There are two emotions I hate the most: guilt and regret. Each keeps us from doing what we love or appreciating what we have. To these, I add an even more odious emotion: shame. Shame keeps us not only from certain places and activities but banishes us from the community altogether.
In this week’s Torah portion Emor, shame hangs over everyone, creating a hateful and judgmental society where very few feel fully accepted. There are the priests who must stick to the strict guidelines of their profession or risk being excommunication, the women judged solely by a state of sexual purity that is likely not even under their control, the beaten and broken kept from the sacrificial altar by stigma and injury. My heart bleeds in reading about the many individuals kept away from the support they so desperately need.
Rabbi Jonathan Sachs wrote about the difference between shame and guilt. For the former he wrote, “If we’re caught doing wrong, there’s a stain on our character that only time can erase.” Guilt, on the other hand, he writes, “make a sharp distinction between the doer and the deed, the sinner and the sin.” In other words, guilt enables the possibility of Teshuvah, repentance. For our Biblical ancestors shame dominated. Luckily, the rabbis reversed course and prioritized guilt.
One of my favorite Hebrew blessings is the one that we use to announce the new month where the liturgist prays for a life “free of disgrace and shame and full of happiness and honor, integrity and discernment, intelligence and knowledge, a life in which our heart’s petitions are fulfilled for goodness.” That is exactly the type of life, I hope for us all.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex