OCTOBER 10 • 2024 | 35
Dealing With Guilt
A
s a species and a society, we
do not like feeling guilty.
That twisting, crawling
sense of shame and embarrassment,
or failure, is one I expect most
people try to avoid. Especially
in our often-too-online lives,
we are primed to respond
defensively to any pushback or
critique.
Rather than admitting that
we’ve posted or commented
something that lacked sen-
sitivity, we accuse our critics
of being “oversensitive snow-
flakes” or may use any num-
ber of words ending in “ist” or
“ism” to stake our moral high
ground.
We invoke our right to free
speech to excuse something we said,
rather than confront the impact of
our speech on others. We so abhor
the guilt that comes with admitting
that we screwed up, that we take
harmful steps to avoid admitting it,
sometimes by pretending the guilt is
not ours at all. We look for a scape-
goat to bear the guilt and shame
instead, rather than admitting that
we’ve erred.
Luckily, Jewish tradition offers us
a yearly framework for dealing with
feelings of guilt and shame that relies
on the strength of the community,
rather than undermining it.
Chapter 16 of the Book of Leviticus,
which we read on Yom Kippur, lays
out specific instructions for the elab-
orate (and bloody) rituals that the
High Priest must perform to atone
for himself, his household and the
entire nation of Israel. At the center
of this ritual is the original scapegoat,
an animal chosen to bear the sins of
the people as it is sent off into the
wilderness.
This original ritual of the
scapegoat differs in important
ways from how so many avoid
taking responsibility for their
words and deeds today.
The scapegoat ritual demand-
ed that the High Priest himself
make a public show of admitting
his sins and seeking atonement
for them. No one is allowed to
hide from their sins, not even
the High Priest. We reenact this
moment, in the Avodah service,
reciting the High Priest’s three
confessions and bowing all the
way to the ground.
At various moments on Yom
Kippur, we recite endless lists of sins
in the Ashamnu and Al Chet. Like the
High Priest, we stand amidst friends
and family and recite our confessions
to each other and to God, both for
sins that we know are ours, and for
those we have not ourselves commit-
ted. We normalize our feelings of guilt
and bear it together as a community,
able to focus on how we can do better
next time. No one is exempt, but no
one stands alone.
This Yom Kippur, I hope we can all
find comfort and support together as
we acknowledge and wash away the
guilt of the year that is ending and
look forward to being better in the
year to come.
Rebecca Strobehn is a Jewish studies
instructor at Frankel Jewish Academy in West
Bloomfield.
SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION
Rececca
Strobehn
Parshat
Yom Kippur:
Leviticus
16-:1-34;
Numbers
29:7-11; Isaiah
57:14-58:14.
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