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Week 1: Response from
Rabbi Roy Tanenbaum |
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Maimonides is correct: we must repent traits as well as deeds. However, is the repenting of traits always more difficult than the repenting of a deed? It may not have to be. Do not try to accomplish the whole thing head-on. Instead, make little decisions, one small step at a time, one day at a time. What is a little decision? Create for yourself an environment in which you are less likely to slip. I wear a kippa wherever I go. If I feel like going somewhere where my kippa embarrasses me, I can no longer go there. If I am about to do something that will embarrass my kippa, I think twice. Making that small step a long time ago, helps me make the bigger steps that come later on.
What is another small step? After you have recognized the problem, recognize that you are not unique. When we are unique, no one can teach us. "You have not walked in my shoes. How would you know anything about this?" If this were true, whites could never write about natives. Jews could never write about non-Jews. A rabbi could never write a eulogy except perhaps about another rabbi. When we recognize that we are not different, that means others can have something to say to us. In Pirkei Avot (4:1) Ben Zoma asks and answers, "Who is wise? The one who can learn from all people"--those younger, those of the opposite sex, those in authority, those not. Wisdom in this sense is not something one has; wise is something one is. Because I am not unique, I can even learn from those who have faults, even from those who have not experienced what I have experienced.
A third small step: Simply recognize that you are weak like everyone else. Paradoxically, we are stronger when we recognize that we are not in control--not in control of others, not in control of our own bodies, not even in control of our own inner emotions and traits. When we think we are strong, we think we can solve our own problems: "I got myself into this mess, I'll get myself out." Usually we wind up disgusted with ourselves and find ourselves wondering, "Why is it that every time I get close, I seem to mess up?" When we recognize that we are "but dust and ashes" (Gen. 18:27; Job 30:19), that our beginning is "a gross drop" and our end is "worms and maggots" (Pirkei Avot 3:1), we can more easily open ourselves to outside help and to G-d.
The Talmud (Sukkah 52a) has a story. In the end of days, the righteous look back at the evil inclination, weeping in amazement. "You mean we climbed that huge mountain." The wicked also look back weeping. "You mean all we would have had to do is get over that little hair's breadth." In life, those who saw a hair's breadth and took one step at a time, succeeded, not even realizing they had climbed a mountain. Those who saw a mountain and were defeated before they started, never realized all they had to do was get over a little hair's breadth.
A Hasidic story: How far do you have to walk to correct having gone in the wrong direction? Just one step. Turn around.
Beth Tzedec -- Toronto, Ontario
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