Hayyey Sarah: 7 November 2015 / 25 Kislev 5776:  חיישרה ~ Sarah Lived

Some of you will remember a 1969 film for which John Wayne won his only Academy Award. “True Grit” starred Wayne as U.S. Marshal Rooster Coburn, hired by Mattie Ross to track down her father’s killer. She heard that Rooster had true grit. The supporting cast included Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper and Strother Martin.

In 2010, Charles Portis' novel was again adapted to film; this time by the Coen brothers. This version starred Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie and Jeff Bridges as the Marshal. Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper were also in the film. This time, it is Mattie who has true grit to catch her father’s killer.

Angela Duckworth left a high-flying job in consulting to work as a math teacher to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. She identifies grit as a predictor of success. She defines grit as a combination of perseverance and passion for long-term goals. It includes the courage to face what is hard, whether that be a challenging conversation, a difficult decision or an arduous aspiration.

Erica Brown writes: Grit has become a popular word that is foundational to success and has made its way into the language of education. You want a kid with grit in your classroom. You want to teach grit so that kids learn how to pick themselves up and develop the resilience to face a life that can be, at times, punctuated with disappointment. It's not about getting a bad grade that limits your love of subject or capacity to do well in a class. It's about getting that bad grade and then opening the book again and again. You may never develop subject mastery, but you will gain something more important: determination. It will serve you as one of your best life-skills.

She cites How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, by Paul Tough. He writes, What matters most in a child's development, is not how much information we can stuff into her brain in the first few years. What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence….  Pure IQ is stubbornly resistant to improvement after about age eight. But executive functions and the ability to handle stress and manage strong emotions can be improved, sometimes dramatically, well into adolescence and even adulthood.

As we read about Avraham, I think of him as a model of grit. He keeps trying to realize the blessings from God. He discovered that the divine blessings are not simple gifts. They are opportunities that he must strive to attain. Even if he has to leave the Land of Promise. Even if he has to banish one son and almost sacrifice the beloved one. Even if the promise of the land has to be accomplished by bargaining and buying. Perhaps the rabbis use Avraham as an example because they want us to have him as a model for our own challenges and for our own resilience.

We are here on a Shabbat when we honour veterans and remember the sacrifices that they made. Leaving family, endangering life, serving country. Most of them were much too young to realize what they were actually doing. Today we offer acknowledgement and appreciation to those who served, who kept going despite difficult challenges.

Star athletes and successful entrepreneurs do not always succeed. Often they fail and fail and fail, but pick themselves up again and again. My uncle founded a major grocery store chain. He had an idea that failed in the first location. Yet he tried again.

Derek Redmond won many gold medals for his running, but is best known for a failure. At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, he tore his hamstring, but continued the race with assistance from his father, managing to complete a full lap of the track.

Shira Golden, who grew up in our congregation, lost the use of her legs in a climbing accident. Yet Shira, who now lives in Vancouver, has represented Canada in wheelchair basketball, winning a bronze medal in the 2002 Para-Olympics.

As we mark Kristallnacht and Holocaust Education Week, we note the testimony of survivors, we are inspired. Yet there is a lingering question. Would we be able to do it?  Would we have what it takes to fall down and stand up?

This past week, we have heard many stories of Canadian soldiers, veterans of the recent war in Afghanistan, who lost their lives; not to terrorists, but to the terror of their own souls.

This year, we shall bring Israeli combat vets to our community through Peace of Mind. We seek to provide them psychological renewal and restoration. I hope you will join this effort.

If we were to face these challenges, these rejections, these failures, these days—and even years—of fear, would we survive? Would we push forward? Would we eventually reach success? Or would we fall deep into failure, depression and even death?

Mishlei, the Book of Proverbs, is a source of great wisdom, attributed to Solomon, whose ascension to the monarchy we read of in the haftarah this morning. Here is a gem:

כִּ֤ישֶׁ֨בַע׀יִפּ֣וֹלצַדִּ֣יקוָקָ֑ם … A righteous person can fall down seven times but rises again..." (proverbs 24.17).

This verse is not describing a star athlete or a larger than life hero. It is pointing to someone known for personal piety.

Erica Brown points out that in the arena of spirituality, people can also fall multiple times. Those who aspire to goodness, to righteousness, to kindness, to softness, to holiness, to intimacy with God may have the best of intentions and still fail and possibly fail spectacularly because they set the bar very high.

I hope the righteous will eventually be rewarded. That is certainly what this pasuk suggests. But doing mitzvot, leading an honest life, remaining faithful when tempted, these acts of fidelity and love do not always provide safety or spiritual satisfaction. There are many oscillations, ascents and descents, often again and again. 

Faith is a hope and belief that, in the end, God will provide the support we need:

They who wait upon the Eternal shall renew their strength… they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.

וְקוֹיֵ֤ה֙יַחֲלִ֣יפוּכֹ֔חַיַעֲל֥וּאֵ֖בֶרכַּנְּשָׁרִ֑יםיָר֙וּצוּ֙וְלֹ֣איִיגָ֔עוּיֵלְכ֖וּוְלֹ֥איִיעָֽפוּ

You are…  the seed of Avraham, My friend whom I have taken from the ends of the earth… Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed… I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you.  (Isaiah 40.31, 41.8-10)

In the Book of Proverbs, the righteous fall seven times. usually, seven is the number of fulfilment, of sanctity, of perfection, of  holiness. Erica Brown suggests that perhaps there is something holy about resilience and the willingness to fail and fail well. Faith involves grit. Mastery over the self involves grit. Doing good and doing right involves grit.

We have to keep going back to those things that matter the most. We have to keep training, remain vigilant, maintain resilience. Maybe we’ll see the act of falling as an opportunity, an educational blessing. Maybe we'll have the grit to trip and stand and go forward one again.

Daniel Day-Lewis played Abraham Lincoln, a man who also failed and persevered. The actor said, ”I like things that make you grit your teeth. I like tucking my chin in and sort of leading into the storm. I like that feeling. I like it a lot.” The Biblical Abraham had grit. So do his descendants.

https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit?language=en

http://www.ericabrown.com/new-blog-1/2015/10/29/grit