| Teshuvah:
Forgiveness Walks
Try not to leap from doing something major at home or work into a teshuvah
session. It is important to arrive centered, grounded, slowed down and
available to listen. Engaging in a meditation walk en route to a teshuvah
session can be an excellent form of preparation. This practice is intended
to help release your thoughts, expectations, anxieties about the upcoming
teshuvah session.
Such a walk is done so slowly that you become aware of how conscious it
is possible to be with each surface of your foot. Let time slow down, the
present become everything, the step gone by not important compared to the
one in which you are engaged. As thoughts intrude, and they will, notice
them with an internal "ah yes, of course someone in my position would
be feeling that way" and release the thought gently, return to your
foot-centered consciousness. It is helpful to repeat a sacred phrase
during such walks. I recommend a verse from Torah: l’hithaleh
lifnei Elohim, which has the sense that you are "walking yourself
before G*d."
A Teshuvah Rehearsal
Is there someone with whom desire to do teshuvah?
( Imagining that you are heading to the front door of the
person with whom you wish to do teshuvah, walk through your
home to a door on the other side and as you approach, consider it to
be that person’s door.
(Prepare yourself to say the teshuvah
invitation.
(Imagine the door opening, the
person is standing there.
(How are you received? Place what you learn from this
instance into your spiritual treasure chest of awareness.
(Begin walking again, arrive at this person’s door in your
imagination yet a second time, this is a spiritual rehearsal. Notice
all of the projections your mind offers about how the person might act
and continue rehearsing until you are simply curious about how s/he
will react. You won’t know until you try.
A Gradual Matter
The first teshuvah session rarely
completes the healing needed. It is a new beginning, a rebirth of
potential for movement within the relationship. You may have experience
with what I call "cheap tshuvah," when done in a hollow, formulaic
phone call. Real teshuvah takes time. My hubbatzin Barry taught me
early on to "give the rough places we are working on together time to
evolve. Let’s engage on this for a while, then back off to allow
deepening and healing, and re-engage on another day for the next needed
level." Not quick, not cheap, deep.
Rebuilding trust is a very long process. By listening without judgment,
you will discover many facts about the situation which were unknown to
you; inaccurate assumptions made on both your parts will often be
revealed. This is not about right or wrong, it is about a new level of
understanding. The opening that comes after doing teshuvah with
someone is one way to have an experience of pure holiness. With practice
it becomes much easier.
Out of Bounds:
The study quote I chose for this day was by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: "Time flows in one direction; it is impossible to undo or even to alter an action after it has occurred and become an 'event', an objective fact. However, even though the past is 'fixed', repentance allows one to rise above it, to change its significance for the present and the future ... It is the potential for something else. "
On the streets of New York, no one noticed I was chanting. Here are the notes from my diary on this one teshuvah walk day: "So today, Day One, during the teshuvah walk, I pass a news stand and see the headlines about horribly disrupted peace process in Israel. Huge sadness and anger about Ariel Sharon's infamous inflammatory walk to the Temple Mount comes back
over me. I had just read a book called "The Tipping Point", many factors on both sides contributed to the escalation of violence, even a memory from 1975 holds clues:
It is 1975 and I am in Israel. A young information officer with the Israeli Army asks me out on a date. It is a balmy August Jerusalem early evening. He asks if I'd ever been in the Arab Quarter. "Other than the shuk, no." "Shall we go? I can make it quite interesting and share some history."
Ever the curious traveler, lover of diversity and culture even then, off I go with him. As we
come to the gate I notice an armed soldier is walking ahead of us. "Is there trouble ahead?" "No, no, he says. This is just a precaution." "We're going to walk into a neighborhood with a soldier bearing an automatic rifle?" "This is a required procedure for military personnel, I have no choice. Plus they are used to it, they won't pay us any attention at all."
We continue through the narrow streets and soon the people outside drinking tea on little stools wearing kaffiyas (head dress) abound. I notice a soldier is now walking behind us as well.
Yossi leads us into a courtyard through an arch. A family is picnicking; this is their terrace, I realize. Lots of laundry was hanging, I remember that. The mother pulls her small son against her, an older man stands up defiantly, a younger man slips into the house. Three small children stare.
Yossi points out as though they are not able to hear: "See how they have the hookah and the tea samovar and the little dishes of food."
I am in tears. "We can't just barge into someone's backyard and treat them like zoo animals. This is not a neighborhood walk, this is an invasion. I am out of here." I run into the side streets and take no time at all in getting lost as the darkness falls, leaving a crescent moon and bright star in the sky.
Wandering, wondering, being demure and slightly friendly in manner. Hoping I know which way is east and that the stars don't reorient in the sky at this time of year. Uh oh, this street is a dead end. The mosaic tiling is lovely here, I move down deeper to view it. A woman steps out of a doorway, sees me and begins to ululate. Then another steps out and another, until five women are doing this. I feel as one who has entered a bird sanctuary unannounced and startled the flock. I stammer out a request for directions back to the gate. They move toward me ululating, no friendship or sisterhood here. I am
out of bounds.
I flee the alleyway and the sound ceases as I turn the corner. A tile on the wall informs me that I am immediately behind the Mosque on the Temple Mount. Too close to a sacred site. Out of bounds. End of memory from 1975.
Fall 2000. There is a tiny mosque near the seminary where I am doing a
doctorate. Now the teshuvah walk has a destination. I ring and ring. People are inside. I can hear them. They must see me. There is a surveillance camera by the door. No
answer, oh. Perhaps they can see my kippah on the monitor. Finally a woman in a black chador (full covering) comes to the door and opens it a crack, she asks softly, "What do you want?"
"I want to say how sorry I am for what is happening, it is terrible. I want to know if there is a fund for the families, or the wounded, or something." I can see only wet brown eyes and long lashes that lower. She is so silent. I can be silent too. Minutes pass.
The door opens. She is holding an email she has printed out and extends it toward me saying only, "My cousin is....."
We sit on the bench in the hall. She is crying quite hard. Men are inside a nearby room arguing. One comes out and glares at me speechlessly. Out of bounds. This time I take my check book out and write a good sum upon it, stand and say: "This is for the family, and for the road to peace, and because I can't ignore you or say it's happening over there or that it's not my responsibility."
He takes the check and says softly, "Why are most of the Jews like you living
here? You have to take your stand there, where it matters. Next time when you come, please cover your face, it is the way we choose for ourselves in here."
L'hithalekh lifnei Elohim"
Spring 2001. It is with great sadness that I must report the check was subsequently returned in an envelope to me with a note saying: "We are returning your check. While your intentions are most appreciated, the funds we are collecting will not be used for what a Jewish person would consider humanitarian purposes." I became very depressed and wondered whether to go back to the mosque for more dialogue or let things sit.
Summer 2001. A few months later, the Middle East is at a boiling point, deaths are mounting on all sides. I returned to find the young woman who had invited me in. Now we walk and talk often, when I am in New York City. My colleague, Rabbi Arthur Waskow offered the idea that religious communities of all kinds read the lists of those who had just died on both
sides at regular prayer services. So now, beginning with her cousin's name, we read the lists
together, and we pray for shalom (in Hebrew)-salaam (in Arabic), peace. We each know so little about each other/s traditions and delight in exchanging spiritual tidbits. We meet in the park. Her family would not tolerate this, she is sure. We have made a plan for our eldest sons to meet. Real teshuvah takes time. It isn't about right or wrong, in this case it is about understanding and being able to share sacred space.
Spring 2002. They are returning to the middle east. Her father is
furious at the death of another cousin who was throwing rocks at soldiers
from behind trees on the family land. She is very sad and tells me to
treasure America, a land where people live with remarkable respect for
each other. She says not to contact her, her father would kill her if he
knew of our relationship. She fears her brothers will die trying to defend
what she considers to be a defunct world view. She tells me to take care
of Israel, because her father and brothers will never rest until all Jews
are thrown into the sea. We exchange bracelets as a token of friendship
symbol of the hope of reconnecting. We bless each other and pledge again
for our children to meet some day in peace.
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