When Good People Do Bad Things

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Kol Nidre 5766 - Wednesday, October 12, 2005

My oldest daughter Aviva is now working in Washington doing economics research. We were talking the other day and I was thinking how much simpler the world of an economist is. Economic theories are usually based on a vision of a world in which fully informed individuals always act rationally to pursue their self-interest. That’s a far cry from the real world. To begin with, where I live, we are rarely fully enough informed about anything to know the full consequences of a contemplated action. Further, rather than acting rationally, people often act against their own self-interest, causing trouble for themselves and for others. People who want to lose weight, eat more calories than they expend and people who want to live long and healthy lives, ignore all the helpful advice their doctors’ provide. People who desire a warm and loving family atmosphere in their homes, say hurtful, spiteful things to each other and people who want their kids to grow up strong and healthy in spirit, squabble endlessly with their ex-spouses. People withhold information that others need and share information that would best be left private. Instead of the book When Bad Things Happen To Good People, the book I’m looking for is When Good People Do Bad (and Counterproductive) Things.

I’m not the first person to notice this problem. Our old blue prayer book included the following as a silent meditation for the three major festivals. After the familiar words; “O God, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from deceitful speech”, the prayer asks: Shegiyot mi yavin? Literally: Mistakes, who will understand? Or more colloquially: Who can explain the really stupid things we do? One translator offers his own drash, asking a slightly different question: “Who can see his own failings?” He derives this from the next verse: “Ministarot Yinakeini- Rid me of faults that are hidden.” Hidden from whom? Clearly our faults aren’t hidden from God. The presumption on Yom Kippur is that God knows our faults. Equally, our faults are visible to our family and friends, as anyone with a teenage child, a judgmental parent, or a grumpy spouse can easily testify. Who are our faults hidden from? Only from ourselves.

These words, “shegiyot mi yavin, ministarot y’nakeini” weren’t written for our prayerbook: they are ancient words from Psalm 19, verse 13. The line comes in between two better known passages. The beginning of the psalm is part of the Torah service in our Reform prayerbook: Torat Adonai Temimah, meshivat nefesh, The Torah of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. And the psalm concludes with the beautiful and familiar text: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heard be acceptable before Thee, my Rock and my Redeemer. We begin with a picture of perfection and serenity, we end by bringing our hearts back to God, but in the middle- oy vay.

Somewhere out in cyberspace there is an older Conservative rabbi who reads my sermons posted our website and writes me when I make a mistake. You can just imagine my delight every time I see his address in my in-box. Each time I am forced to look into myself: was the problem carelessness and hurry? Did I jump to conclusions without checking all my facts? Is the allocation of my time consistent with my values?

On occasion, each of us faces a discrepancy between what we want to achieve and what we actually do, between the person we mean to be and the person we really are. We get up in the morning hoping to do good throughout the day, but go to bed at night with regretted words and deeds. Tempted as we may be to excuse ourselves saying, that’s just the way of the world, the High Holy Days come to remind us that it can be different. By asking us to yavin, to understand our faults we are pointed in the direction of Tshuvah, repentance.

The word for errors or mistakes here is in an interesting one. It is not usually used for the two extremes of total accident on the one hand and premeditated malicious evil on the other. Shegiyot is the word used for our middling errors, errors due to imperfect understanding and inappropriate implementation, errors when we assume and don’t check things out, when we mean well but cause hurt, errors that are explainable though not excusable, the kinds of things that can happen to anyone. After all our tradition tells us that for the perfectly righteous and the totally wicked the die is already cast by Rosh Hashanah. It is only for the rest of us that these ten days of repentance and the prayers of Yom Kippur affect the future.

When Harold Kushner spoke for the South Bay Institute here in San Jose a few years ago he explained why his book was called When Bad Things Happen To Good People, rather than Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. We will never really know why terrible things happen, he explained. Our human challenge is to respond when bad things happen with dignity and courage. In that he is not so far from the writings of the Rav, Rabbi Soloveichick an outstanding Orthodox thinker of the late 20th century. The Rav explained that for Judaism evil was not a problem of metaphysical speculation but of ethics. He wrote: “Man should not ask: Why evil? He should rather ask the question: What am I supposed to do if confronted with evil?...Suffering must not be purposeless, wasted. Out of suffering must emerge the ethical norm, the call for repentance, for self-elevation.”

We could spend hours, days, weeks even months, sorting out the theories of psychologists and psychiatrists, moralists and theologians trying to answer the question, why do we do evil things. Our issue as Jews is not so much to explain these failings, as to figure out on a practical basis what we should do about them.

