse, that תמים means to be “undivided in your loyalty to G-d.” And according to Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, in that sense, temimut, the act of being תמים, implies a high degree of devotion to G-d alone. There is no room for competing desires or distracting temptations. What G-d wants is the heart–all of it. Be laser-focused in your observance and devotion to these laws, and in so doing, you will be laser-focused in your dedication to the Divine. 

Rashi, on the other hand, understands the word תמים, as a degree of trust, rather than just loyalty. Rashi writes: “Look ahead to G-d and don’t seek after the future. Rather, whatever will come to you accept with wholeheartedness. Then you will be with G-d and will be of G-d’s portion. 

On this interpretation, Rabbi Artson continues:

For Rashi, wholeheartedness is a matter of accepting both the good and the bad with equanimity. Accepting that being tamim implies something exclusive for G-d, Rashi argues that it is human nature to seek to force the future to conform to our desires, but that effort is both futile and desperate. Instead, he urges us to embrace whatever the future brings. Rashi recognizes the future as the portal to an encounter with the Eternal if we will only open our arms to the embrace. 

Here, Rashi and Rabbi Artson do something subtle, but significant. Here, the two remind us that the world is an uncertain and imperfect place. That our lives are mostly unpredictable, ultimately beyond our control; and that perhaps our spiritual project in life, the way that we serve G-d and build community, has its roots not only in learning to cope with that uncertainty, but in putting that uncertainty at the center of our relationship with G-d. 

And this understanding brings us back to the more common, more familiar translations of the word תמים– that is, perfection, blamelessness, complete. 

The word תמים is used countless times throughout Tanach– to describe Biblical characters like Noach and Abraham, and Jacob; G-d, too. In Deuteronomy chapter 32, G-d is described as:

הַצּוּר תָּמִים פָּעֳלוֹ כִּי כָל־דְּרָכָיו מִשְׁפָּט אֵל אֱמוּנָה וְאֵין עָוֶל צַדִּיק וְיָשָׁר הוּא׃

The Rock!—whose deeds are perfect

Yes, all God’s ways are just

A faithful God, never false

True and upright indeed

The word is also used to characterize the Torah as a whole. In Psalm 19 we read:

תורת ד׳ תמימה

G-d’s Torah, G-d’s teaching is perfect.

And perhaps the most essential requirement for an animal being brought as a sacrifice in the Mishkan or Temple, is that it is perfect, without blemish:

וּבְיוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת שְׁנֵי־כְבָשִׂים בְּנֵי־שָׁנָה תְּמִימִם

On the sabbath day: two yearling lambs without blemish. 

Or:

זֹאת חֻקַּת הַתּוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּה יְהוָה לֵאמֹר דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִקְחוּ אֵלֶיךָ פָרָה אֲדֻמָּה תְּמִימָה אֲשֶׁר אֵין־בָּהּ מוּם אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָלָה עָלֶיהָ עֹל׃

This is the ritual law that יהוה has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid. 

This idea of perfection runs rampant throughout the Tanach. G-d is perfect, our sacrifices are perfect, the Torah is perfect. Where do we fit into this paradigm? When we know, with some amount of grief, but also healthy perspective, that we can never achieve the kinds of perfection laid out for us by G-d and by our tradition? So how do we find a balance? How do we stand confidently in that chasm between perfection and utter failure?

Enter another important verse from this week’s Torah portion:

צֶדֶק צֶדֶק תִּרְדֹּף לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה וְיָרַשְׁתָּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ

Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that your God יהוה is giving you.

This verse has taken on a life of its own, particularly in progressive Jewish communities. And there is good reason for that. But I want to point to two important things that this verse does, two things that may be an antidote to the impossibly high bar of perfection that our tradition seems to set for us:

The first, and perhaps most obvious feature of this verse, is that the word tzedek is repeated. Why? The commentaries differ in their reasoning, but all agree that the doubling here is intended to convey emphasis. In your life, you should be doubly motivated to pursue justice. You should work extra hard at it. I’d like to add my own gloss to this reading– I think each of these tzedeks represents a different truth our world: the first tzedek reminds us that the world is an unpredictable, uncertain place. The second tzedek reminds us that the world is imperfect and sometimes unjust. And so this doubling, this emphatic commandment, itself is a response to the realities of the human world. 

The second important feature worth noting, is this verse’s use of the word Pursue. The verse doesn’t read, Justice, Justice, you shall have perfected. Or even Justice, Justice, you shall understand or have codified. And that distinction is crucial. Pursuit is active, it’s fluid, it has movement that ebbs and flows, and responds to different things at different times. Pursuit is exactly that– a striving toward something greater. In this sense, we can understand the notion of perfection differently: perfection is not the end result, but rather the process of getting there. 

So when we think about,

תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ׃

You must be wholehearted with your G-d Adonai

What does that wholeheartedness actually look like? When I try to answer this question, I think about the idea that we are meant to walk with G-d, ללכת בדרכיו, to walk alongside G-d in G-d’s ways. We are perhaps only perfect twice in our lives: when we are born, and when we die. Our lives are bookended by two moments of perfection, and closeness to G-d. And walking with G-d in the interim years of our life, is the work. Moving forward always, never choosing idleness as a stopping point on the way.

With all of its rules and legalities, Parshat Shoftim offers us a crucial dose of reality as the Israelites prepare to enter the Land and begin this next chapter of their lives. Shoftim seems to be radically honest about the challenges of communal life, and gives us a path forward in the meantime: the world is imperfect and incomplete, but walking with G-d, taking those steps day in and day out, bring a new kind of perfection– one that is frank, authentic, and ultimately earned. 

Perfection is not the end result, but rather the radical, and unending process of getting there.

Shabbat Shalom!