The Pursuit of Imperfection

Shaul HaMelech (King Saul) was a man who spent his life without any wrongdoing. Our sages tell us that he was like a one-year old who had never done anything wrong. By contrast, Dovid HaMelech (King David) transgressed a number of sins in his time. The Talmud points out that whereas Dovid's several sins did not cause him to lose the monarchy, Shaul's one sin marked the end of his reign.

This seems unfair. Why should Shaul be punished so severely for just one sin, while Dovid commits several and is allowed to retain his position? The Sfas Emes explains that Shaul's entire standing was his perfection. Perfection does not allow room for any errors. As such, once he erred, even though it was just one time, he was no longer the perfect man. His standing and position were lost. Dovid on the other hand personifies the person who realizes that he is nothing without the help of Hashem. He is flawed and frail and must always turn to God for support. He completely nullifies himself before God. For such a person, one error, even many errors, does not represent the destruction of their entire standing.

So Shaul sinned, and his kingdom was lost. As time went on he entered into a downward spiral of anger, insanity, murder and other wrongdoing. Despite that, when he visited a necromancer on the night before his death, the prophet Shmuel told Shaul that tomorrow "you will be with me." Our sages understand that to mean that Shaul would have a place next to Shmuel in the World-to-Come. How did he merit that after all he had done wrong. How and where do we find him changing his behavior and meriting an eternal seat next to Shmuel?

The lies in Shaul's perfection; or in the flaw of his perfection. When Shmuel told him to kill out all the Amalekites Shaul demurred. He rationalized that God could not possibly want him to kill people he viewed as innocent and wantonly destroy all their belongings. He allowed his sense of righteous perfection to overrule the words of the prophet. The Talmud says that a voice came out from heaven and chastised him "Do not be overly righteous." His very pursuit of perfection had now become his downfall.

Even if he truly believed all of his rationalizations as to why he should not wipe out the Amalekites, even though he did not wish to sully his hands with the "sin" of killing them, he should have ignored his own feelings and heeded the Navi . But his own sense of perfection did not allow him to.

The only way he could now rectify that was by allowing himself to be less than perfect. He had to do something he knew was a sin, but do it anyway because he knew it was right. This is why on the night before his death he was left with no choice but to go to the necromancer. He sullied himself with sin, because he felt he needed some advice for the good of the nation and had no place else to turn. He had to give up his own sense of being without blemish, before he could become the perfectly righteous man before God.

Learning his lesson from his previous mistake he did so. He sinned, but for all the right reasons. He sacrificed his innocence on the altar of doing what was right. By doing so he merited a place next to Shmuel.

There is a lesson here for all of us. Or maybe I should just say that there is a lesson here for me. Too many times in my life I have been faced with the choice of retaining the appearance of being very righteous, or doing what was right. Too many times I chose the appearance, rather than what was truly right before God.

As Shmuel told Shaul, listening to God is better than a sacrifice; paying attention to God is better than the fat of rams on the altar. In a selfish pursuit of spirituality we may chose to engage in all sorts of spiritual activities, while ignoring what God really wants. Have we become more Godly, or have we just fed our own egos and enhanced our self-image?

Truly being Godly, as King David was, means not concerning ones self with how righteous ones is or isn't, or how righteously one is perceived by others. It is contingent on doing what is right before God, and nothing else.

This is a lesson that I need to remind myself about every single day of my life ...