Guilt

Jewish guilt, that idea has been floating through my head a lot in the last couple of days. I think its only natural given that we are now in the days of awe. Doing an accounting of our souls, asking forgiveness seems like an appropriate time to examine the idea. I mean how much does guilt play into our lives and our actions. I had a tough Rosh Hashanah I'm not even going to try to hide it, it was amazing really but also very hard to deal with. My soul felt torn it was incredible and natural that this would be the time to lose it. I felt like for a time over the holiday that I was being cast down into the depths and I also felt for a time like I was sitting on the floor next to the throne of heaven. It's what we're supposed to do every time we pray. Imagine ourselves standing directly in front of god talking to him like a friend. I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, thats how it felt to me at that moment as it was happening. And then it was over lost and shattered and gone. And when it was gone I felt utterly alone and empty and broken. And so I fled, its the only thing I knew how to do to just get up and leave and be away. I got on a train while all my friends were sitting down in shul preparing to do it all over again. I walked through New York, I committed sin after sin after sin.

And that got me thinking about the idea of guilt and just how much it drives our actions and how much it defines our lives. I thought about the beginnings of my practice, about the innocence involved about doing things just out of a desire to understand, to connect, to feel something, anything I didn’t even know what. I thought about those days and the lack of guilt about just acting because it felt like the right thing to do, not because I wanted or expected anything. I suppose it’s inevitable to we all look back on our childhood the days before ourselves got in the way of us doing what we just wanted to do. And I think in many ways that’s how a feel now the desire to get back to the days before my action or lack there of inspired anything in me. I feel like Aish in many ways killed the part of me that just loved to worship because it felt right. I just know I want it back and I know I can have it back. It won’t be exactly the same, it never is. Nor would I expect it to be. I thought about how out of place I felt. I didn't feel bad, or guilty really. I just felt out of place. And so I thought a lot about why we act or don't act.

Jewish practice after all is so many, I can do this' and I can't do that's so much is predicated on what I can and can not do. Jews actually brought the idea of moral responsibility into the world. They changed the idea of actions being based less on what my resources and strengths/ weakness all my to do. To the idea that every person has a responsibility beyond themselves to act in a just manner. Now it seems childish but not so in the time of its creation. Jews unsurprisingly brought the idea of guilt into the world. And so it goes. I realized that the interplay between our inner selves between right and wrong are our own because we allow them to define us. And so I made it home no worse for the wear. With a little clarity that came though a lot of guilt. Maybe thats the whole point of our guilt, thought it we relentlessly examine ourselves looking of understanding on our own very often unconscious actions. Our guilt forces us to see within ourselves what is to often hidden, and maybe thats not such a bad thing. Maybe its just what we need. Here is to our days of reflection. May god give us all a little bit of understanding and wisdom in these days of atonement. May we all find a place of peace for the demons that haunt us all. And free ourselves as we prepare to be forgiven.