Days of Awe—“Stir Filth This Way or That, It Is Still Filth”

Confession is not morbid. It is not wallowing. It is a transformative action that leads to creative action for good in the world. Long before we began hearing in the contemporary marketplace that we must "set positive intentions" and not focus on what is lacking or what we don't want, because words are powerful and help create the future we speak, the Hasidic masters were already offering us this wise guidance, like this from Rabbi Isaac Meir of Ger:

Whoever talks about and reflects upon an evil thing he or she has done is thinking the vileness he has perpetrated. And what one thinks, therein is one caught. With one's whole soul one is caught utterly in what one thinks and so he is sti8ll caught in vileness. And she will surely not be able to turn, for her spirit will coarsen and her heart rot, and besides this, a sad mood may come upon her. What would you? Stir filth this way or that, it is still filth. To have sinned or not to have sinned—what does it profit us in heaven? In the time I am brooding on this, I could be stringing pearls for the joy of heaven. That is why it is written: "Depart from evil and do good"—turning wholly from evil, do not brood in its wake, and do good. You have done wrong? Then balance it by doing right.

During these Days of Awe as we prepare for Yom Kippur, may we face our evil deeds, individually and collectively, with clear eyes, so that we may turn our thoughts to doing good.