Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 240
“We must recognize that repentance has yet to begin! Each person must examine whether one is part of a movement forced upon us by the environment or whether one is personally motivated, whether one is responding to a pressure from outside or to an internal sense of urgency. At stake is not the sincerity of the motivation but the earnestness and honesty of its expression.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 70)
On Thursday and Friday I wrote about the communal responsibility for T’Shuvah and asked us to ask ourselves if we are holding our community responsible for the good and not good that it has perpetrated. Here is the bridge, I believe, from the communal to the personal. Because whatever the community does, it does in our name as well as the community’s name-so We the People are co-responsible as Rabbi Heschel teaches elsewhere: “In a free society some are guilty, all are responsible.”
The teaching above may sound harsh, it may sound scolding - I can understand this interpretation - yet, I hear it as pleading, as a cry, much like the cries of the prophets of Ancient Israel, much like the cries of the slaves in Egypt, much like the cries of the Negroes in America, much like the cries of decent people everywhere who are being persecuted and prosecuted based on the color of their skin, their country of origin, their religion, their sexual orientation, etc. Whenever we are not able to speak truth to power, whenever we go along with the bastardization of the Bible by idolators posing as priests (like in the times of the prophets) we can not claim on Kol Nidre nor on Yom Kippur: “Salachti Ki’Dvorecha, I have forgiven as you have spoken” because our words and our actions are still misaligned, still incongruent; our actions are cruel and unusual punishment of our supposed enemies, they go against the words of Proverbs: “If your enemy is thirsty, give them drink…”. Before we go to Synagogue on Kol Nidre, the teaching above forces us to look deep inside of ourselves and ask if we are sincere, if we are responding to the call of our souls, if we are so closed off from our inner life, we just are phoning it in with no resolve to actually change.
One of the reasons I never use “I’m Sorry” as a complete sentence is because I used it so much before my recovery, before my return that it had no meaning, nor effect on my future actions. Today, when I say I am sorry, I finish it with what I am sorry for, how I am going to repair the damage, and what changes I am going to make so I don’t repeat the same error. When one is “part of a movement forced upon us by the environment” then actual change rarely takes place, “I’m Sorry” is just a way to get the heat off and neither the offender nor the victim believes there is true repentance nor sorrow for the action. This is the reason “that repentance has yet to begin”, I believe.
We the People are being asked, called to change both ourselves and our community in this bridge from the communal to the personal. After all, who makes up a community if not various individuals? We are all guilty of making society an amorphous entity, not taking the responsibility that comes with acknowledging that We the People make up society hence whatever the societal pressures we feel, whichever societal lies we buy into are of our own making. This is what makes being “personally motivated” and “an internal sense of urgency” so crucial for “repentance to begin”. Without our “an internal sense of urgency” human beings will put off the undesirable action of being in truth with ourselves and another human being forever, we may say “I’m Sorry” without meaning and meaningful change, we just won’t be in truth nor in touch with our inner life.
What our community, especially our Jewish community, needs is the same as what our individual soul needs: TShuvah done in “earnestness and honesty”, TShuvah that is “personally motivated” and we need to do it NOW, we need to experience the “internal sense of urgency” that the Universe is showing us, we need to ‘see’ the spiritual push of the universe towards TShuvah, towards sincere forgiveness, sincere repentance, sincere return and demand this way of being for ourselves and for our neighbors, for our community, for our enemies. When we “love the stranger" because we were strangers in Egypt, in America, we are “personally motivated”. When we speak truth to power, when we say NO to the cruelties being perpetrated in our name by Jews, by Gentiles, we are responding to “an internal sense of urgency”. When we lead our community to TShuvah, to an introspective inventory of how We the People have acted we are moved to being earnest and honest. This is the challenge of these next 4 days, this is the Great Challenge of Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur: being responsible, being moved to change by “an internal sense of urgency” and holding our Spiritual Leaders to account to “show us the way” to true repentance and then following their lead.
OY, what a challenge! Yet, it is the one I am responding to today with more fervor and gusto than I did 38 years ago. Today, I see the nuances and the hidden/oblivious nature of both my good and not good actions. I am able to discern the negative in my thinking quicker and not act on it as much. I am more able to keep my ego in proper measure, I am more able to know my truth and see more of the Truth that is in the world. It is a long, hard journey to where I am now and I am here because of being “personally motivated” and not ignoring the “internal sense of urgency” that has always nagged me. I pray that we all participate in this “repentance” of both community and our individual selves. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark