The Shame of Being Wrong

It is still unclear exactly what happened in San Bernardino.
With every passing day, more and more information comes out, and we learn exactly how entangled the murderous duo that perpetrated this heinous act was with ISIS. There still is, however, a distinct possibility that we will never know all the details, as that knowledge likely went with them to their graves.

Regardless of that, politicians will be politicians, and media will be media. People from all ends of the political spectrum have taken the opportunity to use this tragedy to push policy “solutions” that are not sound policy and don’t solve anything. But if the task of politicians is to look as though they are doing something (so that on the off chance something good happens they can take credit), they are doing a yeoman’s job of it.

The only thing they are really accomplishing is not dealing with the actual issue.

One only needs to take a step back and look at the proposals being floated by those on both sides of the aisle to see not only how irrelevant they are to the current crisis, but how incredibly, laughably silly they are in that context. Take, for example, Donald Trump’s plan, which is built on the presumption that banning all Muslim immigration will stop another attack; the last of which, incidentally, was perpetrated by an American-born citizen. Oh, and how will he know whether any immigrant-to-be is a Muslim or not? Easy, he told Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist. We would have a customs agent ask them.

It makes no sense. But for some reason, he and his supporters can’t (or won’t) see that.

Chazal (Tanchuma Vayigash 5) tell us that before Yosef revealed himself, he told the Shevatim that he had bought their brother as a slave. Yosef then called for “Yosef” to come into the room. When they looked toward the door, he asked them, “[W]hy are you looking around? I am Yosef, your brother!” Miyad parchah nishmasan — immediately their neshamos left them. The Midrash concludes by comparing the feeling experienced by the Shevatim at that time to the one that will be felt on the Yom Hadin everyone will ultimately go through, saying, “Vay lanu m’Yom Hadin, vay lanu m’yom hatochachah — woe is to us for the Day of Judgment, woe is to us for the day of rebuke.”

Harav Yechezkel Levenstein, zt”l (the Mashgiach of Mir and, later, Ponevezh), explains (Ohr Yechezkel, Vol. 4, pp. 225–228) that the ­Shevatim had been entirely convinced that they had done the right thing with regard to Yosef. But when they saw him sitting on the throne before them, they realized they had erred, and how simple it should have been for them to see that. So, too, on the Yom Hadin, when we are before the Yodei’a Taalumos, we will realize how every crisis of faith we experience isn’t really one, because the truth is there in front of us; we just refuse to see it.

In many ways, this inability to see the truth is what Trump is experiencing in front of our very eyes. In an effort to show that he is capable of solving just about anything, he came up with a radical proposal which, at first glance, could help make us safer. But when stepping out of the “refusal to see” bubble, one can plainly tell that the proposal is pointless, and what’s more, it is destructive.

But the Democrats’ proposals are even worse. The idea that gun control is somehow the answer to this kind of terror is ludicrous. It’s as though none of the proponents of these measures ever heard of the attacks in Paris, a place which has bans on “assault rifles” and intense background checks for everyone who wants to buy a gun. Tough gun laws don’t seem to deter ISIS. These are Trumpesque levels of disconnect from reality.

But what makes it worse than Trump is that the Democrats are literally advocating for restricting gun purchases so that people who are on a list whose existence they fought against would be precluded from buying guns. As a matter of fact, the ACLU, which came out in support of this proposal, is currently actively litigating against these lists.

Which is especially interesting when you consider that the Beis Halevi explains the previous Midrash in a slightly different way. The commonality between the Yom Hadin and what the Shevatim experienced, he explains, is that there are paradoxes inherent in our actions which are shameful. When Yosef pointed out to the Shevatim that they were expressing concern over how Yaakov will cope with the loss of a son when they hadn’t considered the same when selling him, it exposed a contradiction in their actions that was so devastating, they could not respond. The same will be at the Yom Hadin.

It is quite easy to recognize this phenomenon in this debate from our vantage point, removed from the “fog of war” the politicos exist in. But it’s quite clear that, as they make the arguments for no-fly list based gun control (with some even being quite earnest as they do so), that some of them don’t realize the inherent contradictions their positions entail. What we need to learn from this is to acknowledge that we all have the potential to be just as blind to our own contradictions, in our own lives. Only through brutally honest introspection can we save ourselves from that, and the shame that it brings on the Yom Hadin and Yom Ha’tochachah.