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The
Nullity of Being …
the Greatness of Being
By Rabbi Eliyahu Safran
The process of repentance and its accompanying
recitation of the Vidui-confession— is it a manifestation of spiritual and
psychological strength, courage and creativity, or is it a statement of
self-defeat, a pathetic recognition of human frailty, inferiority and
unworthiness?
Sincere repentance is predicated upon the strength and ability to accuse
oneself! It is an admission that one’s intentions and deeds are tarnished;
a shameful declaration that “We have sinned.” Repentance must indeed
encompass a merciless and boundless expression of self-accusation. Yet
this expression of weakness emanates from man’s unique superiority and
spiritual greatness, without which self-accusation could never be
possible. When cognizant of one’s freedom and choice, man can own up to
guilt, fragility and temptation and then begin to contemplate change,
improvement and repentance. Man’s praise, just as his shame, are both
equal parts of the Vidui-confession experience. Without recognition of sin
and failure there can be no regret. But this dual recognition would remain
self-defeating and futile unless man simultaneously has faith in his inner
creative abilities, which will ultimately allow him to reemerge renewed
and reinvigorated. Praise of man is the enabler of the confession of man.
Rav Soloveitchik z”l derived these two inseparable elements of the
repentance experience from the Vidui-confession recitation of the Jew who
apportions his ma’aserot during the fourth and seventh years of the
Shemitta cycle. This Jew boasts that he has not violated even an iota of
the commandments and that he has fulfilled the mitzvah of ma’aser
meticulously:
“According to all Your Commandments, which You have commanded me:
I have not transgressed any of Your commandments, neither have I
forgotten…
I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God, I have done according to
all that You have commanded me.”
Such a statement in praise of man extolling his own virtues as a
God-fearing and obedient servant who has done all according to His command
– is categorized by the Sages as a “confession?” How is it possible to
ascribe “confession” which conjures up weakness and helplessness, to one
elevated to the point of not having “transgressed any of the commandments,
Rav Soloveitchik asked? But, that is precisely the point. Only a person
proud enough to announce that he has done “all that You have commanded,”
is to also be expected to humbly submit that he has “not done according to
all that You have commanded.” The one, who possesses the inner will to do
right, is to also be expected to own up to that which is wrong. Ability to
recognize success is the prerequisite to admission of failure. Both
emanate from the same source. Both lead to parallel conclusions: the
nullity of being and the greatness of being. The nullity of being leads to
Yom Kippur confession. The greatness of being leads to the ma’aserot
confession. Both are rooted in a proud yet, humble human being created in
the image of God, formed from earth’s dust. Both forms of confession
however, can at times be integrated. Greatness of being can indeed
overshadow the nullity of being.
When the saintly Klausenberger Rebbe zt”l addressed survivors from
Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia in the Feldafing Displaced Persons
Camp on Kol Nidre night in 1945, greatness of being overshadowed nullity
of being, even as it seemed perfectly normal to focus exclusively on the
nullity of it all. Lieutenant Birnbaum reports that “he had never heard so
powerful a speech…When he had finished more than two hours later, I was
both emotionally drained and inspired for he best davening of my life.”
What did this great and holy Rebbe who himself lost his wife and eleven
children to the Nazi murderers, say to those who could still see and smell
the smoke emanating from the chimneys of the crematoriums? Could he speak
of confessions to those who witnessed and survived destruction and
slaughter, murder and annihilation of millions of Jews, their fathers,
mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and children? He did!
“The Rebbe stood there with his machzor in his hand flipping through its
pages. Periodically he would ask rhetorically, “Wer haht das geshriben –
who wrote this? Does this apply to us? Are we guilty of the sins
enumerated here?” One by one, he went through each of the ashamnu
confessionals, then the al chait and concluded that those sins had little
to do with those who had survived the camps. He analyzed each of the
possible transgressions. Ashamnu [We have become guilty]. “Have we sinned
against Hashem or man? I doubt it. Let’s go on. Dibarnu dofi [We have
spoken slander] “We didn’t speak any slander. We did not speak at all. If
we had any strength to speak, we saved it for our SS guards so that we
would have enough strength to answer them.” Latznu [We have scoffed] “Who
wrote this machzor? Who put it together? We were so serious in the camps.
There was no such thing as smiling or making a joke.” Moradnu [We have
rebelled]. Who should we have rebelled against? Against Hashem? We weren’t
able to rebel at all. If we had tried to rebel against the Nazis it would
have been our last rebellion.”
The Klausenberger zt”l finished with the ashamnu and then focused on the
more elaborate al chait confessions. Again he concluded with the pride of
one whose greatness of being supersedes the nullity of being, that hardly
anything was applicable to these worshippers in Feldafing Block 5A. Al
chait she’chatanu lifanecha b’ones u’veratzon [for the sins that we have
sinned before You under duress and willingly]. “Certainly nothing we did
in the camps was without compulsion. Bevili da’as [without knowledge] our
minds were in such a state that we did not have knowledge of anything.
Be’tipshus peh [with foolish speech] “That’s a gelechter (funny); who
spoke foolishly or lightheartedly in the situation we were in? B’yetzer
hara [with the evil urge] “To sin with the yetzer hara you must first have
possession of your physical senses – a desire to see or hear or taste
something forbidden. We did not have any sense of touch. We were skin and
bones incapable of touching. The only thing we could feel were the corpses
that we carried out every morning… We heard only one thing – the command
of our guards. We had ears for nothing else. Our eyes were only for
looking around to see whether our guards were watching when we wanted to
take a rest. Otherwise, we were as blind men seeing nothing. Smell – yes,
we had a sense of smell; the unforgettable stench of death was constantly
in our nostrils making us nauseous. Taste – the only taste we knew was the
thin soup they gave us so we would have enough strength for another day’s
work. Oh, I forget, we did have the yetzer hara for food, for the slop
that we saw thrown to the pigs. What the SS officers would not eat they
threw to the pigs. How we envied the pigs....” and so the Rebbe zt”l
eliminated all the al chaits one by one, emphasizing how all of these
transgressions were not applicable to his congregation. He finally closed
the machzor.
He seemed to have finished, but then the Rebbe returned to his original
question, “Who wrote this machzor? I don’t see anywhere the sins that do
apply to us – the sins of having lost our emunah and bitachon [faith and
trust in God]! “What is the proof that we have sinned in this fashion? How
many times did we recite K’rias Shema on our wood slats at night and think
to ourselves: ‘Ribono
shel Olam, please take my
neshama, so
that I do not have to repeat once again in the morning, I’m thankful
before you, Who has returned my soul to me….’ I do not need my soul. You
can keep it. “How many of us went to sleep thinking that we couldn’t exist
another day, with all bitachon lost? And yet when the dawn broke in the
morning, we once again had to say modeh ani and thank Hashem for having
returned our souls.” “None of us expected to survive. Yes, we tried to
survive, but none of us expected to. Every morning, we saw this one didn’t
move and that one didn’t move, and as we carried the dead out we looked
upon them with envy. Is that emunah in Hashem? Is that bitachon in Hashem?
“Yes, we have sinned. We have sinned and now we must klop al chait. We
must pray to get back the emunah and bitachon we once had, the emunah and
bitachon that went to sleep these last few years in the camps. Now that we
are freed, Ribono shel Olam, we beg You to forgive us. Forgive everyone
here. Forgive every Jew in the world, Ribono shel Olam, our Father.”
Rav Soloveitchik z”l taught that every confession expresses itself in the
outcry, “I am black, and I am beautiful, oh daughter of Jerusalem.” When
we do not see the “beauty” we cannot discern the “blackness.” Genuine
repentance demands that the sinner view himself from two seemingly
antithetical viewpoints, the nullity of being and the greatness of being.
The holy Klausenberger Rebbe z”l clearly saw both.
May Hashem grant all of us the strength, courage, humility and wisdom to
always see and understand both.
Shanah Tovah.
Rabbi Eliyahu Safran serves as Senior Rabbinic Coordinator of the
Orthodox Union’s Kashruth Division. His published works include: Passion
and Peace; Traditional Torah Thoughts and Contemporary Reflections and Kos
Eliyahu: Insights on the Haggadah and Pesach.
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