A Journey of Courage, Collaboration, Faith, and Failure (Vayeira 5776)

Courage & Collaboration

To shave a few minutes off a late night road trip recently, I permitted Waze to direct me off the highway, behind an industrial park on onto an unlit, roughly paved, and very hidden road. It was terrifying.

Rather than relying on my ‘faulty’ intuition, I have come to rely on a seemingly ‘perfect’ device. With that ‘perfect’ device, I can relax any learning from my failed guesses or mistaken hunches. When I suspend the learning that comes from corrections, I also dull my instincts for avoiding danger. In other words, Waze not only dilutes my sense of direction, but also it numbs my sense of judgement.

But when we remain alert to them, we can learn a great deal from our journey failures - even as we cannot possibly avoid all of them.

Kathryn Schulz (the ‘wrongologist’ whose seminal book, Being Wrong, I assigned as summer reading for educators at Jewish Community High School a few years ago) suggests that journeys are often the only time adults permit themselves to explore the unknown and “get lost, literally and otherwise.” Through our journeys, we “embrace the possibility of being wrong not out of necessity but because it changes our lives for the better.” (pp.291-92)

That’s similar to how the biblical Abraham embraces his journey that continues through this week’s Torah portion, Vayeira. Some of the most powerful lessons of his journey are revealed in one sentence, one word this week. When Abraham approaches God to intervene on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, Torah uses the verb vayigash to describe Abraham's posture in relationship to God. It means ‘approach.’ (Genesis 18:23) The intervention although extraordinary and compelling nevertheless fails.  

This vayigash verb raises a crucial question of meaning because Torah cannot mean Abraham ‘approaches’ God the same way one person approaches another. Rashi (11th century) seems to address this question when his commentary refers to other biblical uses of the same verb. He brings examples of approaching (1) with courage in conflict, (2) to closely collaborate despite contention, and (3) with faith in the outcome.

This suggests to me that courage, collaboration, and faith are necessary feature of powerful personal journeys. This week’s Abraham context adds another feature to this triplet; that is the capacity to persevere despite and learn from failures. From this we learn that our journeys are most authentic when we act with courage in the face of conflict, seeking partners for collaboration despite our disagreements with them, having faith in the outcome as we embrace the power of learning from our failures and mistakes.  

May each of us enjoy the wisdom to bring each of these features to our own journeys and the strength to persevere along the way.