Guilt, Halacha, and The Grapes of Wrath

Casy and Uncle John

Originally posted in August 2012.

Guilt, Halacha, and The Grapes of Wrath

This summer I reread John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939). One of the main characters is John Joad, or "Uncle John," as he is called in the family. Uncle John as an extremely guilty fellow. He deeply believes that the sins of his past have condemned him to a life of unhappiness and continue to be a source of bad luck and misfortune for his family.

Uncle John feels especially guilty for the premature death of his wife. One night she developed a pain in her stomach. She told him that he'd better get a doctor, but he said, "Hell, you jus' et too much." She died the next afternoon of a burst appendix (or, as Tom Joad puts it, "somepin jus' bust in her. Ap—appendick or somepin").

Tom goes on to explain the impact that this event had on his uncle: "Well, Uncle John, he's always been a easy-goin' fella, an' he takes it hard. Takes it for a sin." Uncle John feels entirely responsible for her death, as though he killed her intentionally, and his guilt dominates his entire life.

At several points in the book Uncle John speaks with Reverend Casy (the ex-preacher) about the nature of sin. In the first instance, Casy speaks about the difficulty of identifying a sin:

Casy said gently, "Sure I got sins. Ever'body got sins. A sin is somepin you ain't sure about."

Uncle John brings up his feeling of culpability for the death of his wife. He asks Casy, "You think it was a sin to let my wife die like that?" Casy's response reveals his concept of sin:

"Well," said Casy, "for anybody else it was a mistake, but if you think it was a sin - then it's a sin. A fella builds his own sins right up from the groun'."

Later in the book, Uncle John reiterates Casy's definition:

Uncle John scratched the earth deeply with a long rusty nail. "He knowed about sin. I ast him about sin, an' he tol' me; but I don't know if he's right. He says a fella's sinned if he thinks he's sinned." 

Call me naive, but I was shocked and horrified by this notion of sin, in spite of the fact that it is probably the prevailing view of sin in the world. But this initial feeling of shock coalesced into a realization about several qualities of Halacha (Jewish Law) I hadn't fully appreciated beforehand, and it is this these qualities which I would like to briefly explore in this blog post.

Artwork: Burden of Guilt, by John Stanko

We humans are a guilty lot. Say what you will about guilt, but one thing is for certain: guilt is difficult to escape. Unless you are a sociopath or a true philosopher, chances are that you will experience guilt when you act contrary to the values and standards of right and wrong to which you subscribe.

Unfortunately, guilt has a way of dictating its own standards - and that is where all the trouble starts. These standards tend to be vague, obscure, and extremely difficult to pin down with any degree of precision. Additionally, they are erratic and inconsistent, making them highly unreliable. Perhaps the most insidious quality of guilt is its subjectivity. The conscience doesn't give a damn about objective reality, and it can punish you with the same degree of guilt for any and all "transgressions," real and imaginary alike.

Elusiveness, inconsistency, and subjectivity: these are the weapons which make guilt such a formidable tyrant, and it is these three qualities which are mitigated by the nature of Halacha.

Halacha, in its true form, is certainly not elusive, vague, and obscure. Any human action in any given situation can be classified under the halachic categories of mutar (permitted), assur (prohibited), chayav (obligated), patur (exempt), etc. Halacha is precise in its legal definitions on a practical and a conceptual level. Even in cases of doubt and uncertainty, Halacha prescribes a definitive course of action, such as safek de'oraisa l'chumra (when in doubt about a Biblical law, we are stringent), safek de'rabbanan l'kula (when in doubt about a Rabbinic law, we are lenient), and so on. Knowledge of Halacha is readily accessible, whether by firsthand investigation or by asking a posek (halachic adjudicator) and drawing upon his expertise. Especially in this day and age, even poskim on the other side of the world can be reached immediately. Suffice it to say, Halacha does not square with Reverend Casy's definition of sin as "somepin you ain't sure about." Halacha is sure about sin. Sure and exact.

Halacha is neither erratic nor inconsistent. True, at the present time there is a multiplicity of shitos (halachic opinions), chumros (stringencies), kulos (leniencies), and minhagim (customs) - some valid and some invalid. Nevertheless, within the framework of each shitah or each person's practice, Halacha is consistent and reliable. In 99% of the cases, what was assur yesterday will be assur today, and what is mutar now will be mutar in the future. Casy's statement, "A fella builds his own sins right up from the groun'" - is not true of Halacha. Halacha was given to us by Hashem at Sinai. The halachic system has been in place before we came onto the scene, and it will continue to be here after we have left. It is not "built up from the ground by individual human beings."

Last, and most importantly, Halacha is not subjective. Halacha is objective: it applies equally to you, to me, and to everybody else. Halacha is objective in that it is an independent system which operates by its own set of principles, regardless of the feelings and actions of its practitioners. Halacha is objective in that is a regimen designed by the Creator as a means of helping human beings attain perfection. Like the blueprint of a skyscraper, the formula for a chemical compound, and the recipe for a cake, the rules and guidelines of Halacha must be rooted in the objective reality of the human being's design in order to achieve its goals. Casy's statement "for anybody else it was a mistake, but if you think it was a sin - then it's a sin" might be true of other religious doctrines, but not Halacha.

Now, this certainly doesn't mean that the adherents of Halacha are immune to guilt. We noted at the very outset that it is extremely difficult to escape from guilt entirely. This is especially true in the modern age, due to the influence of Christianity which has saturated our culture and tainted our relationship to Torah. 

My intent is merely to bring to our attention the marvelous fact that halacha, by its very nature, undermines the foundations of religious guilt. I'm not claiming that halacha was designed this way for this specific purpose. All of the aforementioned qualities are inherent to the halachic system, and it would be a stretch to claim that Hashem "planned" it this way in order to counteract guilt. It's just that I had never really appreciated this aspect of halacha until I encountered Uncle John's character in The Grapes of Wrath. I never fully realized how all-consuming this guilt can be, and how halacha goes a long way in preventing us from getting bogged down in this type of guilt. (Yes, I realize that Uncle John might still feel guilty for the death of his wife, but much of the guilt he experiences from his amorphous sinfulness throughout the story; the same goes for Rosasharn and the guilt she feels after being lectured by the Christian woman in the camp.)

The more I learn, the more I realize and appreciate the manifold (and often subtle) characteristics of Torah which make it the uniquely beneficial system that it is. As the Rambam writes at the conclusion of Hilchos Megilah v'Chanukah 4:13: "How great is peace! For the entire Torah was given to make peace in the world, as it is stated, 'its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace' (Mishlei 3:17)."