When Perfect People Turn Out Not to be Perfect

A reader once commented to me that one of the hard parts of The Opposite of Normal, for her, was reading about the rabbi and some of his failures as a parent. (I don't think this is giving anything away if you haven't read the book yet!)  She was bothered by the idea that she had such high ideals about rabbis, and she didn't like to think of them as not being "perfect" or at least, shining, in an area they are supposed to guide us in, like parenting.

Recently, someone I trusted to be, maybe not perfect, but certainly someone I thought was on my side, who I looked up to, surprised me with doing something I thought was wrong.  Now, while I didn't expect her to be perfect (or maybe I did), I did expect something other than I got when we were dealing with a thorny issue.  

It's hard when there are people in your life who you greatly admire and you find out they are not always so admirable, but it happens to all of us, I think. This isn't the first time I've been disappointed by someone I've always looked up to or admired, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

It's important for me to remember that no one is perfect.  Even our strongest leaders, people whose opinions we value, people who are supposed to be our greatest examples -- parents and grandparents and teachers and clergy and doctors -- they are all fallible. When we put our head in the sand about their imperfections, we hurt ourselves.  I was hurt by this person I thought was on my side, and turned out, kind of wasn't, but I learned from it.  I reminded myself not to be so one hundred per cent trustworthy of some people. I usually have good instincts, and I need to be a little more wary, I suppose, because while I have good instincts, I can put all my trust in some people when I shouldn't.

I hope my reader learned from The Opposite of Normal that yes, rabbis make mistakes, even in their own families, and that's okay. And I learned from my experience. Imperfection is perfectly reasonable. Perfection is not.