On Wednesday evening, our community will gather to usher in the year 5785. We traditionally read the parsha of Nitzavim on this Shabbat, the final Shabbat of the year, anticipating Selichot services tomorrow evening.
We notice that the Hebrew root-lashuv- to return, occurs no less than ten times in our Torah portion. Lashuv is the root of the word teshuvah, the word of the season, repentance.
In Deuteronomy 30:11-14, the Torah encourages us with these words- “Surely this mitzva which I teach you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say- ‘who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.”
I imagine the Torah as referring to the mitzvah of repentance, a mitzvah which is not, in fact, quite so easy. It involves recognizing that we’ve done wrong, apologizing and making restitution, as needed, and making the effort to do better. For many people, for me!, this is, in fact QUITE difficult!
It is not so baffling, this week’s parsha suggests, that you need someone to explain it to you- you can pretty much figure out on your own what you have done wrong and what course corrections you need to make in your life
It is not in heaven, it is not across the sea- we have the resources that we need in our hands and in our hearts to make changes in our lives.
Which brings us to this weekend of “Selichot,” the moment in the High Holiday season when we kick our apologizing into high gear. In Hebrew if you bump into someone you say, “Selicha,” excuse me. On Yom Kippur, the refrain of our prayers is “Slach lanu, m’chal lanu, kaper lanu,” translated as- forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement. Slicha is the first stage of our apology- it includes a sense of remorse for what we have done wrong and the resolution to do better in the future. M’chila means to wipe away, erase. We are asking God, and, by extension, our loved ones, to restore our relationship as it was before the offense was committed.
It is part of the deep wisdom of our tradition to set aside this season for us to examine not only our relationship with God and the ways in which we need to do better, but also our relationships with each other, to take responsibility for the pain we have caused and to seek and offer forgiveness. It is also a good time to look inside and examine the ways that we beat ourselves up. Maybe part of the work we need to do is accepting our own imperfections and forgiving ourselves, even as we vow to do better in the year ahead.
More than 800 years ago, Moses Maimonides compiled Hilkhot Teshuva, The Laws of Repentance, in which he detailed the 5 major components of a successful apology. First is hakarat ha-khet- recognizing that we have done wrong. We cannot begin this process of return, to restoration of our relationship with others or with God, until we become aware of our errors. Denial is a strong temptation, so this first step is critical. This is followed by ha-ra-ta- a sense of regret. It is so easy and so tempting to rationalize our behavior. We excel at making up excuses. That still small voice of conscience within must be heeded, that nagging sense of guilt which is the moral equivalent of physical pain, alerting us to the fact that something is very wrong, that still, small voice must be treasured as a divine gift.
The third step is viddui- a process which is an important part of our ritual for this holy season. We acknowledge out loud the nature of our misdeeds and our regret at having performed them. There is nothing quite so disarming as a heartfelt apology- sharing with someone that we know what we did, we know how it impacted them, and we will work hard to do better. It can be helpful to ask the question, “What can I do to make it up to you?”
This is followed by the resolve not to repeat our errors in the future. We know that our repentance is truly completed when we reach the final stage- when we have an opportunity to repeat the same action and we restrain ourselves from doing so.
I deeply appreciate that Judaism does not mandate preemptive forgiveness. The responsibility for apologizing lies squarely on the shoulders of the person who did wrong. The kind thing to do is to accept a sincere apology and work to let go of the hurt.
One caveat- there are certainly extreme wrongs that move us to withdraw from a relationship. We can think about letting go of the hurt- protecting ourselves from future pain, as opposed to forgiveness and cautiously stepping back into a relationship. In some extreme cases the wise thing is to walk away.
On this weekend of Selichot, we humbly acknowledge our own misdeeds, and thereby acquire the humility we will need to reach out to others with forgiveness for the hurt they have caused us, recognizing that, to err is human. .
“The unfinished business in our families and friendships haunts most of us just below the surface of our lives”, writes Rabbi Steven Leder. “And each YK, we are supposed to rise above our indifference and our denial. It is a day to come clean, to face our past, and to vow to remake our future. If we are really interested in more than empty prayer on the HHD’s, if we are really interested in teshuvah, in repentance and redemption, in salvation, then we must do more than merely pray about making things right with others- we must actually try to do it. Our tradition teaches us that Jews ought to take responsibility for their behavior: we need to face up to what we have and have not done.”
May we all be blessed with a meaningful High Holiday experience, and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow night at Selichot.
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