Rebbe Nachman goes on to tell how the Wise Man was given by the king a precious diamond to shape. He made a slight error as he was working on it. It created a flaw that no one other than he would ever be aware off. But he was beside himself. He could not bear the fact that he had made a mistake. He was less than perfect.
Rabbi Aroush contrasts this with the attitude of the Simple Man who was happy no matter what misfortune befell him, or what mistakes he had made. If the Simple Man's joy at all times was because he understood that all the happened to him was the will of Hashem, then it stands to reason that the lack of joy for the Wise Man was because he did not believe that what happened to him was the will of Hashem. He thought that being perfect was something over which he had control. Hashem was sending him messages to remind him that no one is perfect. As long as he thought he was, or could be, Hashem was going to show him in both his personal and professional life, that he wasn't.
"What good is all my wisdom," asked the Wise Man, "if I still make mistakes!" Here comes the self-recrimination. he is beating himself up because of his own haughtiness and lacks the ability to forgive himself at all. He has the ability to be perfect. He made a mistake. It is his fault that he erred. Why wasn't he successful?
He is castigating himself because he refuses to recognize that he is not the master of any of these things.
No comments:
Post a Comment