Shabbat Shuvah
Jewish
Guilt
Yael Splansky
Yael Splansky
As he prepares for death, Moses lays a major guilt
trip on the people.
“Well I know how defiant and stiff-necked you are:
even now, while I am still alive in your midst, you have been defiant toward the
Eternal; how much more, then, when I am dead! ... For I know that, when I am
dead, you will act wickedly and turn away from the path that I enjoined upon
you, and that in time to come misfortune will befall you for having done evil in
the sight of the Eternal whom you vexed by your deeds” (Deuteronomy 31:27,
29).
Jewish guilt: It’s the punch line of so many Jewish
jokes, usually involving Jewish mothers. “Don’t worry about me...I’ll sit in the
dark...” But guilt is a powerful tool for honing an individual soul, for shaping
a whole society. Guilt is one of the most useful tools we carry during this
season, when we take cheshbon hanefesh, an
accounting of the soul, and make our way to true repentance.
For example, every year at the High Holy Day
services I look out across the faces of the congregation. I think, “I could have
done more for her...I should have done more for him...Did I do right by that
family when they were in their hour of need?” I admit the guilt weighs heavily
on me. Such guilt must be the origin of the Hin’ni prayer, found in Gates of Repentance (pp. 18–19). Before the
service begins, the rabbi stands before the open ark and silently cries out,
“Hin’ni he-ani mima-as! (Behold me, of little
merit, ...) Who is fit for such a task? Dear God, let my congregation not falter
on my account, nor I on theirs.” In a rare moment the rabbi stands apart from
the congregation. It is a flashback to a time when on Yom Kippur, the Kohein Gadolwould enter the Holy of Holies to seek
forgiveness on behalf of the people. But rabbis are not priests. There is no
Holy of Holies. And these days are not those days.
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