In the 1970s, psychologist Baruch Fischhoff conducted an experiment that revealed something unsettling about the way we judge the past.

Once people were told how an uncertain event had actually turned out, the outcome suddenly seemed more predictable than it had beforehand. Knowing the ending changed their memory of what could reasonably have been known at the beginning.

Today we call this hindsight bias. We don’t just do this with history. We do it to ourselves.We put yesterday’s self on trial and introduce evidence that wasn’t available at the time.

I should have known. I should have seen it. I should have made a different decision. I should have called. I should have realized what was happening.

Sometimes that’s true. And sometimes it isn’t.

I’ve been thinking about that distinction as the High Holidays approach, because Jews know something about guilt. We even have a brand name for it: Jewish guilt. Then comes Yom Kippur, when we stand together and recite an alphabetical catalogue of our failures: Ashamnu. Bagadnu. Gazalnu. We have been guilty. We have betrayed. We have stolen.

It can feel as though the worse we feel, the more seriously we are taking the day. But perhaps we have confused feeling guilty with taking responsibility.

The Hebrew word asham is revealing. In the Bible, it is not primarily the name of an emotion. It is closer to culpability or liability. Something happened. I bear........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)