Keep Climbing- Rethinking Success This Rosh Hashanah

On May 10, 1996, 33 climbers set out to summit Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world.

It quickly became a disaster. The ropes weren't ready, climbers were backed up in narrow passages, and by late afternoon a massive blizzard had engulfed the mountain. Visibility disappeared, temperatures plunged, and winds reached more than 45 miles per hour.

Tragically, Eight climbers would never make it back down.

Just last week, I read a book about that infamous day. But, what struck me most wasn’t the people who died, it was three particular climbers who lived.

Stuart Hutchison, John Taske, and Lou Kasischke had spent months preparing for Everest. They had endured freezing temperatures, methodically acclimated themselves to extraordinary altitudes, and climbed to nearly 29,000 feet.

And then, just three hundred meters from the summit, with their lifelong dream almost within reach, they turned around.

The weather was deteriorating and their oxygen supply was low, so they made the agonizing decision to abandon their dream.

They had come all that way, they were so close, and yet they walked away from it all.

And that decision saved their lives.

There is an incredible letter written from Rav Yitzchak Hutner, the famed Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, to Rabbi Moshe Sherer, then president of Agudath Israel of America.

For years Rabbi Sherer had poured his energy into lobbying for governmental aid for Jewish day schools. He finally succeeded in passing legislation, but in June of 1971, the Supreme Court invalidated the law, completely shattering his multi-year effort.

Deeply demoralized, Rabbi Sherer received a remarkable letter from Rav Hutner.

Rav Hutner told him that someone working for the Jewish community must accept three things:

1. Don’t become angry

2. Don’t become exhausted.

3. Don’t need to succeed. נישט וועלן אויספירן

This is an astonishing thing to tell someone! What kind of advice is that? Shouldn’t we always strive for success? What does it mean that part of leadership is not needing to succeed?

But notice what Rav Hutner was not saying. He wasn’t saying, “Don’t care whether you succeed.” He was saying “don’t make success the only measure of whether your work mattered.”

Sometimes we give everything we have to something, and it still doesn’t work out. That doesn’t mean the effort was wasted, it doesn’t mean the journey was meaningless, and it certainly doesn’t mean that Hashem didn’t value what we did.

Rav Hutner proves this from the story of the Akeida, which we will invoke countless times over Rosh Hashana. But, what actually happened? If we measured the Akeidah only by completed outcomes, it would look unfinished. Avraham traveled to sacrifice Yitzchak and Yitzchak was never sacrificed.

Yet no Jew looks at the Akeidah and says, “what a wasted journey.” Quite the opposite. The Akiedah remains one of the defining acts of Jewish history.

Why? Because there are moments when what Hashem asks from us is not the outcome. He asks for the commitment, the courage, the willingness, and the effort.

And perhaps that is especially important to remember at this time of year.

It is so easy for Rosh Hashanah to become our annual performance review. Did I become the person I wanted to become? Did I fix the things I promised to fix? Did I learn enough and daven better? Did I become the parent, spouse, or Jew I promised last Rosh Hashanah I would become? Did I actually change?

And if the answer is “not enough,” we give ourselves a failing grade. But, that mindset that can quickly become demoralizing and paralyzing.

Rav Hutner teaches something vastly different. Teshuvah was never meant to be an annual report card measuring only your outcomes and we are not judged only by whether we succeeded.

Instead, the struggle itself can be meaningful, the effort itself can be meaningful, and the fact that you got back up and keep showing up can be meaningful.

Life is not measured only by completed goals. Our job is to show up, work, strive, choose, return, and keep moving. We give Hashem our utmost effort. The outcome is up to him.

Teshuva is much more about direction and effort. It’s less about achievement.

Perhaps, that’s why the Rambam, when describing Teshuva, uses an unusual word:ישתדל אדם לעשות תשובה

What does it mean strive to do Teshuva? Generally, halacha speaks in normative and imperative terms. We are told what we must do. So why here does the Rambam use the word ישתדל, that one should simply strive?

The Rambam understood that Teshuva isn’t about getting everything right. It’s about striving in the right direction. We will fail, and we will fall, and we will disappoint ourselves. We will feel that the person we hoped to become is still not the person we are.

But, ישתדל - keep struggling, get back up, try again, and keep moving. Teshuva is about direction and effort, not perfection or outcome.

On that infamous day in 1996, three men stood just 300 meters below the summit of Everest.

They had trained for months and had already climbed higher than most human beings ever climb. They had come within sight of the goal they had dreamed about for years and the summit was so close.

And they turned around. They never reached that summit.

But, that wasn’t failure. That saved their lives.

Maybe that’s what we need to remember during these days of Teshuvah. There will always be summits we haven't reached, parts of ourselves we haven't fixed, goals we haven't achieved, and people we haven't yet become.

We can’t always guarantee that we reach every summit. But, we can always keep climbing.

Moshe never entered Eretz Yisrael, Yitzchak was never sacrificed and Rabbi Sherer didn’t win his case. And yet, none of those journeys was a failure. Even when the summit remains beyond our reach, the climb was not for nothing.

ישתדל אדם לעשות תשובה.

We can’t control every outcome. We can control whether we keep showing up. We can control whether, after falling, we get back up and keep climbing. And perhaps this Rosh Hashan, that is the success Hashem is asking from us.