Kol Nidrei 5780: The Torah of Shame
About a year and a half ago, I went on vacation to Ukraine. Well, not really vacation, unless your idea of vacation involves five to seven hours of being in a bumpy van in on and off snowstorms. I was there to visit the graves of Rabbis who had long passed away, Rabbis who formed the tradition I have dedicated my life to, and Rabbis who’s words, many generations later, inspire me. I was there for a trip I later coined #gravehop2018, with 5 other women from all different backgrounds. On the list were famous names like the Baal Shem Tov--the founder of the Hasidic movement, Yitzhak Levi of Berdichev, the Ohev Yisrael, the Baal haTanya, the forefather of Chabad, and finally Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. You might have heard of Rebbe Nachman, or at least have seen Youtube footage of his followers in white beanies disrupting the streets of Jerusalem regularly with dancing and techno music. He is now known for sayings like “It’s a great mitzvah to always be happy.” Or, even more well known, kol haOlam kulo… the whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is to not be afraid. As a person who struggled immensely with depression himself, he became, in a sense, a Rebbe for the depressed. A Rebbe of emotions, but particularly the emotions that we don’t really want to look at. He wasn’t afraid of the dark parts of the soul, and in fact many of his writings are about the value of our darker sides, the sparks hidden within them and how to bring them out.
A word about grave hopping, before I tell you what happened. When beginning a grave hop, a person is entering into a mythical and mystical reality. They pay attention to every sensation, sound, part of the experience as if they were looking for a “sign” or something from the soul of the Rebbe. One needs to enter an almost childlike state of magical thinking to truly experience a holy person’s grave. So, I know what I’m about to share might sound crazy. And, maybe it is crazy. I guess you kind of had to be there.
When I walked into the synagogue that houses Rebbe Nachman’s grave, I felt a potency in the room. Unlike the other graves we had visited, before his death, Nachman gave instructions to his disciples for what to do at his grave. Give a coin to tzedaka in his name, say 10 special psalms that he prescribed, and pray. So, I gave a coin to tzedaka, started saying the psalms, and before I could finish, I felt something welling up within me and started to cry. As tears were falling onto the plastic cover on top of Rebbe Nachman’s grave, I had a conversation with myself and for the first time in my life was face to face with the biggest block in my life. The thing preventing me from being the person I really want to be in the world--Shame.
Shame, as one of my teachers puts it, is the dark matter of the soul. Like the dark matter of the universe which is amorphous and difficult to understand and yet permeates everything, shame is difficult to pinpoint and define. Brene Brown, renowned shame researcher known for her TED talk on Vulnerability, defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging...Shame creates feelings of fear, blame, and disconnection.” She differentiates it from guilt, which she views as a motivating, even positive emotion that helps us confront our actions and wrongdoings and change our ways. Shame, on the other hand, is always destructive. It creates a cycle, a downward spiral, keeping us stuck and isolated.
Yom Kippur is a day that many of us associate with feeling bad about ourselves and our actions, perhaps a day we even associate with shame. But, I’m not just being lovey-dovey when I say that it’s truly the opposite. We dress in all white to remember that at our core we are good--even angelic. During the vidui, confessions that we recite tonight and throughout the day, we say ashamnu, badagnu, dibarnu dofi, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we have scorned. Our tradition understands innately what Brene Brown and Rebbe Nachman taught, which is that in order to really make teshuva, return to ourselves, we need to be connected to one another. True change cannot happen in a shame spiral. Since shame thrives in isolation and disconnection, the we that we evoke helps us stay on track, remember that the true purpose of this day is to celebrate our humanness, to remember our innate goodness, and to know that we have a G!d that is loving and forgives. This day is not about proving our goodness to G!d, it’s about proving it to ourselves.
Back by Rebbe Nachman’s grave, tears streaming down my face, I followed the advice of both Rebbe Nachman and Brene Brown; I spoke out loud about one of the things I had the most shame about. I spoke to G!d (in English) saying, “I’m almost a Rabbi and I don’t even pray every day.” Back in this mythical and mystical reality, I heard a voice respond with instructions, saying (almost with a shrug), “Yeah, maybe you should pray every day. But, try showing that to G!d. Try every morning to say over and over again that you don’t want to davven.” The essence of what I heard is that shame thrives in isolation, it thrives when it is unspeakable and unspoken. All throughout our liturgy tonight and tomorrow we read that G!d is our parent who loves us unconditionally. This Yom Kippur, may we be blessed to truly hear that. May we be blessed with the trust to speak our shame, to bring G!d into the dark parts of our soul and shine a light there. May we be blessed, over these next 25 hours and throughout our lives, to celebrate being human in spite of, not despite, our flaws.
