Half Meritorious and Half Culpable: A Sh’ma Infographic
Every person must view himself all year long as though he is half meritorious and half culpable, and also the entire world is half meritorious and half culpable. [Therefore,] if he commits one single sin, he will have tilted himself and the entire world to the side of culpability, and cause them destruction. But if he does one mitzvah, then he will tilt himself and the entire world to the side of merit, and cause himself and them to be saved.
Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuva 3:4, based on Kiddushin 40a-b
Click to enlarge:
If you liked this content, please complete this survey.
READ: All the Sh’ma stories
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO