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Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
This week's question is, I've heard it said, specifically from you, that the feeling of guilt after the aveira is often worse than the aveira itself. Can you please explain? So it goes as follows. The bite of the snake is not what kills you. It's the venom that's inserted afterwards. The bite of the snake is the aveira that we do. Now there's no doubt that an aveira has a negative impact in this world. It negatively impacts the relationship that we have with God. But much worse than that is the feeling of shame that can come along with an aveira. Shame means I am unworthy of love and respect because of the aveira that I did. Now, when a person has an attitude of shame, when they're consumed by their shame, so that's where aveira goreres aveira. That's where one aveira leads to the next. How does this work? Imagine, for example, a person does an aveira at night. As one rabbi recently said, if you go to sleep like a pig, it's hard to wake up like a lion.
So if you did an aveira the night before, whatever the aveira is, and we each do our own aveiras. If you do an aveira at night, it's going to be difficult to wake up in the morning and daven with passion and enthusiasm and excitement. It's difficult to connect to God because we feel so gross about ourselves. Now, this is the difference between shame and regret. Regret means I'm worthy. Since I'm worthy of being in a relationship with God, I can take the aveira that I did, which I'm not proud of, and I can deliver that aveira to God and I can say, this is beneath the relationship that we have. It's beneath the godly dignity that you endowed in me. I don't want to behave this way anymore. I'm sorry. That's confession. It's very powerful and it's exceptionally healthy. But when we get to a place of shame and we start to beat ourselves up and we start to say, I'm unworthy. So if you're unworthy, you'll treat yourself like garbage. And then the next Avera becomes more natural. Do a couple of Averas in a row, 5, 10, 15, 20 Averas.
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Make habits out of these Averas and you'll confirm your own inner unworthiness. So the more that you do it, the more you say, yeah, why not? I'm disgusting. Of course I should behave this way. And then the Avodah is when a person gets into such a state of I'm so broken and I'm so unworthy, it becomes very difficult to reach them because no matter what you say, the psychology of that person is you don't know who you're talking to. I'm gross. Today, Baruch Hashem, we've created an environment with so many Talmidim and Talmidot that they're willing to talk about it. And that's amazing. They're willing to come and say, this is my struggle. It's amazing because it speaks to the worthiness that they have. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, we're still so far from where we need to be. The reason we're far from where we need to be is because we need to be able to say it first to ourselves. I am worthy of love, compassion, and respect. Once we say that to ourselves, then we can willingly come to our rebellion and ask for help. So what does it mean that we say that the guilt that you feel afterwards is worse than the aveira?
Obviously the aveira relative to the guilt is worse. But the guilt and the shame is going to result in so many more aveiras than just one. That's the venom. If a person does one aveira, and they have a certain amount of guilt, and I mean the guilt of regret in this case, so then be say there, one aveira stays one aveira. And I'd rather that aveira could become the opportunity for growth. Because you say to yourself, this is not me. This is not how I want to behave in my relationship with God. It becomes a springboard. However, however hard we fall, however deep the descent, That's how far we'll fly when we're done. That's the connection between Tu B'Av and Tisha B'Av. Tisha B'Av is our deepest fall. Tu B'Av is the most joyous day of the calendar. So an Avera could be a springboard to having the most amazing relationship with God. Only if we consider ourselves worthy of being in a relationship. Remember, your actions may define your life, but they don't define you. When we look at our lives and we say, okay, what did I accomplish? You might look at your life and say, I'm not accomplishing what I want to accomplish. But we are always worthy of love and respect, no matter how poorly we've behaved.
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