Page 5 - Mizrachi-RZC Sefer Berachot 5782

Healthy Shame and Neurotic Guilt
Rav Doron Perez
Chief Executive, World Mizrachi

Shame, according to our Sages, is one of the defining characteristics
of a Jew: “They are merciful, feel shame and act benevolently”. It is
a focus of the Yom Kippur Viduy, where we pray: “...What can we
say before you Hashem, our G-d? What can we declare? What
justification can we offer our G-d? We are ashamed of our actions
and humiliated to lift our faces to You, our G-d.”
Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch explains the nature of this sentiment of
shame: When people do not act in the manner they expect of
themselves, they feel ashamed. Each of us has a picture of our
ideal self, of who we would like to be and who we would like to
become. When we fall short of our ideal selves, we feel a sense of
shame.

This feeling of shame is a gift from G-d, implanted deep within our
consciousness. It prods us to an understanding that we have failed to
live up to our potential. We do not always fulfil our mission by
acting in accordance with the great moral and spiritual teachings of
the Torah. Hashem, therefore, gave us a tool that enables us to be
the monitors and guardians of our own spiritual destiny.
This mechanism of the voice of our conscience, called shame,
empowers us to examine that distance between who we are now and
the ideal self we would like to be. The condemning verdict when we
fall short of our vision is shame, busha.
Shame must be distinguished from the crippling neuroses of guilt. It
is not an overly critical disempowering feeling of guilt aimed at
undermining our sense of self-worth. It is rather a healthy,
wholesome empowering emotion, integral to spiritual growth.
Shame is the first step of teshuva, the impetus to improve ourselves.
It has a purpose and a direction. It is future-orientated, opening up to
us the creative possibility of self-change.
As we stand before Hashem at the beginning of the New Year, we
should feel this healthy and wholesome sense of shame. We should
constantly strive for the routine of our daily lives to become an apt
and accurate reflection of the ideal image of our personal, family
and communal lives.

May we as a People and all of us individually have our daily lives
always being a true reflection of the ideal image that we have for
ourselves.