Lehman Brothers was one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world until it filed for bankruptcy and folded during the crisis of 2008.
The story goes that the Stephen Schwartzman, CEO of a different company – Blackstone – called the CEO of Lehman Brothers before it shut down.
“Listen,” he said, “your company has $675 billion worth of assets. $650 billion of those assets are fine; only $25 billion of them are bad. The $650 billion worth of assets will be able to weather the storm fairly well. So this is what I suggest you do. Break up Lehman Brothers and form two companies – one with the $650 billion, and the other with the $25 billion. The $25 billion company will go bankrupt and fold, but the rest will survive.
Unfortunately, the CEO of Lehman Brothers couldn’t get it done, and so the entire company collapsed – because of the $25 billion worth of troubled assets.
This story, I believe, serves as a very powerful metaphor for the mistake so many of us make during this time of year, and for the proper approach that we should be taking.
When it comes to doing teshuva, introspecting, examining ourselves and seeing what we need to improve, we so often fall into the trap of just giving up, of just saying, “Whatever.” We tell ourselves, “Look – I don’t do that so well, I don’t do this, I’m bad at that, I should be doing this, I mess up that… Whatever, I’m just bad. I should be better.”
If we think we’re just bad, then we’ll give up. We’ll let our whole lives go “bankrupt,” without trying to save anything.
The correct approach to teshuvah is to identify the $25 billion of rotten assets. To isolate the areas that aren’t right. To recognize and appreciate the $650 billion worth of good that we have. To realize that yes, we are great. Our “company” is doing just fine – as long as we address the little part of ourselves that is problematic.
This is why when we recite vidui on Yom Kippur, confessing our sins, we are very specific. We don’t just proclaim a generic, “We have sinned.” We go through the trouble of listing all the particular things we’ve done wrong. If we just say, “We have sinned,” we aren’t accomplishing anything. That’s basically saying, “I’m bad, whatever…” By specifying our particular sins, we are identifying the $25 billion so we can rid of them and salvage the rest.
This work is something that each individual needs to do for himself. Nobody can tell any of us what we need to change. We each have to think carefully and honestly to identify that $25 billion that needs to be thrown away.
But the first step is to recognize that $650 billion is fine. Yes, we are great. We are not perfect, but we are great. And it is specifically because we are great that it is worth it for each and every one of us to take the time and make an effort to find the not-so-great part of our beings and address it, so that we can be even better.