“You’ve got to fall to get better.” These words weren’t part of a mussar vort per se; they were matter-of-fact words of encouragement from a tenth–grade skateboarding instructor to an eight-year-old first-time student. Could this lesson apply any better than to the Jews of Shushan? The Purim story begins with them falling in the shape of attending Achashveirosh’s feast and having death decreed on the entire nation as a result. And then this most negative of all beginnings ends with the reacceptance of Hashem and His Torah in the purest way possible.
Nafal nun-feh-lamed is the root of the Hebrew for “to fall.” It also means: to stumble; to drop to decline; to collapse to be defeated to surrender to be conquered; to be killed. The verb to fall in English comes from words meaning “fall fail decay die deceive and make a mistake.” The words “false” and “fallacy” come from the same roots.
Look at the idioms involving falling: we fall “out” with someone we’re fighting with; fall “in” with the wrong people; fall “apart” or “to pieces” when we can’t cope; fall “into” clutches disfavor disgrace disuse; fall “on” hard times; fall “short” of our goals; fall “from” power or grace; and fall “prey” to all manner of bad things. And this is only scratching the surface.
Falling isn’t always a physical act. We can fall in the middle of the busiest street or right in front of someone and it might go completely unnoticed — if our falling is of the spiritual kind. We’re all predestined to fall “Yet there is no man so righteous that he does [only] good and never sins” (Koheles 7:20). But — just as we still build a physical maakeh on our roofs to protect others although we know that “the faller is going to fall ” we’re obligated to build spiritual guardrails to protect ourselves even knowing we’re destined to fall spiritually throughout our lives.
Create a free account to keep reading.
