Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 242
“The most unnoticed of all miracles is the miracle of repentance. It is not the same thing as rebirth, it is transformation, creation…Through the forgiving hand of God, harm and blemish which we have committed against the world and against ourselves will be extinguished, transformed into salvation.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)
We have 3 days till Yom Kippur! What is the state of our Repentance? While there was a wonderful press conference yesterday and many of my colleagues will be hailing the “eternal peace” that has been promised by Donald J. Trump, while many Jews around the globe will be celebrating this new era of cooperation and connection with the Arab and Muslim world, none of this must deter us in doing the work of TShuvah/repentance. Israel has not done it’s own TShuvah/Inquiry regarding Oct. 7, 2023, Bibi is loathe to take responsibility for his failures, for his funding of Hamas all these years, his desire to placate the radical messianic factions of his coalition, his desire to stay out of prison! Enough of holding Bibi and Donny to account-We the People must hold ourselves to account, We the People must allow the “transformation, creation” of ourselves to happen, we must do this work in order to shed the skin we have created, the facades we have adopted, the walls we have erected so we don’t face our authentic self, we don’t cry over the missed opportunities to serve our self and another(s) in the ways we are created to do.
It is imperative for We the People to look at our self, take inventory of our actions, ask for forgiveness from those whom we have harmed, and forgive another when they come to make amends, and let go of resentments so we don’t “drink the poison expecting another person to die”, as we say in AA. We the People are being called, cajoled, demanded to engage in repentance. In the Talmud, Reb Meir says: “for one person’s repentance, the entire world is forgiven”! WOW, what an outrageous statement and what a wonderful idea. Not that everything is dependent upon one person, rather the importance of one person, the power of one person, the redeeming aspect of every person! In times such as these, with the crazies on both ends of the spectrum bellowing so loudly that those of us who seek solutions and compromises, those of us who know we don’t know it all and are not always right, repentance and redemption are our saving graces, they are necessary to our spiritual and emotional health every bit as much as prayer, ritual, etc. I would suggest that repentance and redemption are built into every prayer, every ritual and the issue for We the People is most of us are just phoning it in, we hide in the rituals and in saying our prayers, we hide in the different idolatrous interpretations of the Bible, of the New Testament, of the Koran. Isn’t it time for We the People to face up to the truth of our existence, to come to grips with our errors and stop promoting the evil as good, the bitter as sweet? Isn’t it time for We the People to stop our incessant need to be right, our constant being the victim, our ridiculous belief that only we know and do what is right, that only by being progressive/conservative can anyone be politically correct, and other such bullshit? We the People have the power to change! We the People have the gift of forgiveness, of redemption, of salvation!
One of the questions we come face to face with is: Are we willing to change, to be forgiven, to be redeemed, to experience salvation? Are we still acting like the slaves in Egypt who could not believe that God heard their cries? Are we still stuck in our erroneous beliefs about what is right and good while the world burns because we are being perfect is more important than just taking an action, that perfection continues to hold us hostage, that our disbelief in our being forgiven, in our being redeemed, in our being saved, is so great, we are unable to suspend it? Rabbi Heschel’s teaching, delivered in the most dangerous of times and places; 1936 Berlin, Germany, comes to dispel our disbelief, comes to remind us that just as God took us out of Egypt, so too will God forgive us, redeem us and save us.
How can I make this outrageous statement? I have been redeemed, I have been forgiven, I have been saved because of Repentance, because of doing the work of TShuvah-repair, change, hope! I have been the recipient of much forgiveness and those who have been unable to forgive me, I feel bad for-their need to hold onto resentments and angers precludes their ability to experience redemption and salvation, it also precludes their ability to truly take in and revel in the forgiveness of another human being. I know this because I have, in the past, been stuck in the same place. I am living a life that is beyond my wildest dreams and certainly one that is beyond my deserving on my own. The life I live is directly linked to the repentance/TShuvah I have engaged in over these past 38 years. Each Yom Kippur, I have been blessed with being able to spend 30 seconds in the throne room with God. Each Yom Kippur, I am given the gifts of redemption, forgiveness, salvation AND the gift of seeing my pure soul, seeing me in my original shape and form, experiencing the reason I was created and this allows me to commit a little more to being the me I was created to be a little more in this coming year. This is the “unnoticed miracle” of repentance for me and for YOU!! I pray you take advantage of the gift, that you don’t take it for granted, you cherish it as I do! The forces of the Universe are open to TShuvah, to repentance, they are beaming out the light of forgiveness and redemption-will you use these lights to benefit you, to make someone else whole, to leave the Egypt you have lived in for so long? I hope so, freedom is an overwhelming gift and one we have to be responsible for and to-yet it is a helluva lot better than living in the narrow spaces of Egypt!! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark