Scratch-Outs

A little boy was watching his father, Rabbi, prepare a sermon. “How do you know what to write?” he asked. The rabbi said, “Well, after I think for a while God tells me what to write.” The boy was quiet for a moment before saying, “Then why do you keep crossing out so much?”

Privately, it is easy to make corrections: no one has to see the original text. We can write and rewrite the wording. Being creative requires imagination with lots of room for experimentation and errors. Well I am sure that God helps we have a definite proclivity for making errors. That is why we have so many scratch outs.

The Talmud uses a simple and terse language.  It leave so much in need of clarification, that the great sages with scribble notes, pose questions, graft answers and even draw diagrams in the margins (as it used to be the paper was scarce). Some printer later saw the scribbling and had the notation inserted as permanent marginal notes. That was how Rashi’s commentary, among many others, came to found on each page of the Talmud.

Mistakes are inevitable part of the process. Mistakes mean that you were trying. They are living proof of personal growth. A colleague, Rabbi Harold Kushner said, “People do not learn from their successes. They grow from the failures.” These failures represent the scratchers in the margins.

If it were not for the marginal notes of Rashi and others, the Talmud would not be the Talmud.  It is with all scientific studies that take place in labs were failures always exceed successes.

I look forward to the scratch-outs of life.