“The Baal Shem Tov taught that in the heavenly court there is no one who can judge you for what you have done in your life on earth. So this is what they do: They show you someone’s life- all the achievements and all the failures, all the right decisions and all the wrongdoings- and then they ask you, “So what should we do with this somebody?” And then they tell you that this somebody was you.”
If you saw your own life played in review, without realizing that it was your own life, how would you judge it? Would your response be positive or would you think something was missing or needed fixing? The very act of doing teshuvah, is about looking at one’s life and deciding what needs fixing and then pursuing a path that “turns” one’s life in a different direction. That direction is to be towards G-d and towards one’s truest self.
Reviewing one’s life, however, need not be something that we only do at the end of our lives. Judaism affords us the ability to do teshuvah on a daily basis. We need not even wait until the High Holy days roll around each year to engage in the process of doing teshuvah, turning ourselves around. We need only ask ourselves, what needs to be changed.
When Hadassah Magazine asked Rabbi Richard Israel, Director of the Rabbinic Program for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, what he thought was the most important thing that could be done to ensure Jewish survival in America, he did not mention institutional changes. Instead, he mentioned personal changes that he felt would help create a viable Jewish community. Those personal changes included: organizing our lives so they are in tune with the Jewish calendar, actively attaching ourselves to the Jewish community here and in Israel, incorporating tzedaka lines into our personal budgets, and engaging in continuing Jewish learning.
If we think of our own lives and compare our actions to the suggestions made by Rabbi Israel, we can actually turn ourselves around …doing “teshuvah” in a way that will not only benefit our own lives, but the lifeblood of our entire Jewish community. By deciding to make our lives in tune with the Jewish calendar, we will not only be aware of the Jewish holidays and Shabbat, we will actually gather together to observe those holy days in our homes and in our synagogue. Coming together as a community will maximize our human potential by allowing us to see beyond ourselves. Holiness is about the ability to see beyond oneself and having a sense of responsibility to the other people who surround us. The essence of having a synagogue is not just about having a building, but having a refuge from life’s vulnerabilities because the House of G-d also becomes our home! By deciding to actively attach ourselves to this Jewish community and to Israel, we will help ensure their presence for future generations. We cannot expect to preserve our community just because the generations before us worked actively to provide us with the structures needed for a healthy Jewish community. It is already obvious that many of those structures that used to be in place have disintegrated due to a lack of commitment to keeping them going. Our focus needs to be on rebuilding, recreating new and old structures that will generate a strong future for this community, providing a place for us to mingle and socialize, worship and work together. By creating tzedaka lines in our personal budgets, those who have not, will have access to the very things that we all deem important….shelter, food, and clothing. If we live by the adage, “love your neighbor as yourself,” our sense of the equality of all human beings will then be enhanced, and the world will move towards being in a state of repair. And finally, if we actively engage in Jewish learning, we will increase our understanding of what is expected of us and how we can improve our lives. Together we will wrestle with Jewish ideas and go beyond complacency as we approach life.
Of course there are times in life, when we act in ways in which we actually know that our behaviors have been harmful to others. We can see the hurt on another person’s face due to our words or actions or we can recognize that if only we had acted at all we could have provided comfort and support for another individual instead of approaching them with apathy. Rosh HaShanah’s message is that we must make amends to those we have offended through our words and our actions in order to truly do teshuvah. Once we do that, we are assured that G-d will forgive us as well. In order to do complete teshuvah, however, we have to be able to walk away from a similar action in the future, recognizing that we could do it again but will not do so.
Where can we get the strength to be able to have a change in our hearts that will lead to a change in our actions? What can we do if our energy is depleted and we find it difficult to walk away from the decisions we made in the past? Where can we turn when we feel as if our capacity for giving, loving, and working hard are about ready to run dry? We can turn to G-d to give us the strength of achieving real change in our lives. Listen to the prayers you will be reciting during the next two days… “For you are compassionate, welcoming those who turn back to you. You have made repentance possible since the dawn of Creation.” Recognize that it is possible to recharge our batteries and move forward because we believe that G-d is a compassionate and forgiving G-d.
As we find ourselves in these Yamim Noraim, Days of Awe, may G-d recognize our desire to turn our lives around and give us the strength to not only vocalize our desires to do so, but also the strength to pursue a path that will draw us closer to Him and to one another. May we recognize that it is only by accomplishing personal changes that our community will also derive benefits that will last beyond the period of own lives. Hopefully when we are able to watch our lives in review at the end of our days we will be able to say, “that individual deserves to be judged favorably.”
Amen.
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