Meeting Yourself

We’re a people of inquiry commissions, thinking we can solve our problems by finding the culprit on which to pin the blame. But the greatest inquiry commission is that which frees a person from the shackles of self-interest and brings him face to face with the truth — and with himself.

Commissions of inquiry, investigative committees, parliamentary and state panels, international criminal courts and human rights councils and the like are appointed right and left by governments all over, ostensibly “to determine the facts.”

Whatever we may think of these investigations — some handled with integrity, others mere political posturing — one thing is certain: We are all now about to appear before the only committee that is really able to bring the truth to light, to extract it from its hiding place deep in each and every heart. This is the Supreme Tribunal, whose authority is predicated on the rulership of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Creator of the Universe. And therein lies the difference between what awaits us on Rosh Hashanah and all those earthly investigative committees, which truly wield no clout at all.

Voluntarily or not, we stand before the Divine Investigative Committee with full transparency. We know that Hashem sees the most hidden levels of our hears, even those that we conceal from ourselves: “Before You all hidden things are revealed, for there is no forgetting before Your Throne of Glory, and nothing is concealed from Your eyes.” We know we can’t evade the truth, that we must acknowledge our errors, our lapses, our failures, our misdeeds. No media spin will avail us, and even our enormously creative power of self-justification, the silver-tongued voice of rationalization, will fall silent at the moment of judgment. There will be no twisting our wrongdoings out of shape until they look like the choicest of mitzvos.