Many people start out in business with a simple promise: I won’t lie, I won’t cheat, I won’t cross that line.

But somewhere along the way, the lines start moving.

And one day, they look up and wonder how they ended up here.

What happened to that original conviction? Is it still there? Was it always just a facade?

In the book of Shmuel, King Shaul, terrified before battle with the Philistines and unable to receive any answer from G-d, turns to a necromancer to summon Shmuel – a practice forbidden by the Torah which he himself had heavily prosecuted.

As he reassures her, he swears in G-d’s name.

It’s a jarring contradiction. In the very act of betrayal against G-d, he invokes Him.

The Midrash highlights this tension and compares it to a lady being unfaithful who still swears by their spouse’s life. We see that people can act in contradiction to what they believe in without losing those beliefs. The failure isn’t always about a lack of belief and conviction; it can come from fear, pressure, or a moment where something else takes over.

We tend to see failure in absolute terms. If I did something wrong, it must mean I don’t really care. If someone else betrayed a value, it must reveal who they truly are. King Shaul shows us that this is not true. As he acted out off fear and desperation, his instinct was still to swear by G-d. The connection was still there even as he acted against it.

This reframes how we understand both ourselves and others.

For ourselves, it means that a mistake – even a serious one – doesn’t necessarily reflect a total collapse of our values. It may be a moment where fear, pressure, or uncertainty overrode them. That doesn’t make the action acceptable, but it does mean it isn’t the full story.

For others, it challenges how quickly we draw conclusions. When someone acts in a way that feels like a betrayal, it’s easy to define them by that moment. But not every failure is a full rejection of what a person stands for. Sometimes it’s a sign of inner conflict, not indifference.

At the same time, the story doesn’t minimize what happened. King Shaul still faced consequences. Actions matter, and patterns matter. The point isn’t that failure is insignificant – it’s that it isn’t definitive.

Holding that tension isn’t simple. It asks us to take mistakes seriously, while resisting the urge to reduce a person to them.

But it’s in that space – between accountability and understanding – that real growth becomes possible.