The first thing we can do to remedy the gap between who we want to be and who we are --is to call ourselves to account. This is what we are prodded to do throughout all the long services on Yom Kippur. We can think more proactively about how we want to behave and we can keep track of our own actions. We can take note of the extent to which we do or don’t live up to the standards we set for ourselves. Simply counting can be eye opening. Rabbi Israel Salanter a great teacher of practical ethics, suggested that we chose to work on one quality at a time and, having focused on that quality, each evening make an accounting. Just as a shopkeeper at the end of the day might tally up the day’s expenses and cash collected, we should record the good, the bad and the ugly.

Suppose we notice that our shegiyot, our failings mostly relate to our speech. We might chose to work on shemirat halashon, literally guarding our tongue. At the end of each day we would think back over everything we said. Were we satisfied with how we used language? Did we say what needed to be said? Did we hold back and not pour out words that we regretted? If we slipped and misspoke 12 times last week, is this week’s total up or down?

Suppose our gaps seem to stem from loosing our temper. We might focus on controlling anger. Do we own our own anger or treat it like an uncontrollable force of nature? Are we aware of when we are angry and can we recognize our anger’s triggers? The rabbis offer a typology of different kinds of people with regard to anger, those who become angry more easily and those less, those whose anger is easier to appease and those less, but there is no category of people who never get angry. How successful were we, when something happened that would usually result in anger, in reframing events to defuse the situation and how successful in keeping our greater priorities in mind? Some people find it helpful to use the line from the radio emergency services warning- this is only a test- to keep everything in perspective. Traditionally the words a Jew used to avoid anger, impatience and despair were, “this too shall pass” though for some of us- “will this really matter ten years from now”, makes the point equally well. We have each experienced some setback in our life that turned out to be an opportunity in disguise, and remembering that can help as well. Sometimes the sting can be taken out of the unfairness we experience if we are able to consider that it might not have been aimed at us personally or that it may yet help us to become more sensitive caring beings. At the end of the day, the week, the month, we can look at our behavior and note our growth.

But being honest with ourselves about our own mistakes is only part of the story. We also have to be willing to admit our mistakes to those affected by our wrongdoing. We have to look them in the eye and apologize, with specifics about what we did wrong and how it hurt them. And we have to change our behavior in meaningful ways so that our apologies have legs.

While encouraging us to reflect and repent, to resolve and repair, Jewish tradition does not set an impossible standard. Our tradition allows that we are not machines, not even computers. We pray to God at this time of year, “remember what we are”. Just as God looks at us with sympathy and understanding, well aware of our human limitations, we can view ourselves that way. Perhaps if we look at ourselves charitably, and are more kindly to ourselves, we may even be able to recognize in those who have hurt us, a flawed human being like ourselves who is deserving of our compassion. This is the part of Yom Kippur that Jonah didn’t get. He had no compassion for the Ninevites as sinners and did not seek their repentance. This is perhaps also a reason for Yizkor on Yom Kippur. We see that we remember our parents and grandparents, spouses and friends, lovingly, even as we know that they were not without their faults. And where their fallings were most painful to us, still we try and understand the ways that they were like ourselves in being flawed human beings.

Perfection is not within reach, and teshuvah is not work that is done once and completed. The most dangerous moment in the teshuvah process is when we make our first mistake, when we backslide for the first time, for it is at this moment that it is most likely that we will despair of any effort to reach out towards our ideals. Perhaps this is why we have Yom Kippur after Rosh Hashanah, when, if you think about it, repenting before the beginning of the new year makes a lot more sense. Maybe we need Yom Kippur ten days into the new year, a couple of days longer than company manners can last. After we have messed up a few times in the new year we need a reminder that our imperfections too are part of God’s plan. We need help to get back on track.

Economist live in a world of order, but we live in a world of courage and dignity. When Good People do Bad Things, and then repent, apologize, and correct their ways, they are acting bravely and demonstrating great strength. As our tradition teaches, the penitent stand where even the wholly righteous cannot ascend. That dignity and courage is available to each of us.

Coming to Temple on Yom Kippur, we remember that we are not alone in our failings. We are praying on Yom Kippur with the avaryanim, with those who have crossed some line, with sinners like ourselves who have acted foolishly and against our own interests.

Our tradition sees life as a work in progress. As long as we are climbing the ladder, it is not necessary that we reach the top. Good People Do Bad Things, but that is not the end of the story.