A bachur was learning to be a sofer, and he wrote a megillas Esther, but it didn't look too good. The letters were slanty and of different sizes; some of the words entered the margin, and so on. No one wanted to buy it, not even for a low price, so his father bought it, hoping that this would encourage his son to continue practicing and trying. After he bought it, the father gave the megillah to a safrus merchant. 'What do you want me to do with this?' the merchant asked. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to buy it.
'See what you can get for it,' the father said. 'Any price is better than nothing at all.'
One day, a wealthy person asked the safrus merchant to bring several megillos to his home because he wanted to choose one. The rich person added, 'Since I am troubling you to come to me, I will pay you $2,500 for the megillah, even if the price is lower.'
The merchant brought along every megillah he had in stock. The wealthy man turned down one after the other. 'This isn’t what I had in mind,' he said simply, although the merchant didn't understand why he wasn't satisfied with his beautiful megillos. Finally, having turned down all the megillos, the merchant began packing up his megillos to leave. The wealthy man said, 'One minute. I see you have one more megillah in your box that you didn't show me yet.'
'No. It isn't for you,' the merchant said. It was the beginner's megillah, and the merchant figured that if he didn't want all the beautiful megillos, he certainly wouldn't want this one. He was embarrassed to show it.
'Please show it to me,' the wealthy man said.
The merchant opened the megillah, and the wealthy man loved it. 'This is exactly what I wanted,' he said, and he paid $2,500. (This was several years ago, when the prices weren’t as high as they are currently).
Afterward, the merchant asked him why he preferred this megillah over all the others. The wealthy man replied, 'The other megillos were written perfectly; all letters are uniform, the same height and style. They appear printed. But this megillah is different. It is evident that this megillah was handwritten by a sofer. Each letter is different. This is the type of megillah I like. I see in it the workmanship!'
The father repeated this story to me. It reminded me that Hashem enjoys the work of human beings. It is our imperfection that makes our deeds special. If Hashem wanted perfection, He wouldn't have created us. Hashem wants us, with our faults and human imperfections. Our deeds seem slanted and incomplete, and sometimes we step out of line, but it is precisely due to our human nature that Hashem desires our service.
