Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 23
“Repentance is an absolute, spiritual decision made in truthfulness. Its motivations are remorse for the past and responsibility for the future. Only in this manner is it possible and valid.”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity)
This entire paragraph, is for most people, very difficult, especially the last sentence. Many people are unaware of and unsure of what “an absolute spiritual decision” is. It is not perfection, as I have noted previously. It is a decision that changes our vision and our actions. It wavers at times, there are times when it is difficult to engage in it because we are unable to discern truth from desire. Yet, it is a decision that needs to be a covenantal one, just as the decision to accept the Torah at Mount Sinai was, is and will always be a covenantal decision for the Jewish People. In Latin, the word valid comes from the word meaning “be strong”, and the word possible is to “be able” from the Latin. Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance once again shines in this sentence and in this paragraph.
When living a life of T’Shuvah, a life of remorse and responsibility, we find that much more is possible in our living than we thought. We find the strength to move beyond our past errors, we find the strength to learn from our past mistakes, we see a way forward that we never thought possible. I believe this could be the message of the last sentence above. At issue is our willingness to engage in living a life that we are able to live, living a life of T’Shuvah that is “an absolute spiritual decision” because we can. At issue is our belief that we are strong enough to withstand the pain and the ache of our errors in judgement and action. At issue is our commitment to move past our feelings of shame and blame, our experiences of being called out, embarrassed and, at times, falsely accused as well as ostracized. Yet, as the last sentence above comes to teach us, we are able to be strong and stand up to our errors, do our T’Shuvah, and move forward.
Since the time of Adam and Eve, humanity has been wary of acknowledging our errors in judgement and action publicly, we have been resistant to living in truthfulness, and we have been standing up to our errors with defensiveness, denial and deceit. The split we see in our politics in our country and worldwide is the outcome of the decision of our ancestors to hide from their missing the mark and has been passed down, exploited, gotten stronger causing the great chasms we see today. People are unable to have conversations anymore unless they agree on a matter, otherwise it is a war of deceptions, defenses and demoralizations. All of this flying in the face of what T’Shuvah/repentance stands for. This mendacious path of life denies the truth of T’Shuvah, it denies the possibility of repair and the fact that change is always possible. It also denies the truth that we are strong enough intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually to engage in T’Shuvah for the betterment of self, the betterment of another(s) and the betterment of our connection to God.
We are able to be strong and express our remorse for our past errors, we are able to be strong and be responsible for our poor decision making, we are able to be strong and be responsible to use these past experiences to change the way we live in the future. We have this strength and T’Shuvah connotes these possibilities. We are able to, in these intermediate days of Sukkot, put on the new pair of glasses we need to see the truthfulness of our spiritual decision to live in a covenantal relationship with God, with humanity and within our self. We do this through consistently looking in the mirror, always looking both backward and forward, always looking inside our souls, inside our inner beingness. We do this because we are able to see our self in another(s), see our self in our own mirror, see our self in deeds, see our self in our thoughts, see our self in our prayers and meditations. Upon recognizing both our missing the mark and hitting the mark we experience the possibility of change, the validity of change and of our humanity. Each day we recommit to our “absolute spiritual decision made in truthfulness”, we acknowledge our moving forward in being a partner with humans and God in making our corner of the world at least one grain of sand better, and we rejoice in the freedom our remorse, responsibility, and validity bring us.
In recovery, we “come to believe” in the possibility and validity of our change, we accept our errors as God’s lessons for us; knowing that some errors we keep making over and over again just like we did when we were in school. There are some areas where we have blind spots; our ability and willingness to confront these areas are proof of our openness to be in truth with our self and another self(s) in order to change. We find awe are strong and are able to overcome our inner ‘shame’ and let go of blame so we can move forward into the light that is before us.
I have experienced freedom each and every time I engage in T’Shuvah, each and every time I live into the “absolute spiritual decision made in truthfulness” some 36 years ago. I know I fall back, I know I make the same errors over and over again, and I know that I keep moving forward, I keep appreciating the strong human being I am and I know I am able to change, I am able to follow through on my spiritual decision and enlarge my being and my actions through T’Shuvah, through maintenance and through the love of God, the covenant with the people whom I love and love me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark