Shame, Guilt and the Jewish Predicament

We use shame and guilt to teach our children self-control and respect for others. However, unless shaming and the instillation of guilt are tempered by the active encouragement of positive self-esteem, the seeds are sown for a future marred by fear, self-abasement and a burning sense of grievance.

Some cultures incline more towards shame than guilt as the primary method for controlling social behaviour. In East Asian cultures, for instance, ‘loss of face’ leads to a sense of not belonging and in extreme cases, suicide.

The Western world (including most of Jewry) has greater recourse to guilt-inducing methods. Guilt is something which can be relieved by an act, whether in the form of atonement, apology, reparation or punishment. Shame, on the other hand, carries a deeper sense of failure – a fundamental assumption that the fault lies within the person, something which no compensatory act can assuage.

Although shameful and guilty states of mind can each, in their own way, predispose to depression, it is shame which is the more hazardous approach to deploy because it carries with it the implication of an intrinsic defect. The child who is innately ‘bad’ has no escape. There is no possibility of redemption or atonement.

Individuals overcome by shame often resort to the brazen embrace of shamelessness – a defiant display to the world showing that the very attributes for which one has been shamed are something to be proud of. The alternative is to shrink into a sullen acceptance of their inferior status in the hierarchy. Such a state of collective submission can endure for generations in some communities. But the human spirit is resilient, and sooner or later the urge to challenge such an oppressive imposition breaks through.

Religion is the vehicle which has been most relied on to deliver the message that some behaviors are shameful while others incur a pronouncement of guilt. Conversely, religion is invoked to balance the equation of condemnation with love and empathy. But religion is not the only vehicle. Fortunately, humanity has evolved a secular ethic to allow self-control to co-exist with self-expression.

Jewish thought has been at the forefront of the interface which separates secular ethics from religious ethics. This has given Judaism the opportunity to contribute to the enlightened thinking which is slowly permeating the modern world. On the other hand, it is this very enlightenment, honed by centuries of study and reflection, which has brought down on the heads of the Jewish people the opprobrium of nations and religions inured to a more monolithic and unquestioning obedience to dogma and who feel threatened by what this might mean for their own age-old traditions.

What we are seeing today in Israel is a clash of cultures: a country founded on the belief that all of life is precious, that human beings are essentially good and that acts of wrongdoing can be repaired by an acknowledgement of guilt, coming into contact with peoples who believe that the only way forward is to destroy those who oppose one’s values, that compromise is a sign of weakness and that death is better than dishonor – the ultimate form of shame.

It remains to be seen how the rest of the world will line up in this conflict between the spirit of enlightenment and a mindset which rightfully belongs to the Middle Ages.