You carry a particular kind of shame — the shame of the one who left and is now coming back. It whispers that everyone can see the gap in your knowledge, the years you did not keep, the questions a child could answer that you cannot.
Let me name the shame plainly so it loses some of its power: it is real, it is common, and it is not a verdict. It is a feeling standing near the door, and you have mistaken it for the one who decides who enters.
Shame is a feeling at the door. It is not the one deciding who may enter.
What the tradition does with shame
The Torah is not naive about shame. It takes the experience seriously — there are strong words about not shaming another person, about the weight of public embarrassment. But notice the direction: the concern is for the one who might be shamed, not a license for shame to bar him.
The returning person occupies an honored place in the tradition, not a disgraced one. The teshuvah of one who turns back is spoken of with awe, not with mockery. If the sources hold the returnee in such regard, the shame in your chest is arguing against the very tradition you are trying to rejoin.
Walking past it
You do not need to defeat the shame before you move. You only need to walk past it. Let it stand at the door and keep its opinions. You are not obligated to consult it.
And when you walk in, walk toward a person. A good rabbi has seen the shame you are carrying many times, on many faces, and he is not impressed by it. He will not gasp at your gaps. He will simply begin. The real questions — what to keep, what to do, how to live this — belong with him, in the warmth of a room, not with a screen that cannot see your face or feel the weight you set down.