Do my sins define who I am?

Rabbi Landau answers with an image: the mud on your shoes is not you. “People confuse dirt with identity. You failed, you slipped, you sinned, and now you call yourself a failure. That's not true. That's delusion.”

The soul, he teaches, quoting the verse in Iyov, is a chelek Elokai mima'al, a piece of Hashem Himself, and that essence never gets dirty. “Stop confusing behavior with essence. Yeah, you did it, but you are not it.” You yelled at your kids, you looked at what you shouldn't, you cut corners. “That's mud, but under that mud” the soul is “still pure.”

That is why redemption works, he says. “If you were your sin, you would be stuck forever. But because you are not, you can wipe it off, throw away the mud, and just keep walking.”

Elul is the time to remember it: “You are not your sin, you are not the mud of your shoes, you are actually the one wearing them.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Your mistakes are mud on your shoes, not your identity.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

After a fall comes the inner voice that says “this is who you are.” Rabbi Landau calls calling yourself a failure “delusion.”

What may be behind it

Confusing behavior with essence. In A Soul at Peace he explains that thought, speech and action are the soul's clothing; a sin sticks to the clothing the way mud sticks to a shoe.

Deepest human truth

The soul is a piece of Hashem above and stays pure. Because you are not your sin, you can wipe off the mud and keep walking.

More questions from this teaching

• Why do I feel stuck after I sin, and how do I move on?