This past summer was dominated by Superman and Batman. Batman, of course, was the main character in the movie, The Dark Knight. As for Superman, he was the Olympic swimmer who won every one of the eight events he entered. You know him better as Michael Phelps.

I enjoyed watching Michael Phelps, especially the races that he, or his team, won in breathtaking come from behind fashion.

But I was also quite moved by the story of another athlete who reminds us that winning the race isn’t everything.

Two men were camping in the wild, when suddenly a ferocious looking bear appeared. One man started to put on his track shoes. His friend cautioned, “There’s no way you will be able to outrun this bear.” The other responded, “I don’t need to outrun the bear, I only need to outrun you.”

Lolo Jones didn’t win her race, but she won our hearts. Lolo Jones, a young American woman, was the favorite in her event, the 100 meter hurdles. 80% of the way through the race, Lolo was in first place—it wasn’t even close. After successfully clearing the first 8 hurdles, she hit hurdle number nine, and her chance for Olympic Gold was over. She finished seventh.

This wasn’t Lolo Jones’ first taste of pain in her life. As a young girl, she, her siblings and mother experienced poverty and homelessness. Despite the odds, she worked hard and succeeded at becoming a world champion athlete. At the trials for the 2004 Olympics, the year that Michael Phelps won only 6 Gold Medals, and had to settle for 2 Bronzes, Lolo Jones fell during her specialty event, and failed to even make the team.

And now she hit the hurdle.

Lolo has a realistic attitude. She said—sometimes you hit the hurdle, about once or twice a year.

I was moved by her story because it is our story. Michael Phelps put on an amazing show for us. He won every race.

But our lives are not a series of first place finishes. Each of us, like Lolo Jones, knows what it feels like to encounter a hurdle. And we know all too well the feeling of not clearing the hurdle successfully. Each of us has experienced our share of pain, loss, failure, breakdown of spirit. We have known death of loved ones, illness, loss of job and other financial stress, heartache, even at the hands of a friend or family member.

So when an athlete, a great athlete, hits the hurdle, loses the race and the medal, and yet holds her head up high and goes forward in her life, then she is a hero to those of us who are just ordinary human beings.

Just prior to the Summer games, someone referred to Lolo Jones’ life as a great American story. This would be true with or without the medal.

And now I turn to Batman. As in watching Lolo Jones, I was drawn to the main character in The Dark Knight because, again, the definition of hero is called into question.

As a superhero, the Batman (as he is more properly called) is ambiguous at best. His help is not always welcome by the police or the citizens of Gotham, and even the audience is sometimes questioning his heroism. Don’t get me wrong—he’s mostly good, just not all the time.

Back in the 1960’s, when my brothers and I watched the Batman TV series, starring Adam West, my father would scoff and mutter, “This isn’t the Batman I remember.” Now, having seen the movies and read a bit of the history of the character, I understand what he was saying.

TV Batman was almost silly, always happy-go-lucky, beloved by his community, adored by the women.

Now I hesitate to make this statement about a fictional character, but as my father said, “TV Batman was not the real Batman.”

The Batman of the comic books and movies is a dark, complex, introspective character. And with good reason. The genesis of Batman’s character stems from his having witnessed, as a young boy, the tragic murder of his parents. He therefore devotes his life to fighting crime and evil.

And this is the part that really hits home for me, and I hope, for you. Unlike the other superheroes, the Batman possesses no actual superpowers. He is good at what he does because he worked hard to get there.

Superman pretends to be a human being named Clark Kent. Batman, on the other hand, really is a human. He really is Bruce Wayne.

Now, I hope you see why the Batman story is so moving and so relevant to us. He is a human being, like you and me, impacted by pain and loss, like you and me, not always beloved, not always successful, but doing his best to make the world a better place.

Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, writes about the legend of the Golem, the clay statue of a human brought to life in Jewish folklore . In many such stories, the Golem is created for the express purpose of defending the Jews against evil enemies. Rabbi Frydman-Kohl emphasizes that there are four differences between a golem and a human. Unlike a human, a golem cannot feel pain or express emotion, cannot be a failure, cannot recognize evil on his own, and finally a golem cannot truly be a hero.

To be a hero, one must also have the potential of being a failure, and now we see in these words our own lives. We live with our own inner struggles, we often fall short of our goals, yet we are indeed capable of making a positive difference in the world.

Real heroes are humans who do their best. Heroes often succeed, but sometimes fail. Heroes are beloved by many, but not by all.

Former Mayor Kilpatrick, former Governor Eliot Spitzer, soon-to-be former Prime Minister Olmert—all of them displayed moments of brilliant leadership; all were beloved and respected by many; all made fatal errors. We will continue to choose our leaders, human beings like ourselves, and hope that their inevitable shortcomings will be outweighed by their successes.

Because we are only human, we won’t always make the right choice.

A teenage girl brought her boyfriend home to meet her parents. He had spiked hair, tattoos, many body piercings—you get the picture. Later the girl’s mother remarked to her daughter, “He doesn’t really seem like a nice boy.” “Oh yeah,” replied the daughter, “If he’s not nice, why would he be doing 500 hours of community service?”

Years ago I learned a Chasidic teaching that there are some people in the world who are truly righteous (thought to be 36, the lamed vavniks) and there are also a small number of people who are truly wicked. But the rest of us, are neither wicked nor righteous, we are human, and it is up to us to determine the kind of person we will be.

In the Pirke Avot, Rabbi Shimon teaches: Don’t see yourself as a Rasha—an evil person. This exceeds just being humble. The problem with seeing yourself as evil is that you will conclude that there’s no hope in trying to improve yourself. Not stated, but easy to infer, is that we should likewise not see ourselves as a Tzaddik—as righteous. Because then we will believe that we have no need to improve.

The answer, of course, is to see ourselves as human, just human.

On Rosh Hashanah, as we examine the state of our own very human souls, we read about Abraham.

Why Abraham? He is heroic, the first of the Jewish people, the one who first sees the truth in Monotheism. Yet, Abraham is not without flaws. He lives with the enduring pain of having left behind his parents, having banished Hagar and Ishmael, having placed Isaac upon the altar, having told Sarah (not once, but twice) to say that she is his sister, not his wife.

And yet, Abraham, in his true humanity, rises above all the angst to devote himself to a higher cause. Abraham will not live to see what his dedication to a cause, at an advanced age, will produce. We are his children, millions of us, but he could not have known for certain that we would exist. He only relied on faith that his cause was worth fighting for.

Rabbi Ed Feinstein writes about answering a child’s question, “What is the meaning of life?” Rabbi Feinstein explains that, according to Lurianic Kabbalah, the world contains many broken pieces of God’s light—within ourselves, in our communities and throughout the world. Our purpose in life, as Jewish people, is to fix what is broken, beginning with our own shattered souls, and extending from there out into the world. This fixing of what hurts us, and others, is what we call Tikkun Olam—Healing the world.

Rabbi Feinstein further teaches that the opposite of Judaism is not Christianity or Islam or even atheism. Rather the opposite of Judaism is saying, “I give up.”

With great wisdom, Rabbi Tarfon taught in Pirke Avot (2:16):

Lo alekha ham’lakhah ligmor. V’lo ata ben chorin libatel mimenah.

You are not required to complete every task, but neither are you free to do nothing about it.

On the Day of Judgement, I urge you to judge yourself. Attempt to heal your own pain, and then that of others. You won’t be completely successful, but if you try, then you too can count yourself among the heroes of this world.