{"id":68344,"date":"2022-07-01T16:08:28","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T21:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=68344"},"modified":"2022-07-01T16:08:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T21:08:28","slug":"off-the-pulpit-how-to-feel-bad-about-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/off-the-pulpit-how-to-feel-bad-about-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Pulpit: How To Feel Bad About Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By RABBI DAVID WOLPE<\/p>\n<p>Is believing the best about yourself always a virtue?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-55374 size-thumbnail lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579-350x350.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579-144x144.jpg 144w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 150px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 150\/150;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-55374 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579-350x350.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/WOLPE-e1592568030579-144x144.jpg 144w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a>The greatest religious figures are often those most convinced of their inadequacies. A man once approached A.J. Heschel and said \u201cI love my family, I pay my taxes, I keep a good job. What do I need to repent for? I am a pretty good person.\u201d Heschel replied, \u201cGood for you, but the same is not true of me. I am always thinking the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing. I need God, and I need to repent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Somehow, I believe that the goodness of Heschel outshone that of the more self-satisfied gentleman.<\/p>\n<p>What is it to have a sense of sin? Mordecai Kaplan gave an excellent account: \u201cThe best we can do,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis generally much better than we actually do. To be troubled by that fact is to have a sense of sin.\u201d We could use more of that sense; paradoxically, sometimes believing one is not so good makes us better.<\/p>\n<p><em>Rabbi David Wolpe is the senior rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Off%20the%20Pulpit%3A%20How%20To%20Feel%20Bad%20About%20Yourself\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[8790,8795,8788,608],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68345,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68344\/revisions\/68345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}