Ki Teitzei: From Embarrassed to Embraced

Yeshayahu 54:1-10 

 אַל־תִּֽירְאִי֙ כִּי־לֹ֣א תֵב֔וֹשִׁי וְאַל־תִּכָּֽלְמִ֖י כִּ֣י לֹ֣א תַחְפִּ֑ירִי כִּ֣י בֹ֤שֶׁת עֲלוּמַ֙יִךְ֙ תִּשְׁכָּ֔חִי וְחֶרְפַּ֥ת אַלְמְנוּתַ֖יִךְ לֹ֥א ,תִזְכְּרִי־עֽוֹד׃ 

Fear not, you shall not be shamed; Do not be embarrassed, you shall not be disgraced. For you shall forget the embarrassment of your youth, and remember no more the shame of your widowhood.

In this week’s Haftorah, the Navi foretells a time when we will no longer suffer shame and embarrassment, אַל־תִּֽירְאִי֙ כִּי־לֹ֣א תֵב֔וֹשִׁי וְאַל־תִּכָּֽלְמִ֖י כִּ֣י לֹ֣א תַחְפִּ֑ירִי כִּ֣י בֹ֤שֶׁת עֲלוּמַ֙יִךְ֙ תִּשְׁכָּ֔חִי וְחֶרְפַּ֥ת אַלְמְנוּתַ֖יִךְ לֹ֥א ,תִזְכְּרִי־עֽוֹד׃ Fear not, you shall not be shamed; Do not be embarrassed, you shall not be disgraced. For you shall forget the embarrassment of your youth, and remember no more the shame of your widowhood. While these terms, לֹ֣א תֵב֔וֹשִׁי וְאַל־תִּכָּֽלְמִ֖י ,seem to be synonymous, the Malbim aims to make a distinction between the two and provide insight into our national emotional experience. 

Shame, בושה, is a self-conscious emotion associated with a negative evaluation of one’s own behavior. Recognizing one’s own mistakes and shortcomings in comparison to one’s goals and expectations leads to feelings of low self-worth and self-punishment. One says to oneself, how could I have done such wrong? What is wrong with me, why am I so weak, so sinful? While shame is inward focused, embarrassment, כלימה, has an external or public component. One is embarrassed when perceiving - accurately or not - that one is being judged negatively by others. In order to be embarrassed, one’s actions must be known to others.  

How does one move past shame and embarrassment? Brene Brown, in her famous Ted Talk on Listening to Shame, states that the antidote to shame and embarrassment is empathy. Knowing that there is patience and understanding allows a person to forgive oneself and forget the past.  

In the fifth Haftorah of Comfort, Yeshayahu provides this empathy for our people. He encourages the Jewish people to forgive themselves and forget their sins. He assures us that we will forget the sins of our youth. As these sins happened long ago, their memory will fade as will the sense of shame. But we’ve also experienced embarrassment in our old age. We are the allegorical widow who was abandoned and rejected, left to wander alone. The Navi reassures us that we will no longer remember being alone, וְחֶרְפַּ֥ת אַלְמְנוּתַ֖יִךְ לֹ֥א תִזְכְּרִי־עֽוֹד. While our youthful ways may be hard to remember and thus forgotten, our more recent experiences may be hard to forget as they are fresh in our minds. And thus, the Navi emphasizes that, לֹ֥א תִזְכְּרִי־עֽוֹד, we will no longer remember. Yeshayahu’s empathy will allow us to move forward in our national redemptive journey.  

This posuk is used as the inspiration and template for the stanza recited weekly as part of לכה דודי:

 לא תֵבושי וְלא תִכָּלְמִי. מַה תִּשתּוחֲחִי וּמַה תֶּהֱמִי, do not be shamed, do not be embarrassed. Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, the famed author of this Tefilah expresses our collective feelings of being exiled and hope for salvation. He reassures us with the words of Yeshayahu that the גאולה, the redemption, will bring about a time when we can leave behind the shame of our personal limitations and the embarrassment of our national burdens in the hope that Hashem will redeem us. Each week we experience a taste of redemption with the weekly Shabbos experience. We hope and pray that with deep empathy we will abandon our shame and embarrassment and welcome the arrival of Moshiach.