Secrets and Sins
There is a lot of talk about secrets these days. Former CIA director John Brennan no longer has access to our nation’s secrets. Omarosa claims she has access to lots of them. People whisper in hushed tones about this neighbor or that. The supermarket tabloids claim to reveal titillating secrets about one movie star after another. Today they are filled with tidbits about Aretha Franklin. (May her memory be for a blessing and her songs continue to fill our hearts.)
I take comfort in the Torah’s words. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God...” (Deuteronomy) No one can truly know another’s secret. No one can reveal another’s truth. Secrets are for the individual to share or for the individual to reveal.
The great Hasidic rabbi, Menahem Mendl of Kotzk, commented: “Other Hasidim perform the commandments in the open and their sins in private. My Hasidim commit their sins in public and observe the commandments in private.” It is a strange, and counterintuitive, teaching. Who publicizes their mistakes? Who reveals their errors? Don’t most people brag about their accomplishments and hide their gaffs?
Apparently Menahem Mendl taught his disciples to talk about their sins and not talk about what they did right. He taught them that you can only improve if others see your mistakes and hear about your errors. Most people don’t want to sign up for such a regimen. I wonder how many followers he actually had. And yet Menahem Mendl does reveal an essential truth.
The only way to grow and improve, the only way to be a better person is to reveal your mistakes and display them for others to see. That is the purpose of the High Holidays. We temper this telling of our secrets by reciting our sins together. The litany of sins are intoned in the plural. “For the sin we have committed…” we repeat over and over again.
Only by coming to terms with our own failings can we bring on redemption.
Menahem Mendl again: “The world thinks that tzaddik nistar—hidden righteous people—are people who conceal their righteousness and their good deeds from others. The truth, though, is that tzaddik nistar are people whose righteousness is hidden and concealed from themselves, and who have no idea whatsoever that they are righteous.”
Righteousness is not newsworthy. It is never something to brag about or hold before others.
But the world depends on each of us doing good deeds—perhaps in secret.
I take comfort in the Torah’s words. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God...” (Deuteronomy) No one can truly know another’s secret. No one can reveal another’s truth. Secrets are for the individual to share or for the individual to reveal.
The great Hasidic rabbi, Menahem Mendl of Kotzk, commented: “Other Hasidim perform the commandments in the open and their sins in private. My Hasidim commit their sins in public and observe the commandments in private.” It is a strange, and counterintuitive, teaching. Who publicizes their mistakes? Who reveals their errors? Don’t most people brag about their accomplishments and hide their gaffs?
Apparently Menahem Mendl taught his disciples to talk about their sins and not talk about what they did right. He taught them that you can only improve if others see your mistakes and hear about your errors. Most people don’t want to sign up for such a regimen. I wonder how many followers he actually had. And yet Menahem Mendl does reveal an essential truth.
The only way to grow and improve, the only way to be a better person is to reveal your mistakes and display them for others to see. That is the purpose of the High Holidays. We temper this telling of our secrets by reciting our sins together. The litany of sins are intoned in the plural. “For the sin we have committed…” we repeat over and over again.
Only by coming to terms with our own failings can we bring on redemption.
Menahem Mendl again: “The world thinks that tzaddik nistar—hidden righteous people—are people who conceal their righteousness and their good deeds from others. The truth, though, is that tzaddik nistar are people whose righteousness is hidden and concealed from themselves, and who have no idea whatsoever that they are righteous.”
Righteousness is not newsworthy. It is never something to brag about or hold before others.
But the world depends on each of us doing good deeds—perhaps in secret.