Do my past mistakes define who I am?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches that they don’t. “You’re not your mistakes.” If you were only your actions, he explains, you would be stuck forever. “But you’re not. That’s why you can reset.”
The reason is that your essence is deeper than anything you did. “You are a child of Hashem, part of Hashem, and that’s identity. No sin can erase that.”
Once you know who you really are, the past loses its grip: “When you know who you are, what you did loses the power to define you.” In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the soul “is not affected by what you did yesterday, or the day before.”
Related concepts: Believing you are forgiven · Selfawareness
In A Soul at Peace: Who Are You?
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
A person is not his mistakes; that is why he can reset.
Deepest human truth
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau cites the Talmud: “Even though he has sinned, he is still a Jew.” The name comes before the sin and remains after it.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Purpose, Character, and Masculine Leadership · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz