Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 310
“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 pg. 69)
As we enter the last few days prior to Yom Kippur in the Jewish world many people will call, see, email people saying: “if there is anything I have done to harm you, please forgive me”. While this is a formula that the Rabbis created, Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above asks us for more. When we are repenting for our errors, it is imperative to know what we need to repent for and while the Rabbis formula is for the actions we have unwittingly done to another(s), we have to first search our souls and our minds for the actions we have done which we are aware of. Without remorse for the past, without seeking out our actions and motivations which have harmed another, as Rabbi Heschel teaches us, our repentance is not possible nor valid.
Immersing ourselves in the last two sentences above we come to a new realization of how important repentance is, how deeply we have to examine our actions in the past year(s), and how vital to our growth and the growth of another(s) our repentance is. Rabbi Heschel is demanding we go against the “conventional wisdom” of our time (and all eras) jettisoning our need to justify our actions, our blaming of another for our actionsand hiding from ourselves, another(s), and God. Repentance, as I hear Rabbi Heschel’s call to us, entails a complete and utter experience of standing naked before God, before ourselves, and before all of humanity. For repentance to be “possible and valid”, we have to end our need to wear our masks, take off the “mental make-up” of protection, be “maladjusted” to the societal norms of our day and stand up to our authentic selves and be responsible for our actions and ways of being that harm humanity, God and ourselves.
Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is, in its own way, spiritually audacious! It goes against the way things are, it calls our politicians to task for their lies and inactions, it calls our business’ to account for their underhanded ways and false advertising, it calls out each of us for our hiding, defending, denying. Rabbi Heschel is demanding we see every human being as equal in dignity and worth and every person as a partner with God. He is also reminding us of our need to show compassion and love to self and another(s) through being truthful, repentant, and forgiving. Audacity comes from the Latin meaning “dare to be bold” and repentance is a bold action in the life of a human being because it opens us up to be vulnerable, to have our vulnerabilities used against us, to be shunned, to be ostracized, to be ignored and to be reminded of our previous errors whenever someone wants to have control over us. Yet, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, as our sages in the Talmud teach, as Maimonidies teaches, without repentance we will stay in hiding, we will miss our opportunity to help the world endure as Reb Meir teaches “for one person’s repentance the entire world endures.”
In recovery as in Judaism, we know that our inventory, our admitting our errors as well as our ‘hitting the marks’ out loud to God and another person, and making our amends is the only path to freedom. Just as the Israelites were taught to bring offerings after their errors and their successes in order to reconnect with God, one another, and let go of their inner conflicts and hidings, we, in recovery, have steps 4-9 which are the essence of T’Shuvah, repentance. We have to have remorse for our past errors, we have to learn from them and search out the reasons we did them in order to not repeat them again because only in this way can we have “responsibility for the future”! Living repentance, continuing to do T’Shuvah, a 10th step each day gives us the path to experiencing this “most unnoticed miracle.”
I have been delineating my errors these past 36 days for me, for those I have harmed, and for God. I know where my heart is, I know the remorse I have for actions that I took for my sake and not for God’s sake, I also know that for those who want to hold a grudge, those who cannot forgive me, there is very little I can do except continue to live better. I have reached out to people I have realized I harmed in ways I did not realize before and, for the most part, been forgiven-6 out of 7- and I am committed to not repeat these harms and still be me. What I have learned is I have to announce my ways of being so another human being can decide if I am ‘their cup of tea’ or not and accept my imperfections as I accept theirs. “Remorse for the past and responsibility for the future” is living an examined life, a painful way to live and the only way to be free. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark