For the Sin of Humiliation Yom Kippur 5777 Shmuel Herzfeld

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1 For the Sin of Humiliation Yom Kippur 5777 Shmuel Herzfeld Since it is Yom Kippur, I will begin with a confession. I am not proud of this. It is something I am embarrassed about, but it s Yom Kippur, so here goes. One day this past year, I got a ticket in the mail for $300 for speeding in Washington, D.C. I know that that is wrong. And I should not speed. It is dangerous and unbecoming of anyone, let alone a communal rabbi. But still, $300! I looked closer at the ticket and I saw what happened. It was right when I was coming off the highway near Benning Road. There is a service road that is basically always empty. On one side of the road is a sign that says 50 mph. That is the sign that I was relying upon, but that is the sign for the speed on the highway. But the speed limit on the abandoned, service road is 25 mph. I was going 55 mph as I did not see a sign that said 25 mph, so I got a ticket. I didn t want to pay such a steep fine. But it was more than just the money. I felt that there was something fundamentally unfair about such an enormous ticket for an honest mistake. So I decided to fight the ticket. Another factor in my deciding to fight was that the court was right next door to a class that I was teaching. Once I decided that I would fight the ticket I had to study what the best approach would be. Many people in our congregation were giving me legal advice on this issue. I got so much advice that my head was spinning. I decided that I would plead guilty and throw myself at the mercy of the court. My argument in my head was simple: I did speed and I was wrong for doing so. I had an excuse, so I would tell the judge: I made a mistake. It was a one-time thing. Have mercy on me. I would promise never to do it again. I walked into the courtroom with my speech all prepared in my mind. The judge asked me to step forward. Before I could open my mouth, the judge looked over all the evidence and said, The signage on the road is insufficient and misleading, so I am going to dismiss this case. I am going to dismiss you this time with a warning. I was ready to confess my guilt. I was ready to give up on myself. But the judge didn t let me. The judge didn t let me talk. He knew that if I talked I would plead 1

2 guilty. So he kept me quiet. The judge believed in me more than I believed in myself. The story of this judge is the story of Yom Kippur. The true Judge on Yom Kippur believes in us more than we believe in our own selves. Even after we have given up, even when we think we are not worthy of redemption, Hashem tells us that we are getting another chance. Hashem always believes in us. In this world, we are not supposed to keep telling ourselves how bad we are. If we keep doing that then how are we ever going to improve? No! We need to keep telling ourselves how good we are. We need to remind ourselves that our best days are ahead of us. Our mistakes are in the past. We have erased them. We now have fresh slate. There is a big difference between having shame and embarrassment about our misdeeds which is essential and necessary for true teshuvah (repentance); and between having low self-esteem which is an impediment to redemption and feeling the presence of God. As part of our selichot prayers we say, ve-lanu boshet hapanim, we are truly ashamed of our actions. We repeat multiple times on Yom Kippur the words: Boshti venikhlamti leharim elokai panai elekha, My God I am embarrassed and ashamed to lift my face to you. We should be embarrassed about the sins we have done. But no matter how much humiliation we feel, we should not ever give up on ourselves. For the past four months our daf yomi group has been studying Bava Kamma, which is basically a discussion of Tort law. The Talmud discusses a law that says that if we embarrass someone we have to pay something called boshet, damages for humiliation. There is a dispute in the Talmud as to how we determine damages for humiliation. One opinion is that if the person being damaged is poor and therefore less prominent, then he or she is entitled to less damages as a result of their humiliation. But Rabbi Akiva disagrees. Let us first remember that R. Akiva himself came from a very poor and humble background. R. Akiva tells us that the damages for humiliation are addressed in an objective fashion, and are not subject to a person s prominence. 2

3 In his words: Afilu aniyim she-beyisrael roin otam ke-ilu heim benei chorin sheyardu minichseihem she-hem benei Avraham, Yitzchak ve-yaakov. Even the poorest people of Israel, we view them as free and distinguished people that are temporarily down on their luck, but in reality are the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Bava Kamma, 90b). Aniyim does not only mean poor people. It also means people who are poor in spirit; people who are down and out; people who have been humiliated. Says Rabbi Akiva, we are the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. True, we should feel embarrassed for our mistakes. But don t let such embarrassment ever cause us to regret who we really are. Yom Kippur reminds us that those sins are not part of our core. They are mistakes that we made. But those mistakes are not us they are external to who we really are. After Rabbi Akiva taught this teaching the Mishnah tells us a story. There was an incident in which a man embarrassed a woman by removing her head covering in the street. R. Akiva said to the man that he had to pay a fine of 400 zuz a very large amount of money. This was the objective fine for embarrassing a woman of great dignity. The man who did this objected. He thought that the woman was nothing special so he devised a plan. He stood outside her courtyard and had witnesses hiding nearby. When she exited her house, he dropped a jug of oil in front of her. She removed her head covering in order to rub the oil onto her head. The man quickly produced the witnesses and exclaimed to Rabbi Akiva: To this woman I am giving 400 zuz! Rabbi Akiva responded that that is not a proof that the woman is not entitled to damages for humiliation. He responded with an important principle: Hachovel be-atzmo af al pi she-eino reshai patur, acharim shechavlu bo chayavim, one who wounds himself, even though it is not permitted is exempt, but if others do it they are liable. In other words, the man was still liable for damages for humiliating her. But we see from here that one is not permitted to wound himself, hachovel be-atzmo af al pi she-eino reshai! This does not only refer to the physical it is not only a reference to a wound on one s body it is also mentally, psychologically, emotionally. We are not allowed to wound ourselves by denying our own abilities. 3

