Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 311
“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 pg. 69)
Tonight is Kol Nidre, the beginning of the Day of Atonement. As I think about Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above and the world we are living in today, the fact that these words were written in 1936 in Berlin, Germany, and the deceit and mendacity that so many of us engage in, I am saddened, scared and hopeful.
I am saddened by our lack of understanding our personal and communal need to take the next right action and ensure that our “repentance is a decision made in truthfulness, remorse, and responsibility.” I am saddened by our engaging in denial of our errors in judgement and action, by our incessant need to blame, shame another for our misdeeds, to continue to hide from another(s) and ourselves “the exact nature of our wrongs”.
I am afraid for what our deceptions of self and another(s) will bring to our future, I am afraid for our children learning that repentance is just something we say and not live. I am afraid that our “coerced conversion” will cause us to hide more, to be more underhanded, to be more deceitful, to more engaging in our mendacity and turn more and more people away from a “deliberate decision” to engage in repentance, to change our past actions and set a new course for today and tomorrow.
Yet, as Rabbi Heschel was his entire life, I am hopeful. I have hope because as Reb Meir says: “for one person’s repentance, the entire world endures”(Yoma 86b). I know there are among us many people who are engaging in “a conscious truthfulness”. I have hope because of the 1000’s of people touched by and changed by their engagement in T’Shuvah over the years at Beit T’Shuvah continue to live their recovery, continue to have “remorse over the lost past”, and have taken on the responsibility to change, the honor of being the actualization of Reb Meir’s words.
We are in a state of decision-making today, globally, in our country, in our personal lives. This is the decision that Rabbi Heschel is so brilliantly putting forward to us: Are we going to return or are we going to continue our deception of self and another(s) and make our “so-called return…a retreat, a phase”? Each Elul, each Yom Kippur we are faced with this decision, each day of the year we are faced with the choice to make our return, our repentance a reality, a spiritual map we follow or “a retreat, a phase.”
In recovery, as in all faiths, we have to “make a decision” and choose “deliberate decision” making and “conscious truthfulness” in our daily living. People of faith, real faith, and people in recovery know we have to be vigilant and aware of our selves, our desires, our leanings, our actions. We know and practice a way of being that makes our decision to “turn our will and our lives over to the care of God” and our prayer to “nullify our will before God’s will so God’s will becomes our will” is not a one and done, rather this decision and this prayer is done numerous times each day, we are engaging in conscious living, we check with our souls before we act, and we are remorseful for the actions that we did not take and for those which were not serving God, another(s) and our souls. Living faithfully, to our religions, to our spirituality, to our recovery, entails living in repentance, living our T’Shuvah and “continue to take personal inventory”.
I am sorry for the wrongs I have done! I am sorry for the harms I have wrought. I am sorry for the ways my actions have been interpreted and that I could not/cannot speak to everyone in ways they can hear. I am sorry for the ways I have delineated during this month of Elul, I am sorry that I did not realize years ago what I can realize today. I am sorry to those who cannot/will not/have not accepted my T’Shuvah in the past. I know that I am more “deliberate” in my decision making, I live in more “conscious truthfulness” each and every day-continuing to grow in my shedding of self-deceptions and mendacity. I know that my “remorse over the lost past” informs my actions and deeds today. I wish everyone an “easy fast” and a good ending to your Yom Kippur experience, a great experience with your engagement in repentance as “an absolute spiritual decision”! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark