Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 297

National Month of Repentance and Change

“In the dimension of time there is no going back. But the power of repentance cause time to be created backward and allows re-creation of the past to take place.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg. 69)

We know we cannot “go back in time”, we know our fascination with the idea through all of the science fiction ‘time machine’ books, movies, etc. Many of us look back longingly and with regret over roads not taken and roads taken, loves not pursued, passions not followed, purposes ignored. Many of us also look at the ways we have treated people and the ways we have been treated, realizing the traumas we have caused and those that have been perpetrated upon us. When we are stuck in the past, we suffer anger, fear, feeling bad, depressed, etc and this leads us to find ways to relieve ourselves of this suffering. Some turn to work, to ‘making it’, to social media, to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, guns, anger, while others engage in fundamentalism in numerous fashions. Others, however, accept the past for what it was and seek to use the lessons of the past to promote a healthy today and tomorrow.

We do this through “the power of repentance”. In the Talmud, the Rabbis explain how “great is repentance” in numerous ways, Reish Lakish, who’s name is derived from the fact that prior to his becoming a Rabbi he was “head of the thieves”, knows full well what he is saying when he says: “Great is repentance because intentional missing the marks are counted as unwitting transgressions.” Since he went through the fire of repentance, since he became a scholar and teacher, his life is one of the proof texts for Rabbi Heschel’s words above, for me. “The power of repentance” is so amazing that on Yom Kippur, we are told we are forgiven! It is so transformative that our purposeful transgressions(big and small) are treated as if we did them not knowing any better!

While many people will argue with the words above, they do so from ignorance. The ignorance of not experiencing someone coming to them in repentance, the ignorance of not experiencing going themselves to repent to another human being, the ignorance of not engaging in the confessionals of Yom Kippur with all of themselves, the ignorance of not believing and engaging with the words of the prophets nor believing the messages, the truth and wisdom of the Bible. When the prophet Hosea comes to the people and says: “Return (repent) Israel to God/Goodness, because you have stumbled in your transgressions. Take words and return to God saying “forgive all our transgressions and take us back in goodness and wholeness. We offer words instead of animals…(God’s response) I will heal them in their repentance, I will love them freely, my anger is turned from them.”(Hosea 14:2-3, 5). The entire Bible is filled with screwing up and suffering then repenting and returning, a vicious cycle that humanity has not been able to break and God keeps taking us back, just as people in our lives keep taking us back after we screw up and truly repent. It is time for all of us to end our ignorance and learn of “the power of repentance” and engage in it so we can use this power to both re-create the past and set a different course for now and tomorrow.

What does it mean to “”allow re-creation of the past to take place”? If I can’t go back in time, if I can’t change the events that happened, how can “re-creation of the past” happen? This seems to be illogical and nonsensical. It is not! “Re-creation of the past”, like the teaching of Reish Lakish tells us happens in the here and now and in the past. “The power of repentance” is that  by acknowledging our errors, by restoring the dignity and the worth that we have taken from another human being by demeaning, hurting, ignoring, stealing, etc from them, we return to them what we have taken. We make our restitution of their spiritual as well as physical being in this process, we return to them the truth of their experience after denying for so long. We re-create the world they felt confident living in and that we hammered away at, chopped down, with our actions towards them. We do not qualify our errors, we do not mitigate the harms done, we acknowledge them, we commit to not do them again and we seek their forgiveness. What happens with the person we come to in repentance is they are vindicated, they are restored to sanity and their dignity, their experience is validated. Now when they revisit the past, as all of us are wont to do, they can breathe easier and freer, knowing they did not imagine the hurt and allow themselves to ‘be healed’, experience “my anger is turned from them”, and, hopefully, “love them freely”. While the last is not always the case, at least the healing and letting go of the anger helps to free the person harmed from the prison of bewilderment, anger, resentment they have been trapped in.

We all need to “allow re-creation to take place”. We are so stuck in our patterns, our paths, our thinking that we can’t see the forest for the trees, we can’t see our part, we live in our binary thinking which is what idolatry is all about. Be it on the left or the right, be it “free Palestine from the river to the sea”, “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country”, be it whitewash the terrorists by the left (Hamas and Hezbollah as well as Iran)  or the whitewash of terrorist by the right (Putin, Orban, Bibi,) both are in need of engaging in repentance. The right-wing Rabbis and left-wing Rabbis who are using the Bible to validate their positions need to repent for their bastardizations of the Word of God. The right-wing and left-wing Christian Clergy who are using Christ’s words against Christ’s principles need to repent for their bastardizations of the words of Christ. Both sides need to repent for their idolatry, for their denigration of human beings and “allow re-creation of the past to take place” so we can live together without anger, without war and in arguments for the sake of living better than we are now.

My past has been re-created because of my engaging in “the power of repentance”. I am not loved by all, I am not welcomed everywhere, and I know I have done what I could to be responsible for my actions, made my amends where possible, changed my ways of being where necessary and allow those who want to use my vulnerabilities against me to do so and be able to have sadness for their need to stay angry, to deny their part and to be so stuck that “the power of repentance” doesn’t touch them. I cannot do any more for them except pray for them. One of the divine needs I fulfill is “re-creation of the past” and each year, when I hear “I forgive you as you have said” I breathe a little freer and fuller, knowing I am being “loved freely” and my “anger is turned from them”, meaning I have no resentments towards anyone. This is “the power of repentance” and I am blessed to live in it. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark