The Baal Shem Tov taught that a sin in itself is only the bite of the snake. The real damage comes from the poison that spreads afterwards, saying, “What a worthless thing you are. Look what you’ve done! Now you’re really lost.”
With those few words, all the gates of hell are opened.
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Aftermath”
Based on the letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M.M. Schneerson
Chabad.org
I spend a fair amount of time on this blog talking about tikkun olam, repairing the world. That’s probably because the world seems so “broken” and in need of repair. In fact, the world seems to be getting more broken all the time.
Yesterday, I discussed how Christianity could be breaking the world in how we treat the Jewish people. Even if we take no overt actions against Jews, what we harbor in our minds and hearts about them is just as much of a sin (see Genesis 12:3, Matthew 5:21-22, Romans 11:17-21, and 2 Corinthians 10:5).
But a broken world sometimes starts with a broken self.
In quoting Rabbi Freeman, I’m illustrating the sort of person who knows that they’re broken and who is caught in a loop of sin, discouragement, hopelessness, and sin some more. Disobedience to God is only the first step and in most cases, it’s a recoverable state. However, once you’ve convinced yourself that your sin makes you truly irredeemable, then why do you have to care whether you sin again or not? You already believe it’s too late for you so you’ve given up.
But what about the person who sins and justifies their behavior? Some people simply lie and say they didn’t sin when they know they did, but others really don’t believe that their sin is a sin or their mistake is a mistake. They have created a set of explanations for themselves, usually based on scripture, that either excuses their poor behavior or completely redefines it as good behavior.
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone. –2 Timothy 3:1-9
This is terrifying because Paul isn’t describing the dangers of the secular world. He’s describing the church. Welcome to “terrible times”. It’s become all too easy to teach poor doctrine and be wholly convinced that you are completely correct and in line with the Bible, yet be supporting the most vile of positions and even opposing God.
In the case of a person who knows they have sinned and who seeks forgiveness, once they have been forgiven by God, they must learn to forgive themselves:
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” –Luke 18:13-14
But what do you do about a person, a group of people, or an entire church who sins and yet refuses to admit it, even to themselves?
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. –Matthew 18:15-17
When Jesus taught that, he may not have had the Internet in mind. It seems that so much of the bad teachings of Christianity happen online these days. If you attend a church with a Pastor or a Bible teacher who seems to have gone off the tracks, so to speak, you have the difficult choice of either confronting the problem or finding another church. That said, people usually select and attend a church based on agreeing with their doctrinal position in the first place.
On the Internet, opinions fly fast and furious and just about any viewpoint you could imagine, no matter how outrageous, is represented on someone’s blog somewhere. It’s easy to drop reading a blog or at least to not comment on it (depending on how much you need to fix it when someone’s wrong on the Internet) but what do you do about the people?
It would be easy just to give them up too, but do we have a responsibility to help a person to make amends with others and with God?
Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt. –Leviticus 19:17
This verse is the basis in Judaism for the commandment that one Jew should attempt to correct another Jew when the second Jew sins or is about to sin. Admittedly, we can’t say this necessarily applies to Christians as well, but can we say categorically that it doesn’t? Look at the example from Matthew 18:15-17 again. There is a certain amount of effort that goes into approaching someone who has sinned against you. You don’t get to brush them off at the initial affront. You are obligated to first approach them privately and, if they don’t listen, to take a couple of witnesses with you and try again. If the person still doesn’t respond, then you bring the matter to the entire congregation.
How do you do that on the Internet…or do you?
The Internet is a funny place. It fosters a false sense of intimacy based on our perceived anonymity. Because we think people don’t know who we are and can’t find out, we believe we can be more free with disclosing information about ourselves, including our opinions, than we would in a face-to-face encounter. On the other hand, because Internet relationships don’t have the “anchor” of a “real” relationship (the aforementioned “face-to-face”), we can feel very comfortable about cutting people off without even a glance backward to say “good-bye”.
There have been some folks on the web I’ve said good-bye to in one way or another and some I’ve been tempted to drop like an angry rattlesnake. But is that the right thing to do?
Very rarely is the person you disagree with “evil” or “irredeemable”. Most of the time, they’re probably not that much different from you. They are certainly just as loved by God as you are. They are often your brother and sister in Christ and even if they’re not, they have been created in the image of God, just as you have been. How can we walk away from people so casually, abandoning them to what is a problematic but correctable situation?
The oft-quoted “am I my brother’s keeper” (Genesis 4:9) comes to mind.
I don’t want to take endless amounts of abuse or rebuff in a hopeless attempt to get someone to change their minds on a matter of which they are fully convinced, but on the other hand, there’s this:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. –Matthew 18:21-22
Forgiveness is one thing, reconciliation is something else. The web is full of concrete people with concrete opinions, based on what they think is a rock-solid interpretation of the Bible but interpretations can be and often are built on sand. A person may say that they are willing to listen to your side so you can “prove them wrong”, but how often do you really encounter someone who is willing to surrender their viewpoint because you devastated them with your overpowering logic?
People can be very afraid of even questioning their assumptions let alone giving them up. We pin a lot of our security on believing that, once we’ve made our mind up about something, the “something” will not change from being right to being wrong. We can justify hurting anyone in any way as long as we believe what we’re doing puts us on the side of right, virtue, and God. That’s how the various inquisitions and pogroms operated. That’s how the Nazis operated when they murdered six-million Jews. That’s how a lot of people operate, including a lot of religious people.
I can try to convince others that they are opposing God (and that is not their intent) but in the end, most will not be convinced. I can walk away from them, but it feels like abandoning a severely injured person trapped in a mass of twisted steel in the aftermath of a twelve-car pile up. In the end, it all belongs to God and not to me, but then what sin do I become guilty of by leaving them?
If we are our brother’s (or sister’s) keeper, then how heavy is the burden supposed to be and how long must we carry it? Seven times seventy? Seventy-seven times? What does that mean? What did the Rebbe say?
Anxieties, worries, feelings of inadequacy and failure — all these smother and cripple the soul from doing its job. You need to find the appropriate time to deal with them. But don’t carry them around the whole day.
During the day, you are Adam or Eve before they tasted the fruit of good and evil.
I had meant to write about learning to forgive yourself after sin, but a great deal of the time, these blogs end up having a will of their own and I’m only the fingers on the keyboard recording them. I don’t know what to do about repairing the world or even “repairing” other people. It seems like I spend a lot of time learning how to repair myself. Yet I know that my responsibilities to God extend outside of myself and into the world around me.
But then, there’s always this teaching from the Master:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. –Matthew 5:43-48
Even on the Internet, I am required to love and to be perfect. Is this where I get to ask God for help in doing that?
The Ishbitzer Rebbe, zt”l, explains the deeper meaning of yovel and why houses within cities walled since the time of Yehoshua bin Nun do not return during yovel. “Yovel teaches that everything has a time. God doesn’t remain angry at anyone forever. Even if someone’s sins force him to sell his portion or to be sold as a slave, this cannot be forever. Eventually he will be redeemed and his inherited field will return to him. But batei arei chomah are an exception. This alludes to the two chomos, the two barriers—teeth of bone and lips of flesh—that God gave us to rein in what we say, as discussed on Arachin 15…Indulging one’s arrogance by failing to hold back one’s anger at his friend is no simple matter. If the victim remained silent in the face of his rage, the sinner’s merits are transferred to the recipient of his anger.
Morning Meditations 