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Shabbat Shalom!
Apologizing must be one of the most difficult things any of us ever has to do. It's hard to humble oneself and tell someone we're sorry for what we have done or said. And yet that is one of the missions and mandates of teshuvah during these Days of Repentance. Judaism teaches that we cannot stand before God until we have made right a hurtful or inappropriate act or word to another human being.
I am grateful to JTA for alerting me about Everett L. Worthington, a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a widely-quoted authority on forgiveness, who has a handy acronym - C.O.N.F.E.S.S. - to map the process which can move us to repentance with another human being and ultimately with God:
C - Confess without excuses;
O - Offer specific apologies;
N - Take note of the pain you might have caused another;
F - Tell the hurt party that you truly value the other person:
E - Equalize; make up for the pain the other person has experienced by making some kind of physical or emotional restitution;
S - Say that I/we will really strive that this never happens again;
S - Ask clearly for forgiveness; in doing so, we acknowledge that we did wrong
There is always a chance, of course, that the person to whom you apologize will not accept your plea. Jewish tradition compels us to try again, and if, after three tries, our heartfelt apology is still not accepted, then it is considered to our credit as if it has been accepted. We need, in other words, try only so hard to convince another person of our sincerity. Once we have done our best and made repeated attempts, the teshuvah is considered complete.
In the best of circumstances, apologizing to another human being is never easy. But before we can beat our breast on Yom Kippur and ask God to "forgive us, pardon us and grant us atonement," we must first seek it from those we have harmed or hurt. For us Jews, this is the week to do it.
L'shanah tovah...
Rabbi Rosen
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
What's Your Passing Grade This New Year?
Shabbat Shalom and Shanah Tovah!
An old joke has it that when the sea gets too high, you either have to raise the ship or lower the water. That’s something like what the New York State Department of Education decided to do this year when it discovered a way to help more students pass the state’s math exam for seventh graders. For years, a passing grade was 60, but last year it was lowered to 44, resulting in the highest percentage of students to pass the test in recent memory. Amazing!
It’s true that sometimes standards need to be lowered. An article in USA Today reported how some luxury hotel chains have decided to lower their standards (and their prices) somewhat in order to attract more budget-conscious travelers. Sometimes lowering standards is both necessary and constructive.
But as the High Holy Days begin, our tradition compels us to do just the opposite: not to lower our standards but to raise them. Not to be satisfied with who we are but ask how we can be more. Not to live at the standard everyone does, but to ask ourselves how we can live at a standard everyone should.
The writer Lewis Mumford once wrote, “The final goal of human effort is man’s self-transformation.” That also is the raison d’etre of the High Holy Days, to be transformed through the seeking of a higher standard for ourselves as men and women and children of God. When it comes to who and what we are as human beings and Jews, the standard can never be too high.
L’shanah Tovah Tikateivu.
Rabbi Rosen
An old joke has it that when the sea gets too high, you either have to raise the ship or lower the water. That’s something like what the New York State Department of Education decided to do this year when it discovered a way to help more students pass the state’s math exam for seventh graders. For years, a passing grade was 60, but last year it was lowered to 44, resulting in the highest percentage of students to pass the test in recent memory. Amazing!
It’s true that sometimes standards need to be lowered. An article in USA Today reported how some luxury hotel chains have decided to lower their standards (and their prices) somewhat in order to attract more budget-conscious travelers. Sometimes lowering standards is both necessary and constructive.
But as the High Holy Days begin, our tradition compels us to do just the opposite: not to lower our standards but to raise them. Not to be satisfied with who we are but ask how we can be more. Not to live at the standard everyone does, but to ask ourselves how we can live at a standard everyone should.
The writer Lewis Mumford once wrote, “The final goal of human effort is man’s self-transformation.” That also is the raison d’etre of the High Holy Days, to be transformed through the seeking of a higher standard for ourselves as men and women and children of God. When it comes to who and what we are as human beings and Jews, the standard can never be too high.
L’shanah Tovah Tikateivu.
Rabbi Rosen
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Both Beth Yeshurun and I also have Facebook pages. To access the congregation's Facebook site, which is edited by our member Michael Moore, please click here. To go to my personal Facebook page, please click here. I'd love to have you as a friend! (Note that to access Facebook pages, you must be a Facebook member yourself. To join Facebook (which is free), click here.)
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