Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 26
“Repentance is a decision made in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility. If, to be sure—as is often the case among us—instead of deliberate decision we have a coerced conversion; instead of a conscious truthfulness, a self-conscious conformity; instead of remorse over the lost past, a longing for it; then this so-called return is but a retreat, a phase.”(Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity)
Today is Shemini Atzeret and tonight is Simchat Torah. We remember our deceased loved ones today and tonight and tomorrow we rejoice ending Deuteronomy and beginning Genesis again. Yet, how can we remember the lessons and love of our deceased and rejoice in the presence of Torah when we have a longing for the past, when we are retreating from this moment? To paraphrase Rabbi Heschel, what is the state of our remembering, what is the state of our rejoicing?
Here is the great challenge of being human, as I immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above. Yizkor, to remember, is to honor and cry for the loves who are no longer with us and in the prayer we say for our dead, we commit to do acts of Tzedakah, righteousness, in their name. We cannot be righteous when we are longing for the past, when we are stuck in our grief, when we are retreating rather than moving forward. At the Red Sea, God told us to go forward instead of looking backward with fear and longing. Throughout our journeying through the wilderness, we longed for a return to the past, to Egypt, to slavery with euphoric recall moments that never happened and we did not turn back. Can we say the same for us today? Can we remember our dead with determination to carry on the goodness they began? Can we remember our dead with a renewed commitment to being one grain of sand more righteous today than yesterday? Can we remember our loved ones by being truthful and responsible?
We are in a world that still wants “the good old days”, where the ones in power now are afraid of the “riffraff” who are seeking a seat at the table. We, the free descendants of former slaves, the free descendants of the oppressed minority throughout the millennia, must do all we can to make room for everyone to have a seat at the table if we are to honor our dead with righteous actions, if we are to be responsible to their memory and to do the T’Shuvah they were unable to accomplish. We have to make a “deliberate decision” to remember our departed with righteous behaviors and to open our hearts, our minds, our self to being on the path of righteousness.
What is the state of our rejoicing if we want this return to the “good old days”? It is stale and mendacious. It is impossible to rejoice in the words, the teachings, the excitement of learning anew, of staying fresh and forward thinking and seeing when we are stuck on the past, when we are retreating to an idea that was never as good as our euphoric recall tells us it was. We never ‘finish’ the reading of Torah because there is always something to learn, something to discover, something to uplift us and to strengthen us in our battles against the “coerced conversion” of our negativity, the “coerced conversion” of those in power, the “coerced conversion” of our fears, etc. It is impossible to rejoice when we retreat back into defensiveness, when we retreat back into shame, when we retreat back into self-deprecation, when we retreat back into conformity.
We can, however, overcome all of the roadblocks to rejoicing, all of the turbulence that prevents us from being present and looking forward. The solution is T’Shuvah, a return of remorse for our errors and for the errors of our ancestors. The solution is T’Shuvah a return to truthfulness in all our affairs; seeing every person with hearts of love, respect and dignity as brothers, sisters, cousins, because we are “all kin under the skin” as my friend and teacher Rev. Mark Whitlock teaches and preaches. The solution is T’Shuvah, a return to being responsible for our actions, responsible to make our corner of the world more welcoming, more just, more compassionate, more caring, kinder, more loving than when we found it. The solution is a return to “deliberate decision” making, to mining the spiritual texts we engage with each day for new and different ways to serve. The solution is a return to our words at Mt. Sinai: “we will do and then we will understand”. The solution is a return to our words as we crossed the Red Sea: “This is my God and I will honor God”. The solution is a return gratitude for this day and the actions that shows our gratitude.
I am so grateful for all the people who have crossed my path. I remember my relatives with love and joy, I am remorseful for the years and days when I did not honor their memory, their love, their commitment to me with righteous behavior and I have and continue to make a “deliberate decision” to grow the righteousness and love they instilled in me. I also am returning to a state of rejoicing in this moment and every moment that I can through leaving “the good old days” and ‘the bad old days’ where they belong, in the past! I also am returning to truthfulness, responsibility and acts of gratitude, righteousness, kindness, compassion, justice and truth today as I do every day. My remorse for my past acts stays with me enough so when I get close to repeating them, I remember this is not who I am today, this is not what I need to do today. God Bless and Stay safe, Rabbi Mark