Looking for your keys in all the right places

Russ Roberts, a popular media personality and respected Economist, is fond of quoting the following metaphor:

Much of our time on Rosh Hashanah, we make our best attempt to reflect on our shortcomings of the year past. This work, known as Teshuva, can feel as if we are searching for lost keys: to being a better person, to achieving the things we want to, or the keys to living a more meaningful life. If our success and security in the year ahead is dependent on our ability to be reflective, and make commitments regarding our behavior going forward, where did we go wrong last Rosh Hashanah?

2020 has presented its fair share of global challenges and difficulties. To get a sense of this here is a list of events that took place only in January 20202:

• A third state of Emergency was declared as wild fires ravaged Australia. At least one billion animals were believed to have died in these fires.

• General Qasem Soleimani was killed in an American drone strike which was followed by two Iranian missile strikes on American bases injuring many American soldiers.

• On January 7 the World Health Organization was notified of a new, novel CoronaVirus originating in Wuhan, China.

• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave the British Royal Family.

• A Ukrainian airplane crashes over Tehran killing all 176 people on board.

• On January 11 China records its first death from COVID-19.

• The impeachment trial of President Trump begins.

• On January 20 the first COVID-19 case was recorded in America in Washington State.

• On January 23 the entire city of Wuhan, 11 million people, go into unprecedented lockdown.

• Kobe Bryant, along with his daughter and seven other passengers tragically die in a helicopter crash.

• On January 31 the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, with an uncertain financial future.

So much has happened this year that has changed the way we think about the world, about our time and safety, about our impact on others, we have to wonder as we live through Rosh Hashanah this year, what was going on in Heaven last Rosh Hashanah?

I think about our drunk looking for his keys and I wonder if that was us last year. Were we looking only in places in our lives where the light shone but did not do the hard work of searching for our shortcomings in the dark places?The Rambam in the second chapter of his laws of Repentance, in the Mishnah Torah, sheds some light on the Teshuva process. The fifth law he presents in this chapter reads as follows:

The idea of public confession is probably novel to all of us. When was the last time someone got up in Shul and told everyone about their sultry affairs? That being said, when reading the words of the Rambam closely, some important questions should be raised:

• Why is public confession limited only to wrongdoings between people? Is there no value in publicly confessing a sin against God?
• Does the Rambam view public confession as a requirement or is it voluntary by his description of it as “praiseworthy”?
• Why does the Rambam introduce the law by limiting it to laws “between himself and his neighbor,” and then repeats towards the conclusion of the law that it is, “solely concerning sins between man and man...” Why repeat this restriction to the law?

To further understand the impact of public confession, it may be worth briefly exploring the unique work the founding father of Modern Economics, Adam Smith. In his lifetime he published two best-sellers, The Wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Sentiments. When writing about Smith, Russ Roberts (our hero economist from earlier) explains:

Roberts explains that Smith offers us a remarkable insight into community culture. God created a system in which He is not the judge of our behaviors but rather we each are. In our desire to be both loved and lovely, we each interpret our actions within the context of how they will be judged by others. It is within the cultural norms that we all collectively establish, we find the approval and affection we are naturally inclined to seek.

Applying this concept to the Rambam’s approach towards Teshuva, we can begin to think differently about the public penitent. The Kessef Mishna, a commentary written by Rabbi Yosef Karo on the Rambam, explores the distinction made by the Rambam between public confession of sins between men vs. sins against God. In his comments he suggests that the goal of this confession would be to achieve forgiveness, and such, the most effective way to do so would be to publicly declare your fallibility, while imploring the subject of your sin for their forgiveness. In comments written on the Rambam at the turn of the 20th Century, under the title of the Be’er Yehuda, the suggestion of the Kessef Mishna is questioned. If the goal was to achieve forgiveness then why didn’t the Rambam limit this law to those who have not been forgiven? If I had already been forgiven, would I still have to admit the mistake publicly? It seems so.

What if we were to apply some of Adam Smith’s theories to the work of Teshuva?

What if the goal of Teshuva was for us to make the invisible hand, a concept introduced in Smith’s book, a little more visible and deliberate?

In his writing, Smith explains that we are each motivated by our own self-interest. It is this unstated rule that Smith identifies as ‘the invisible hand’. In economic terms we would understand this as, the baker is interested in selling bread, and you are hungry, and so, because of both the buyer and seller’s self- interest, we have a thriving economy. In social terms, we are interested in being lovable. We are motivated by the judgements people make regarding what is acceptable behavior, and in that way, our hope is that we behave in a beloved way.

Roberts writes often about the lone gunman who enters a school and performs unspeakable violence. There is one theme that seems to be constant about these men’s lives, they are often alone. It is within the context of our family, friends, and community we find that which is attractive.

Once a year, we work to reset these social norms, and perhaps seek ways to make a more deliberate, kind, and loving society. The act of Teshuva is looking at ourselves and saying what do we need to do in the future to be lovable?

On face value the public confession seems arrogant and difficult to understand. What if the goal of the public confession was to perform something drastic enough that would disrupt the social norms of the people around you, so that going forward our collective understanding of ‘being lovely’ was changed. What if we admired the courage and strength of the public penitent?

With this theory we can begin to answer some of our earlier questions on the Rambam, and pose for ourselves the largest of questions. The reason public penitence in limited to the sins between men is because admitting these mistakes will have the largest impact in shaping the culture we want. The Rambam describes this act as praiseworthy, and not obligatory, because if it were an obligation it would lose its effect at shifting the cultural norms, it would become a norm itself. And finally, the Rambam begins, and concludes this law focusing on the interpersonal laws because this is an analysis of community culture, and the role Teshuva plays within it. The community should be transformed by the individual, public act of repentance.

With this public penitence no longer practiced, we are left with the larger question of Adam Smith, that seems to be raised by the Rambam: What do we want to be true about the culture of our community going forward and how will we pursue that vision?