Recently, I made a mistake at work.
I really don't like making mistakes. As a child, I remember getting up in shul to sing A'anim Zemirot and counting on my fingers the number of mistakes I made! However, while I have worked quite a bit on being less critical in the face of being human, I still want to hold myself to a high standard and do the right thing.
From a psychological perspective, I tend to understand many of my challenges in this area through the lens of Alfred Adler's theory of Individual Psychology. Adler, an early theorist and father of cognitive psychology, proposed that our personalities develop through our striving for significance and belonging—and overcoming feelings of inferiority. Adler also discusses birth order, arguing that our place within our families plays a significant role in how we see ourselves and, in particular, in our perfectionistic tendencies. According to Adler, firstborns often feel a heightened sense of responsibility, are sensitive to the expectations of others, and develop a greater tendency toward perfectionistic striving. Subsequent research has shown that there is, indeed, a correlation between birth order and measures of perfectionism, though the research highlights that not all perfectionism is the same. For those of us with perfectionistic tendencies, do they push us to hold ourselves to high standards, or do we use them to beat ourselves up and constantly judge ourselves as inferior? (Interested in finding out more? Take the Almost Perfect Scale–Revised!)
The issue with being a maladaptive perfectionist, a person who strives for excellence but is also extremely self-critical when they don't "get it right," is that it's hard to look back at one's own behavior and truly consider whether an action was right or wrong. Essentially, doing so can be extremely painful and, therefore, must be avoided. But of course, we know that even if we try not to make mistakes, we will. The key to growth lies in our ability to shift to being adaptive perfectionists, striving for excellence but also knowing that we will make mistakes and will then have the courage to look at them and learn from them.
In this week's parsha, many of the commentators struggle with whether Yaakov's behavior in acquiring his father's blessing was right or wrong. Was he right to deceive his father in order to receive the bracha? Did Rivka do the right thing by initiating and supporting this charade? Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak, and others justify Yaakov and Rivka's behavior. After all, we know that deception and trickery are not always wrong—sometimes the end does, indeed, justify the means. In fact, Yitzchak himself seems to acknowledge this when he says, in response to his discovery of the deception, גַּם־בָּרוּךְ יִהְיֶה, "Now he [Yaakov] will remain blessed" (Bereishit 27:33).
But not all of our commentators and thinkers see the story this way. The text itself presents us with a scene full of pain, fury, and confusion (Bereishit 27:32–33) which, at a minimum, provides us a moment of pause:
וַיֶּחֱרַד יִצְחָק חֲרָדָה גְּדֹלָה עַד־מְאֹד וַיֹּאמֶר מִי־אֵפוֹא הוּא הַצָּד־צַיִד וַיָּבֵא לִי וָאֹכַל מִכֹּל בְּטֶרֶם תָּבוֹא… כִּשְׁמֹעַ עֵשָׂו אֶת־דִּבְרֵי אָבִיו וַיִּצְעַק צְעָקָה גְּדֹלָה וּמָרָה עַד־מְאֹד
Yitzchak was seized with violent trembling. "Who was it then," he demanded, "that hunted game and brought it to me?"... When Esav heard his father's words, he burst into wild and bitter sobbing.
It is difficult to read these verses without feeling the distress and anguish of both Yitzchak and Esav.
Furthermore, if the actions of Yaakov were completely justified, why then does he suffer so greatly, both directly and indirectly, as a result of this incident? He must run away from home and ends up serving the charlatan Lavan for years, enduring many trials and tribulations. Yaakov certainly pays a price for his deception, and a rather steep one.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z"l points out that the price seems, in many ways, to follow the principle of middah k'negged middah, measure for measure. Yaakov is deceived by Lavan numerous times, most notably in relation to Lavan's trickery involving Rachel and Leah. In that incident, Yaakov exclaims, וְלָמָּה רִמִּיתָנִי, "And why did you deceive me?" (Bereishit 29:25). (The same root word—רמה—is uttered by Esav in this week's parsha!) And Lavan replies, לֹא־יֵעָשֶׂה כֵן בִּמְקוֹמֵנוּ לָתֵת הַצְּעִירָה לִפְנֵי הַבְּכִירָה, "It is not the practice in our place to give the younger before the firstborn." With Yaakov's deception in mind, this can be read as a strong rebuke of Yaakov, who placed himself, the younger, before Esav, the firstborn, in reference to his father's blessing!
Later in the narrative, Yaakov is deceived by his own sons with regard to the disappearance of Yosef, spending 22 years apart from his beloved son. This is yet another echo of the 22 years he spent away from home as a result of his own deception. In the words of Rabbi Sacks, "it's hard not to read the text as a precise statement of the principle of measure for measure: as you have done to others, so will others do to you."
So what is Yaakov's response to what may have been a mistake?
According to Rabbi Sacks, once we read Yaakov's story as one of a well-intentioned mistake, the reunion between Yaakov and Esav in Parshat Vayishlach becomes much more understandable.
Yaakov received (or in the view of Esav, stole) the blessing for material wealth and power—material wealth in the verse וְיִתֶּן־לְךָ הָאֱלֹקִים מִטַּל הַשָּׁמַיִם וּמִשְׁמַנֵּי הָאָרֶץ, "May G-d give you of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth," and power in the verse יַעַבְדוּךָ עַמִּים וְיִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לְךָ, "Let people serve you and nations bow to you." Years later, when Yaakov and Esav finally reconcile, Yaakov first sends Esav gifts of material wealth, and then, when they meet, he bows down seven times, reversing the power dynamic. And then he says, קַח־נָא אֶת־בִּרְכָתִי, "Please accept my blessing."
In this interpretation, Yaakov came to realize that the blessing he received was actually meant for Esav and, in a sense, returned it to him. Originally, Yaakov was to receive the blessing of continuing the spiritual tradition, but Rivka did not fully understand Yitzchak's plans or intentions. As a result, a mistake had been made—a well-intentioned one, but a mistake nonetheless.
The key to this approach is to assume that there is no conflict between viewing our forefathers and foremothers in a positive light and believing that they made mistakes. To the contrary: in this case, we see Yaakov having the courage to make amends with Esav when they meet once again.
This is the adaptive approach toward perfectionism: striving to always do your best, always do what's right, but also having the courage to pause, look inward, and ask: What can I learn from this? What can I do differently in the future?
This approach toward the story teaches us that true greatness is not the absence of error, but the willingness to confront it with humility and strength. Yaakov's journey models the spiritual maturity of adaptive perfectionism: doing our best, acknowledging our missteps, and growing from them rather than being defined by them.
Perhaps this is the message for all of us. We will make mistakes—sometimes small, sometimes significant, sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes not. But our worth cannot be measured by error-free performance. If we can approach our own mistakes with honesty and a commitment to do better, our mistakes become stepping-stones to becoming the people we are meant to be.
