Every juggler knows the truth: you will drop.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner with three scarves or an expert juggling seven clubs. Drops are inevitable. But here’s the secret—drops aren’t failures. They’re part of the process.
In Judaism, we have a similar approach to mistakes. No one gets through life without slipping up. What matters is what we do next—do we get frustrated and give up, or do we pick up the ball and try again?
There’s an old juggling joke:
Q: What’s the hardest trick in juggling?
A: Picking the props up off the floor.
It’s funny because it’s true. The challenge isn’t just the drop itself—it’s the effort it takes to bend down, reset, and start again. But every drop is also a teacher, showing us what needs adjusting.
The Talmud has a similar view on learning from mistakes:
“A person does not fully grasp the words of Torah until they have stumbled over them.” (Gittin 43a)
Just like a juggler refining their technique, Torah study—and life itself—requires us to make mistakes, struggle, and improve. Growth only happens when we push ourselves past what we already know.
In Judaism, teshuva (repentance) is the ultimate way to deal with mistakes. It doesn’t mean feeling ashamed or giving up—it means reflecting, fixing what we can, and trying again with a little more wisdom.
Maimonides explains:
“What is complete teshuva? When a person is faced with the same situation where they once made a mistake, and this time they act differently.” (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 2:1)
A juggler knows this feeling. The first time you drop, you don’t always know why. The second time, you start to see the pattern. And eventually, you make the right adjustment—and suddenly, you can juggle five balls instead of four.
Just as juggling is best learned in a supportive community, Judaism teaches that how we treat others when they make mistakes matters.
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov famously said:
“If you believe you can break something, believe you can fix it.”
This means we should never judge people by their worst moments. Instead, we should offer encouragement, just as jugglers do when a friend finally lands a tough trick after a hundred failed attempts.
Life, like juggling, is an ongoing process of learning, dropping, and picking up again. Judaism doesn’t expect perfection—it expects effort. The real trick is not avoiding mistakes, but using them to improve.
So the next time you drop—in juggling, in life, or in your Jewish practice—remember: the only real failure is refusing to pick the ball back up.
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