A Soulful Journey

Rabbi Eleazar said, “If a man divorces his first wife even the altar sheds tears.” Rabbi Yohanan said, “He that puts his wife is away is hated of God.”  - Gittin 89b   In the midst of a long Talmudic discussion on the laws and intricacies of dissolving marriage comes these comments.   While understanding there are times when it is inevitable that a union cannot last, it should never be simple a shrugging one’s shoulders and calling it “quits.’  Relationships are sacred.  They require trust and forgiveness.  Every day.

 Rav Kamenetzky told, “Rabbi Salanter was traveling by train from Salant to Vilna and was sitting in a smoking car holding a lit cigar. A young man accosted him by yelling about the putrid odor of the smoke. Other passengers were appalled. After all, they were in the smoking car. Despite that, Rabbi Salanter extinguished the cigar and opened the train’s window to dissipate the fumes. It was only a few seconds before the young man slammed the window down, while screaming at the elderly sage for opening it. Rabbi Salanter apologized profusely to the man young enough to be his child, and buried himself in a Jewish book of law. Upon arriving in Vilna, the young man was horrified to see throngs of people gathered to receive one of Europe’s most prominent Rabbis. The man immediately ran to the home where Rabbi Salanter was staying. He began to beg forgiveness. “Don’t worry,” explained Reb Yisrael, “a trip can make one edgy. I bear no ill will. Tell me,” continued the mussar master, ...

"The Puritans called marriage "the little church within the Church."   In marriage, every day you love and every day you forgive.  It is an ongoing sacrament  - love and forgiveness."   -Joseph Campbell

A person was coming from Babylon and sat down to rest on the road when he saw two birds fighting with each other. One of them killed the other. The survivor went and checked some herb and placing it on the other, revived her.  It will be a good thing, the observer thought, if I take some of this herb and revive the dead in Israel.  As he was walking along he saw a dead fox. It will be a good thing, he thought, if I try it on this fox. He placed it on the fox and it revived. He then went to Tyre and saw a lion slain on the road. I will try it on this lion. He placed some herb on him it came back to life and devoured him. “If you have done good to the bad, you have done a bad thing.” - Vayikra Rabba 22:4 "Those who are kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind." - Kohelet Rabba

When Carlyle Marney became pastor of a large church with lots of "movers and shakers," he confessed to his friend Samuel Southard that he prayed this prayer about his weakness: "Lord, you have called me to manage hard-headed people.  Control my temper- even if I can't help but cuss at least once a week." A year later Southard asked Carlyle if the prayer worked. "Oh yes," he replied, "although I'm already ten years overdrawn on the weekly cussing." We all have accounts overdrawn on God's resources. - Southard, Theology and Therapy: The Wisdom of God in a Context of Friendship

"If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy.  God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't."  -Hyman Rickover Odd isn't it?  How we want God to forgive us but hold fast to grudges and anger against others?  We ask God to do what we do not.

Rabbi Eliezer taught: the world was created on the twenty-fifth of Elul... This implies that Adam was created on Rosh Hashanah. In the first hour [of that day] the idea arose [in the Divine mind to create humankind]… in the ninth [hour Adam and Eve were] commanded [not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge], in the tenth [hour they] transgressed the commandment, in the eleventh [hour they were] judged, and in the twelfth pardoned by the blessed Holy One. The blessed Holy One said to Adam: “This will be a sign for your descendants. Just as you stood before me in judgment on this day and were pardoned, so too will they stand before me to be judged on this day and be pardoned."   P esikta de Rav Kahana (23:1)   As we  approach  the sacred hour of Yom KIppur,we pray for this  forgiveness.

“Master of the Universe! I hereby forgive anyone who has angered or vexed me, or sinned against me, either physically or financially, against my honor or anything else that is mine, whether accidentally or intentionally, inadvertently or deliberately, by speech or by deed, in this incarnation or in any other…may no human being be punished on my account. May it be Your will, Lord my God and God of my fathers, that I shall sin no more or repeat my sins, neither shall I again anger You nor do what is wrong in Your eyes. The sins I have committed, erase in Your abounding mercies, but not through suffering or severe illness. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable before You, o Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer.” –  Jewish Prayer before Retiring at Night

" Carrying resentments is like letting someone who you don't like live inside your head rent-free." - Rabbi Abraham Twerski

"Freedom involves the abandonment of hate, because hate is the abdication of freedom." Rabbi Jonthan Sacks

How Divine is Forgiving? It’s a nice concept but what’s under the sculptured draperies? We forgive when we don’t really care because what was done to us brought unexpected harvest, as I always try to explain to the peach trees as I prune them hard, to the cats when I shove pills against the Gothic vaults of their mouths We forgive those who betrayed us years later because memory has rotted through like something left out in the weather battered clean then littered dirty in the rain, chewed by mice and beetles, frozen and baked and stripped by the wind til it is unrecognizable, corpse or broken machine, something long useless. We forgive those whom their own machinations have sufficiently tangled, enshrouded, the fly who bit us to draw blood and who hangs now a gutted trophy in a spider’s airy larder; more exactly, the friend whose habit of lying has immobilized him at last like a dog trapped in a cocoon of fishing line and barbed hooks. We forgive those we firmly love because anger ...

Rabbi Abish once spent a night in a tavern where he was unknown.   The wife of the tavern keeper was distressed to discover that 80 thalers were missing and she accused the guest of taking them.   The rabbi was searched, and by coincidence, 80 thalers were found on him.   The tavern keeper beat him severely and took the money away form him.   A few months later the tavern keeper’s wife found the money she had mislaid.   Her husband searched out his guest, was told his identity, returned the money and tearfully implored the rabbi’s forgiveness.   Rabbi Abish said:   “There is really nothing which I need to forgive.   It was your intention to punish a thief, not an honest man.”   - Newman , Maggidim and Hasidim What can you let go of?

Once a very wicked man came to the rebbe seeking atonement. The rebbe consented to help him, but only on the condition first, that the man would liquidate all his assets – jewelry, real estate, everything- and second, that he put in writing every sin he had ever committed. After months, the man returned with a suitcase full of cash and a sheaf of papers filled with sins. As the rebbe read the list he was horrified. The rebbe moaned; the man fainted. The rebbe revived him and went on with the reading. Again, seven times, the rebbe would cry out in sadness and the man would pass out. When Rabbi Elimelech had completed reading the list, the man was white as a sheet. The rebbe sighed: “only death could atone for such a life!” “I will do whatever you say,” said the man. Now the rebbe turned white, for he realized that he had inadvertently pronounced an irrevocable death sentence. “Very well,” said the rebbe. “In such cases, the death sentence is to be carried out by pou...

While running from the Nazis, Rabbi Morris Shapiro stopped on Friday August 7, 1954 to pray at the graves of his uncle and father.   “I did not pray to survive but rather that I should die repentant.”   This is why visit the graves of loved ones before the Holy Days.   Even though they are gone from sight we still communicate our love and sorrow to them.

As he lay close to death, Stalin asked to see a priest. “Father, I want o go to heaven.” “In that case, you’ll need to call in all your enemies and ask forgiveness,” the priest told the dictator. “Fortunately, Father, I have no enemies,” Stalin replied. “But how can that be?” wondered the priest. “I killed them all,” replied Stalin.  ~ Rabinovitch and Harris

“A person with humility will ask for forgiveness when he has wronged someone, even if he feels the other person is more to blame than himself.  The arrogant person will not ask for forgiveness even when he knows he is really at fault.”  - Rabbi Zelig Pliskin Is that what it means when the Torah says, " Pharaoh  hardened his heart?"