4 We must never forget that the Torah and God believe in us even more than we believe in ourselves. What about when we say all the confessions on Yom Kippur? Over and over we confess our sins. But here too, it is essential to remember as we confess our sins that the Torah still believes in us. The confession prayer is ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu, we have sinned, we have become guilty, and we have robbed. Gazalnu. For the sin of robbing. Even within this soul-baring confession there is redemption. The Talmud asks which is worse a gonev or a gazlan (Bava Kamma, 79b). A gonev is a thief, someone who steals in secret. But a gazlan is a robber. One who steals openly and forcibly takes the object. The Talmud explains that a gonev is worse because a gonev by stealing in private is showing that they are concerned about a man seeing them but not about God seeing them. On the other hand, a gazlan robs openly and thus is not placing his fear of man above his fear of God. On this day, we are saying we are like robbers gazalnu. It might not sound like much, but we are saying that even in our sins we have some redeeming elements. This recognition is the beginning of our path to redemption. In this context, the Talmud explains that the Torah tells us that one who steals a sheep or an ox and then slaughters or sells that same sheep or ox, must pay a punitive damage of four times the amount of the sheep or five times the amount of the ox. Why is the fine for someone who steals a sheep less than for the one who steals an ox? The Talmud explains that the sheep thief is punished less out of respect for human dignity. Rashi explains that the person who steals the ox just walks the ox away. But the one who steals the sheep actually has to put the sheep on his shoulders and carry it away and is thereby embarrassed for having to carry a sheep. In Rashi s words, zilzel et atzmo bo, lefikakh heikil, since he embarrassed himself the Torah has mercy on him and gives him a lesser punishment (Bava Kamma, 79b). In other words, The Torah is saying that because the thief is embarrassed we reduce his punishment as he has already suffered. 4

5 But the Mishnas Rav Aharon points out that the thief never claimed to be embarrassed. He doesn t think he is embarrassed. It is the Torah who says he is embarrassed. That is exactly our point. The Torah is our advocate even if we don t believe it ourselves. The Torah knows that deep in our soul we are better than this. We can do better. We can be better! We are gazlanim, but we are not ganavim. And even if we are ganavim, the Torah know that that is not who we really are. Deep in our souls we are embarrassed about ourselves and we want to be better. Yom Kippur reminds us and inspires us to be better. One of the most powerful parts of the Yom Kippur service is where we read the story of the ten martyrs in the mussaf repetition. We read of ten great rabbis who are killed. The story is told in a very gruesome manner: the rabbis are burned and tortured to death. Why do we read this story on Yom Kippur? When I was younger I thought it was to scare us into repenting. If we don t listen to God then this is what will happen. But that s not a theology that speaks to me. I don t believe that we should do the right thing because we are bullyed into it by fear. We should do the right thing because we are inspired by love. We read about these great rabbis because in the midst of their pain and suffering they maintained their dignity. There is one line in the liturgy story that for me encapsulates the message. When the great rabbis heard about the heavenly judgment against them they all turned to Rabbi Yishmael the Kohen Gadol and they asked him to learn if there indeed had been a decree against them from God. Says our liturgy: Rabbi Yishmael purified himself and uttered the name reverently. He ascended to the heights and inquired of Gabriel the angel dressed in linen, Tiher rebbe yishmael et atzmo ve-alah lemarom. In the midst of torture and destruction, Rabbi Yishmael was ascending to heaven and arguing with the heavenly court. 5

6 We don t read the story about these great rabbis to be sad or depressed. We read it to be inspired as to what a human being is capable of. We can always act with dignity like our ancestors the ten martyrs. But we don t read it to learn what they were capable of. We read it to learn what we are capable of! Even when we have lost our dignity through our sins, we can regain it. Those sins we committed were aberrations. It is not who we are. Sure we bang our chests all day and say ashamnu, al chet. But that s because we are saying that we are not intrinsically bad. The very first words of the day after kol nidrei are: Venislach lekhol adat benei yisrael ve-lager hagar betocham ki lekol haam beshgagah. Kol haam beshgagah. The whole world has made errors. Our errors do not reflect who we really are. The first words that we will say tonight after our amidah are Yaaleh let us ascend. We can all be good. We can all be great. We can at least all be better than we were last year! We are not our sins. Even if we don t know it ourselves, Hashem knows it. Hashem reminds us of it on this holy day. We are benei chorin the children of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebeccah, Rachel, and Leah. 6