Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 306
“The most unnoticed of all miracles is the miracle of repentance. It is not the same thing as rebirth; it is transformation, creation. In the dimension of time there is no going back. But the power of repentance causes time to be created backward and allows re-creation of the past to take place. 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)
One of the amazing aspects of T’Shuvah/amends is its ability to cause “time to be created backward”. While in the material world “there is no going back”, the spiritual world “allows re-creation of the past to take place.” This happens because T’Shuvah/amends allows us to undo the lies of the past, restore the dignity we have taken from a person by our harms, blemishes, lies, bad acts. This is the process where we take responsibility for our actions, we make restitution for the harms we caused, we affirm the truth of their experience, we repair the damage we have wrought, and we reconnect to their spirit and re-sew the fabric of our relationship with them and with God.
While not everyone we have harmed will want to reconnect, not everyone will want to trust us again, T’Shuvah/amends makes a lie of humanity’s belief that what one was is what they will always be. It makes mincemeat of the saying “a leopard doesn’t change its spots”. T’Shuvah/amends “allows the re-creation of the past to take place” by our being responsible for our actions without blame nor shame, by allowing another human being to see/experience the sincerity of our change, of our almost complete change of beingness, and our identity with the pain we caused them. We freely admit how we treated another person as an object of our need/desire, an object to be used and abused, our chameleon-like way of being at the time and our abject sorrow for our actions and the harms we did. This doesn’t change the action, what it does is put it into a different context, we affirm and re-affirm their goodness of being and our taking advantage of it, we thank them for trying to help us and regret the myriad of ways we hid from them, like Adam hid from God. Our T’Shuvah is also for the distrust we may have implanted in the people we have harmed and how that distrust might have changed them/prevented them from helping another human being who was sincere and needed their assistance. In this way, we don’t erase the harms of the past, we do put them in a context that allows another to know their actions were the correct ones and we took advantage of their kindness and love, it also allows them to leave the hurt in the past and not carry it as an anchor on their necks.
In recovery as in Judaism, amends/T’Shuvah are the responsibility actions of one who has changed because to do them we have to be Authentic, Responsible, and Transparent. We demonstrate our desire and ability to life our lives as works of ART, as Rabbi Heschel says in his interview with Carl Stern: “And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to build a life as if it were a work of art. You’re not a machine…Start working on this great work of art called your own existence.” As many artists will attest to, when one doesn’t like what one has painted, when one sees a blemish, a ‘mistake’ in the painting, they repaint the canvas in white and begin again. This is the power of T’Shuvah/amends, we ‘get’ to begin anew, begin again with a new canvas, we get to recreate/create anew “this great work of ART called” our life.
I know the truth of Rabbi Heschel’s teachings and wisdom as I experience the wonder, awe, re-connection with my family, with friends, with people I have encountered in my life in recovery and before. My brothers, my sister, my mother all accepted my T’Shuvah/amends and we reconnected in ways we did not even realize we needed to, we ‘wrote’ a new covenant and way of being so we would not hide from one another and we have a relationship today that is stronger, tighter, more loving each and every day. My daughter, Heather, and I work hard to not hide from one another, we exchange advice, thoughts, ways of being and she seeks my wisdom and experience as I seek hers. We know our love, our connection is strong, is based in respect and truth and love. My wife, Harriet, and I have had ups and downs in our relationship, duh!! Yet, because of T’Shuvah/amends, we have been able to come through each of the downs stronger, more committed and more willing to be seen by one another. Over the years, I have done T’Shuvah often, this year being no different, and this year I have also been able to see where my anger comes from and repair the damage the original betrayal caused me without needing to make the betrayer a “bad guy”, in fact I have compassion for the person. This has led me to change my reactions, to accept the people who don’t accept my amends and re-paint the canvas of my life with more ART. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark