The Painter – Celebrating the Hits
Last night, I introduced you to a story about a royal archer. The archer is gifted — every arrow flies straight, every bullseye dead on. But too often, the wind blows, and his perfect shots are thrown off course. For the archer, this was failure. He could not see beyond it. But for us, the lesson is different: even when we do everything right, the outcome isn’t always in our hands. Striving matters, but mastery does not guarantee perfection.
This morning, the story continues. On his travels, the royal archer comes upon a barn. Painted across its side are twelve targets — and in the exact center of each one, an arrow. Perfectly placed.
The archer thinks to himself, “This is a greater archer than I am. I must find him.” So he asks around.
But everyone gives him the same reply: “You’re not looking for an archer. You’re looking for a fool.”
“Perhaps a fool,” the royal archer answers, “but a great archer nonetheless.”
“You don’t understand,” they say. “He shoots the arrows first — and then paints the targets around them.”
When the archer finally finds the painter, he asks, “Would you please tell me why you shot a dozen arrows at the barn and then painted targets around them?”
“A dozen arrows?” the man replies. “No, I shot hundreds of arrows. I was thrilled when even one struck the side of the barn. And when I managed a dozen, that was cause to celebrate. I may not be much of an archer, but I am a painter. So I celebrated each hit by painting the most beautiful target I could paint.”
Most of us live more like the painter than the archer. Sometimes, we go through life without planning, without intention, and just happen to end up exactly where we need to be. We take a step without knowing where it will lead and only later realize it was the right path. We stumble into a friendship, a job, or a moment that surprises us with joy. We land somewhere in life and then look around and say, “Yes — this is what I am meant to do. This matters.”
There’s a story that illustrates this beautifully. It’s about a woman who dreamed for years of going to Italy. She read the guidebooks, studied the language, and planned every detail of her trip. Finally, the day came. She boarded the plane, full of anticipation. But when the plane landed, the stewardess announced: “Welcome to Holland.”
At first, she was devastated. “Holland? This isn’t what I planned. I don’t know the language, I didn’t read the books, I don’t even like tulips!” But then, slowly, she began to notice the windmills, the Rembrandts, the quiet beauty of the canals. It wasn’t Italy — but it had its own gifts.
Like the painter, she found meaning not in perfection, but in possibility. What could have been perceived as failure became a new landscape to celebrate.
Rosh Hashanah invites us to pause and take stock in the same way. Not to judge whether we aimed perfectly, but to notice where we have landed and what has grown from it. The rabbis call this practice cheshbon hanefesh — literally, “an accounting of the soul.” It’s the spiritual work of looking honestly at ourselves, not with guilt, not with punishment, but with courage and curiosity.
When we take an accounting of our souls, as Jews, we ask not only, “Where did I miss the mark?” but also, “Where did we, together, miss the mark?” Sin is never solitary. A missed target always involves more than one archer. Our choices ripple through families, friendships, and community. Responsibility is both singular and shared.
And so Rosh Hashanah doesn’t just ask: “Did you hit the target?”
It asks: “Where have you landed, and what can you notice here?”
It doesn’t ask: “Did it all work out as planned?”
It asks: “What mattered most in this moment, even if it was unexpected?”
Every life is filled with missed arrows. That’s part of being human. But there’s a difference between a missed arrow we pretend was a bullseye and a missed arrow that leads us to recalibrate.
One protects the ego. The other grows the soul.
Here is the cautionary side: we live in a culture fluent in rationalization. Too often we don’t try, or we drift without direction, and then pretend we’re right on target. We paint the bullseye to protect our pride, to survive, or simply because we’re too tired or afraid to ask, “Was that really where I meant to aim?” We spin the story to make ourselves the hero. We airbrush the messy parts. We measure success only by outcome — “It worked out, so it must’ve been right.”
Teshuvah asks us to refuse that shortcut. It calls us to honesty over image. It invites us to admit when we’ve missed, not to punish ourselves, but to return, reflect, and realign.
And yet, the story of the painter demonstrates something else: that sometimes, even without planning, meaning arises. We take a step without knowing where it will lead — and only later discover it was exactly the right path. We stumble into a friendship, a calling, or a moment of joy, and realize: this is worth circling, this is worth celebrating.
That is the heart of teshuvah. It’s not about perfection. It’s about courage. About choosing truth over self-deception. It’s about noticing when we’ve missed and choosing to return, reflect, and realign. About circling what really matters and allowing it to grow the soul.
The shofar reminds us of the same truth. Its piercing sound — sometimes whole (tekiah), sometimes broken (shevarim), sometimes shattered (teruah) — echoes the rhythms of our lives. Life is rarely one long straight note: we stumble, we falter, we recover. And still, each call summons us to reflect so that we may move forward, aware of where we are.
Even our ancestors knew this lesson. The Israelites left Egypt thinking the Promised Land was just around the corner. Instead, they wandered the wilderness for forty years. But in that detour, they discovered Torah, covenant, and identity — the very things that sustained them and still sustain us.
Think of your own life. A friendship that started by accident. A career turn you never planned. A grandchild who asks a question that changes the way you see the world. None of those were aimed at directly. But once they arrived, you circled them. You claimed them. When that happens, we say: This matters. This is worth celebrating.
And that, too, is the prayer of these High Holy Days: Zochreinu l’chayim — “Remember us for life.” Not for perfection. Not for hitting every target. But for living with honesty, courage, and openness to the sacred surprises along the way.
Tonight, we stand at the threshold of a new year — not perfect, not polished, but wide open. We are all painters. We are all archers.
We have all improvised our way through things we weren’t ready for. We have all aimed, sometimes with real intention, only to be thrown off course.
So this year, maybe we can do both:
Aim with courage.
Paint with honesty.
That is the work of these days as we journey to Yom Kippur — not the work of perfection, not the illusion of flawlessness, but the sacred practice of returning, again and again, to what matters most.
And now, to deepen that spirit of return, we will hear the anthem Return Again / Hashiveinu — offered by four of our own gifted congregants, with voices, violin, and guitar. How fortunate we are, as a community, to be led in song not only by words, but by the beauty and devotion of our members. May their music help us turn inward, return to one another, and return to God.
Shanah Tovah!