Cheshbon HaNefesh — How are we to achieve successful teshuvah?

I felt proud this morning when Leah told the Intermediate Talmud class that she could see how much we had progressed in the past month. I could see it too — I was aware of things my chevruta and I had gotten that other chevrutot had missed, and I had the extraordinary joy of not only recognizing a verse of Torah that was cited, but understanding its implications in the b’raita that cited it. Did my chevruta and I get the whole story? Not a bit! But we got more than might be expected, so that when Leah began unpacking it further for us, I completely got what she was saying.

Let me share with you a little bit of the gemara we were studying:

ר’ ירמיה הוה ליה מילתא לר’ אבא בהדיה אזל איתיב אדשא דר’ אבא בהדי דשדיא אמתיה מיא מטא זרזיפי דמיא ארישא אמר עשאוני כאשפה קרא אנפשיה (תהלים קיג, ז) מאשפות ירים אביון שמע ר’ אבא ונפיק לאפיה אמר ליה השתא צריכנא למיפק אדעתך דכתיב לך התרפס ורהב רעיך

Rabbi Yirmiya had words — or a thing –together with Rabbi Abba. He (Rabbi Yirmiya) went and sat at the threshold of Rabbi Abba (apparently to apologize). When the maid poured out the (dirty) water, the droplets of water landed on his head. He said, They have made me into a trash heap (ashpah). He recited about himself: “Who lifts up the needy out of the trash heap (ashpot)” (Psalms 113:7). Rabbi Abba heard and went out to greet him. He (Rabbi Abba) said to him: Now I must go out to appease you, as it is written: “Go, humble yourself and urge your neighbor” (Proverbs 6:3).

Not all the stories in this sugiya have such happy endings — this is also the section where Rav goes to “appease” a butcher he knows, who has offended him in some way or with whom he has had an argument. He meets Rav Huna on the way, who says, “You are surely going to kill him.” Sure enough, when he gets there to apologize the butcher says, “I will never forgive you”, and a bone from the animal he is chopping up flies up and stabs him in the throat, killing him on the spot!

Apologies, making things right, appeasement, forgiveness — these are all on our minds in these days before Yom Kippur. In Judaism there is a tradition of cheshbon hanefesh — literally, an accounting of the soul. We are required to review our faults and to seek out those to whom we need to make amends or from whom we need to request forgiveness. In the teachings I’ve encountered in the liberal U.S. circles I travel in, it has always been understood that too much breast beating can be bad for a person, and can indeed can cause them to avoid true repentance through an overage of guilt and shame. I first learned from Andi Waisman that rather than smiting our chests during Yom Kippur we should rather tap them gently, so as to comfort ourselves in our time of regret and repentance. Rabbi Noah Kitty, my first teacher in Judaism, suggested once that we students keep a joy journal during the month of Elul, strengthening ourselves for the difficult process of atonement by first remembering all that is good in God’s beautiful world.

It was a severe shock to my system, therefor, to encounter the methodology used among the Orthodox here. We were gathered into the Beit Midrash and asked to write down for ourselves (not, thank God, to share) the following (please be forewarned — I do not advise using this method, which had a very adverse affect on me — but perhaps it will be different for you):

• 2 ways in which I can be a better daughter or son
• 2 ways in which I can be a better sister or brother
• 3 ways in which I can be a better student
• 3 ways in which I can be a better roommate, partner, or spouse
• 2 people I need to ask forgiveness from
• Is there somebody I need to tell something to, and should not wait (accompanied by a story of the lovely young friend who is killed in a car accident before the person can tell him…etc etc)
• 2 people I need to forgive
• 2 mitzvot I didn’t do well, or didn’t do enough, or didn’t do at all
• The 2 things I did this past year that I am most proud of
• The 2 things I am most ashamed of
• 3 goals I’d like to set for myself for the coming year
• What kind of person do I really want to be?
• How can I go about becoming this person?
• 2 people I look up to, and what is it I most admire about them?

To be in a room full of people and to be asked to answer these questions, while being instructed not to reflect but to write immediately so that I wouldn’t try to fool myself about my own iniquity (ok, he didn’t use that word, but he implied it) did not have a good affect on me. Instead of joining the afternoon trip to pack food for the needy, followed by tashlich (ritual throwing off of sins) in the Gazelle Valley, I went home in tears, shaking with anger.

I’ve had several days to reflect on why I don’t think this is an optimal way to achieve teshuvah (return, repentance). In the immediate aftermath I went to talk with a new friend nearby who comes from an Orthodox background, who confirmed for me that this is indeed standard practice in Orthodox circles — adding that this was one reason why she had not attended. I then contacted one of the Pardes leaders, and today I went and sat with her to try to explain why I felt that this was not the way to go with a group of people who are genuinely good-hearted and seeking truth and a connection with the Divine, as all Pardes students appear to me to be. It was an interesting conversation. She was completely open and receptive to hearing what I had to say — in part, I believe, because I had taken a long time to think through how I would speak — but she did indeed confirm that this kind of things is standard practice, and has been done for years at Pardes.

Here are my takeaways. First, know that in any room full of people, no matter their age, there will be many who have lost their parents, their siblings, their friends, and their spouses. Don’t ask them to think of “ways to be a better child, sibling, spouse, etc.” without some preface to the effect that you know that many have lost their loved ones, perhaps even recently, and that while it is natural to have regrets about how we behaved toward those we have lost, it’s important also not to drown in the guilt. The gemara we read today is relevant here: Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina said: Anyone who asks forgiveness of his friend should not ask more than three times, as it is stated: “Please, please forgive; And now, please.” (Genesis 50:17 — this is Joseph’s brothers asking him to forgive them; there are three pleases, or three asks of forgiveness). And if he dies (or is dead), one brings ten people, and stands them at his grave and says: I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and against so-and-so whom I wounded. In other words, when we have guilt for things we did to someone who has died, we can apologize before God and before living people, and make it good again.

Also, try to avoid using words like “ashamed” and “guilty” altogether. Enough already – -we’re Jews ,we get it! Perhaps most important, don’t start from an assumption that the best way to achieve repentance is through shame and guilt. Don’t start from an assumption that we are all hard-hearted folk who need to beat ourselves into submission in order to feel sorry. Consider that the people who most need this process are the very ones who will never engage in it. World leaders (naming no names), CEOs of rapacious corporations (not to mention CEOs with rapacious habits…), Haredim (“Ultra-Orthodox”) who throw stones at people who pass through their neighborhoods in what they perceive to be inadequate clothing — these are people who could benefit from this list of questions, but they either aren’t doing cheshbon hanefesh at all, or don’t appreciate the full list of things for which they should be sorry before God. But a bunch of earnest seekers at a Yeshiva? Really?!

As I processed all this, I was repeatedly reminded of a congregant who one year said that the BAJC High Holy Day services were very hard for her to sit through, because she experienced the English prayers in our old “Wings of Awe” machzor as deeply shaming. I was surprised at the time — they didn’t affect me that way. Now I feel for that woman, and I wish I could tell her about my experiences this week. Each of us comes to these Days of Awe with different areas of tenderness, soreness, loss, grief, guilt and shame. Most of us, if we are showing up for shul, thinking about teshuvah, trying to repair our relationships, are really doing the very best we can. Sometimes we need help cracking open our hearts, but often enough, the hearts are already cracked and sore, and what we need most is some healing balm.

Here in Jerusalem, the balm arrived yesterday in the form of a sweet series of thunderstorms, which rained down the very first rain since last March. May we all experience the forgiveness of the Universe as falling like that rain, unexpected and delightful, cooling our anger and quenching our sorrows. And may we all be ready, even if we are the wronged party, to say to any poor drowned petitioner on our doorstep, “I need to make amends.”