Our Mishna on Amud Beis notes how providentially we find that the punishment fits the crime, as well as the Gemara later discussing that the reward also is commensurate, and even more, as we’ll discuss tomorrow on Daf 11. It is understood that the punishment and reward take on the same property or method as the original deed in order to show God’s providence, and it is not merely a coincidence.

Is it true psychologically as well, is there some mechanism where people arrange for their own success or failure based on what they feel they deserve?  Donald Carveth wrote an excellent paper on the psychoanalytic understanding of guilt and shame according to Freud, and makes important distinctions between pathological guilt and constructive pangs of conscience, based on continued development and refinement of the Freud’s original understanding of the mysterious ways that the mind and heart operate. (“The Unconscious Need for Punishment: Expression or Evasion of the Sense of Guilt?”, Psychoanalytic Studies 3, 1 (March 2001): 9-21.):

“In Civilization and Its Discontents and other writings, Freud equates the unconscious need for punishment expressed in various patterns of self-torment and self-sabotage with the unconscious sense of guilt…This results in diverse forms of self-punishment, the "moral masochism" Freud (1916, Some character-types met with in psycho-analytic work. S.E., 14: 311-333.) described in "the criminal from a sense of guilt," "those wrecked by success," and other self-sabotaging and self-tormenting character-types.”  

In other words, there are those who feel guilty out of legitimate issues of conscience, and this whose guilt instinct has run awry, misfiring and causing them to feel guilty over legitimate forms of success and happiness.  As with all of our body's instincts, they function well in a general broad sense, but sometimes in a specific situation may become out of balance, such as a high fever which is trying to kill the virus but is cooking the person’s internal organs.  (Human instincts MUST operate in a general broad manner to conserve energy and function autonomously.  The more specific an instinct is, the less instinctive it is and the more energy and brain power it requires. Thus, by definition, any instinct has to be broad and automatic, which also means at times it won’t function well for a particular situation.”)

People have given psychoanalytic theory a bad name because they believe that the goal of therapy is to soothe patients and stop them from feeling legitimate guilt, which is of course against the values of religion, but also against common sense. On the contrary, Freud understood well that civilization itself depends on humans feeling appropriate guilt and empathy. Otherwise, to paraphrase Avos (3:2), “Every man would swallow his neighbor alive.”  At the conclusion of Freud’s brilliant Civilization and Its Discontents, he expresses the tradeoff between gratification of desires versus moderating them in order to maintain civilization.  If all people would did away with their guilt, even if possible because this is a necessary human instinct, then a person’s “...prospects of enjoying this happiness for any length of time were very slender.  Civilized man has exchanged a portion of his possibilities of happiness for a portion of security.  We must not forget, however, that in the primal family only the head of it enjoyed this instinctual freedom; the rest lived in slavish suppression.” In other words, even in the world where there are no laws, and it is dog eat dog, only the person on top really benefits. 

People who feel guilty may consciously or unconsciously arrange for their suffering in order to contend with the deep instinct of conscience and guilt. However, the key consideration is where is it coming from?  Is it just more self-absorption of an already wounded and hurt person who has now internalized the hateful messages of his childhood, or can this person face himself and contend honestly with who he is, the good and the evil? 

Carveth observes:  “To view the unconscious superego activity resulting in self-punishment as guilt is to blur the crucial difference between the subject's self-torment and what Winnicott (1963, “Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment.”, London: Hogarth Press, 1965, pp. 73-82.) called "the capacity for concern" for the object. Unconscious self-punitive activity is narcissistic. Authentic guilt moves beyond narcissism toward object love.”

If he or she can see this truth and even face it in the confidence of loved ones, the result of such honesty and courage leads to more confidence, not less confidence, because now the personality is whole and not frightened of reality, and no longer relying on “הַקָּנֶ֨ה הָרָצ֤וּץ the splintered reed” (Yeshayahu 36:6) of fake self-esteem versus simple and humble reality, living in God’s love and forgiveness but also the consequences of one’s choice. 

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

Do you like what you see? Please subscribe and also forward any articles you enjoy to your friends, (enemies too, why not?)