Parashat Ki Tissa: The Success of Failure
A
short while ago, Stephnie and I had the opportunity to hear one of the book’s
authors being interviewed by Jake Wallis Simons, the editor of the JC. They discussed the current situation in Israel
and the impact this would have on an area of research that this writer had
spent so many years investigating for both his original book and its recently
published sequel. Following the conversation
we, in the audience, were handed a complimentary copy of the new tome which he
willingly signed.
According
to the blurb at the back of ‘The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of
a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World’ (Constable, 2023), Dan Senor ‘was a senior
advisor to Paul Ryan’s 2012 campaign for vice president and foreign policy
advisor to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns.’ He was also a ‘former Defence
Department official who had been based in Baghdad and at ‘U.S. Central Command
in Qatar’ as well as being a ‘U.S. Senate aide in the 1990s.’
This man
knew what he was talking about and, together with his co-author Saul Singer, a
former editor and columnist at the Jerusalem Post, had written the New York
Times bestseller ‘Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle’
(Published by Twelve in 2009, revised in 2011).
It made
sense for me to read this book before embarking on its follow-up. I would recommend purchasing a second-hand
copy as an original edition is very expensive. Make sure you opt for the 2011 edition which features
a New Forward by Shimon Peres zl/OBM.
Senor and
Singer ask a very interesting question which is printed on the reverse of the
paperback:
“How can Israel – with only 7.1 million people (which
has increased to an estimated 9.1 million as of mid-2023), no natural
resources, enemies on every border and in a constant state of war – produce
more start-up companies than Japan, India, Korea, Canada and the United
Kingdom?”
If I tell
you that it takes 361 pages to provide an answer (which includes a 30-page
bibliography!), I think you will forgive me for choosing to share only a few of
the salient points.
What it
boils down to is a mixture of Israeli Chutzpah, industrial-strength levels of
risk-taking and living in one of the most contested, violent, unpredictable and
maddeningly frustrating locations on the planet. It also presents a unique set of factors that
result in our wonderful country being a magnet that attracts IT royalty like Microsoft,
Google and Intel along with investors like Warren Buffett, the sixth richest
man in the world, who is worth $137 billion.
According
to Senor and Singer, at the heart of Israel’s success is something very
surprising - The tolerance Israeli society exhibits towards failure.
They
write that “…Israeli culture and regulations reflect a unique attitude to
failure, one that has managed to repeatedly bring failed entrepreneurs back
into the system to constructively use their experience to try again, rather
than leave them permanently stigmatized and marginalized.” They underscore their point by stating that, “Israeli
attitude and informality flow also from a cultural tolerance for what some
Israelis call ‘constructive failures’ or ‘intelligence failures.’ Most local investors believe that without
tolerating a large number of failures, it is impossible to achieve true
innovation. In the Israeli military,
there is a tendency to treat all performance – both successful and unsuccessful
– in training and simulations and sometimes even in battle as value-neutral. So long as the risk was taken intelligently
and not recklessly, there is something to be learned.”
We do not
need to look far to appreciate the failures that led to the catastrophic events
of 7th October which itself was a day after the fiftieth anniversary
of the Yom Kippur War, another black day in our story. As Jews, we know what failure looks like. We are well versed in its bleak history. From decimated monarchies to ruined Temples –
we understand the concept of failure. ‘How
the mighty have fallen!’
In this
week’s Parasha, we read about our first experience of failure.
Our
ancestors, who had witnessed the greatest miracle on earth with the giving of
the Torah, reached the lowest depths of moral degradation when they worshipped
the Egel Hazahav - the Golden Calf. It
was the ultimate insult to Gd and understandably He threatened to destroy them
but held back following Moshe’s desperate attempt to save them. Faced with the first serious test following
the Exodus from Egypt, they proved that they were not ready to progress to the
next level of spiritual elevation.
Over a
year later, a second test consisting of the spies’ scouting expedition proved
that they seemed more adept to fail than succeed. Their punishment lasted forty years.
And yet,
despite all of this, Gd refused to give up on us. We let him down again and again and again. Read the Tanach and you will find more
incidences of our national (and on many occasions tragic) failures than our
successes. Even when we overcame the
many obstacles that were sent our way, we managed to turn the advantageous tide
against us and suffered the all-too predictable results.
Why did
Gd not abandon us forever? Because of a
single idea that saved our skins (sometimes quite literally) and the one we
read about in this week’s Parasha.
Moshe argued
successfully that Gd should desist from destroying the people and once he had
managed to do this, he asked Gd to give him a formula that he could employ if
ever a similar situation rose again. Gd
taught him the Thirteen Attributes that we recite numerous times during the
year, particularly on Yom Tov, in our Selichot and over Yom Kiuppur. In other words, He taught him the idea of
Teshuva – repentance. The word itself
means ‘to return’ and suggests that we are actively changing our behaviour and
returning to a pure state which is connected to Gd.
In the
famous poem, ‘An Essay on Criticism’ Alexander Pope (d. 1744) wrote, “To err
is human; to forgive, Divine.” We
can add that Divine forgiveness can only be granted if we repent for our errors
or as we call it ‘doing Teshuva’.
Chazal
teach us that in order to achieve Teshuvah we need to undertake a three-part
process.
1.
Confession (vidui):
where we verbally acknowledge the wrongdoing and vocalize our awareness that we
have transgressed Gd’s will.
2.
Regret (charata):
the act of asking forgiveness should not just be words spoken; we need to be
truly sorry for what we have done.
3.
Commitment for the
future (kabbalah al ha’atid): where we pledge not to do this again, and we
really, truly mean it.
The three
stages mirror the idea that success can only come about when we recognise our
failures. Although Teshuva refers to our
behaviour vis-à-vis Gd and our fellow human beings, the notion that success can
only be achieved once we recognise and accept failure seems to be embedded
inside our Jewish DNA.
One
doesn’t need to be a practising Jew to ‘feel Jewish’. This has been in evidence
since October when Jews of all persuasions connected to the State of Israel
along with those to whom Israel was but the name of a country they would never
wish to visit. They have felt the need
to speak out and attend rallies in support of their brethren. When it comes to identifying as Jewish, this
would have been unthinkable six months ago.
There
will be a time for uncomfortable questions that will probe deeply into the
reasons for the failure we have witnessed. However, we can gain immeasurable pride from
the way in which our people have joined together throughout the world to show
their support for Israel.
Returning
to the book and its findings, I don’t think that it is surprising to see how
Israelis accept failure as a stepping stone to achieving success because this
is a type of Teshuva that we have undertaken since the episode of the Golden
Calf. Yes, we failed and we did this
time and again, but we always knew what had to be done to turn that failure
into success. Whether it was the Jews
who gathered together in Shushan to pray for salvation against the evil decree
of Haman or those who have spent the last five months giving everything they
can in assistance, time, finance and political lobbying – these are shining
examples of what success looks like.
Senor and
Singer referred to Israel as the ‘Start-up Nation’ and they are right, except
for one minor detail – this moniker applies to the Jewish people. We’ve been a Start-up Nation since that first
misdemeanour in the Sinai Desert.
To
succeed, you must accept failure. You have
to do Teshuva, in whatever form works best for you.
We
succeed because we fail, or to put it differently, we, Am Yisrael, are the
supreme example of the success of failure!
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