Why do so many people feel like failures and how can their perception of themselves be changed?
From the time we're young, we're taught to win – win on the court, win in the classroom, win at life. It becomes this all-consuming aspiration by which we define ourselves. But the Torah has a very interesting view on winning. The great struggle is depicted between Jacob and the Angel. They struggle all night, and eventually the name of Yaakov gets changed to Yisrael, because he's won. He's overcome the angel. But the verse says it in a very peculiar way. “Ki Sarita Im Elokim v’Im Anashim Va’tuchal – Because you have struggled with G-dly beings and with man and you prevailed.” The fascinating point to notice is that if you look at the story itself, Yaakov doesn't win. If you like boxing, there's two ways you can win. One way you win is by knockout. You actually knock the other opponent out. That means that the other person is completely down on the floor, down for the count. Clearly, you've won that battle. There's another way, and that is to win by decision, where we mark on the cards how many times you hit the other man and calculate who inflicted more damage, who landed more blows.
Yaakov definitely doesn't knock out the angel. In fact, what we learn is that the angel is struggling with Jacob, and he sees that he cannot defeat Jacob, so he hits him in the thigh, in his sciatic nerve. This is fascinating. Effectively, the angel didn't win, but neither did Jacob. At best, it was a draw. And if you don't knock the man out, how else do you win? By decision. Well, who hurt whom more? Yaakov is the one who walks away limping, so it would seem the angel is the one who won this great battle. Why then would Yaakov be called Yisrael for winning this battle if he didn't actually win?
The takeaway is that the Torah does not consider winning to be winning. Winning is rather: never giving up. It's the angel who couldn't get Jacob to back down. If the Angel couldn't win, then Jacob had won.
This idea is a complete shift in perspective of what winning is. When people feel like failures, it's because they feel that they haven't won enough. They weren’t the best in the class, they weren't the best at relationships. They don't have the best jobs. They haven't won. But winning doesn't mean winning. Quite often, that's not up to you. People could come from the same backgrounds, the same socioeconomic circles, the same classrooms and schools and could have graduated with the same grades from the same university and had all the same opportunities, and for some reason, one person is more successful than the other. Ultimately, success lies in the hands of G-d.
What we have is the ability to decide that we will not give up, that we will do everything in our power, and put in as much effort as we humanly can to achieve the desired result. What happens after that is not up to us at all. The Torah uses the word “Va’tuchal,” which means, “And he overcame,” but it is noteworthy that this word – Va’tuchal – matches the other word in the same verse. “V’lo yachol lo – And the angel was not able to overcome him.” These two words are used specifically to drive home this message. It doesn’t seem like Yaakov Avinu won the battle, but neither did the angel. In truth, though, Yaakov did win. And that’s because winning is the unyielding decision to never give up. And Yaakov didn’t give up.
If we taught our children and drilled into ourselves that winning is not about results, but it's about the effort that we expend, then feeling like a failure is actually not really an option. The only thing that should make us feel bad is if we haven't given as much as we can, and that's always something that we can correct.
The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot teaches, “L’fum tzaara agra,” which is typically translated as, “According to the pain is the reward.” The reward that you receive is commensurate to the pain that you experience. We get paid for pain. We get paid for effort. “According to the effort is the price.”
The determining factor of what we're trying to do is attempt. Yisrael doesn't refer to the people who win over g-dly forces; it means the people who struggle with it. That struggle defines every human being's life. Jim Carrey is a famous comedian, and he tells a story about his father. His father, he says, is hilarious. He could have been a comedian himself, but he chose a safer option. He chose instead to become an accountant, and when Jim was 12 years old, his father got cut from that safe job. Jim Carrey himself went on to a very successful career as an actor and comedian. And the lesson he learned from his father was this: “You can fail at something you don't like, so you may as well take a chance on something you love.”
If we focus on trying to do the things that we wanted instead of only attempting the things that we were sure we'd succeed at, our lives would look remarkably better. This is the message of success and failure that we learn from the very name and persona of Am Yisrael.
