Shuva Mp3 Download
Lester Chiaramonte
In the old days, a rabbi would give two sermons a year. On Shabbat Shuvah, teaching people how to do teshuvah, returning, repenting. And on the Shabbat before Passover to teach people how to prepare for Passover. Here is what I said on Shabbat. May each of you be inscribed for a blessing in the Book of Life.
During the high holy days we focus a lot on our own actions and the things we have done wrong. We focus on making amends for our mistakes, on doing teshuva and turning in a better direction for the coming year. We try to make things right with the people we've hurt. These are all critical things to focus on, and I don't have much to add that hasn't been said hundreds of times before.
Instead, today I want to talk about being on the other side -- about being the one who has been hurt. We know what to do when those who hurt us do teshuva, but what about when they don't? Teshuva is hard, and we know it won't always come.
A few weeks ago we read in the torah portion about Amalek -- how they attacked us terribly, and how we are to never forget. During our discussion someone talked about forgiving but not forgetting. That's the opposite of my own reaction when people intentionally hurt me. I am not inclined to forgive someone who has done real harm -- I'm not talking about the passing slights and blunders we all make and receive but real, serious harms -- I'm not inclined to forgive if that person has not made any attempt at teshuva. In fact, you know that passage we say before Kol Nidrei about forgiving everyone who's hurt us and "let no one be punished on my account"? Maybe this makes me a bad Jew, but when I say it I add a small clause: "except for...". You don't get to do evil and then avoid consequences through a blanket get-out-of-jail-free card. That sounds more like a different religion to me.
Teshuvah is not simple. It can be difficult to look upon our behaviours and the times that we may not have lived up to our values and ideals and hold ourselves accountable for those failings, possibly harder still to recognize where we might be heading down the wrong path in the moment and correct course. Similarly, the word teshuvah itself is no easy thing to understand.
These are not the only ways to translate this important and enigmatic word. There are so many shades of meaning in both the word itself and in the act of teshuvah that, each year, they can be found filling new sermons and articles and books, and here I am, offering yet another.
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