An Acceptable Apology

Dear Rabbi,

Question: Can one send a letter of forgiveness through the Internet? And will it count?

Response: The ideal situation would be a face-to-face dialogue of forgiveness. You can see the other person's expression and, if all goes well, you can receive a physical manifestation of forgiveness by the strength of a hug or the flow of tears.

The less than ideal situation would be a telephone conversation or a handwritten letter signed, sealed and delivered.

What about a text message, email, Twitter, Facebook? What if forgiveness comes in the form of a dozen roses? Or a bundt cake? Chocolate from Godiva?

Let forgiveness begin when the opportunity arises. Just do it. Take the Nike plunge.

Dear friend,

Question: How do you feel about my Internet apology below?

If I put all my friends and family in a large auditorium, and I asked each of you to forgive me for all the things I said or did that offended you, I would be overwhelmed with the capacity of love the exchange would produce. You are my vision as I step into the Day of Atonement with my heart trembling. Forgive me. Pardon me. Accept my apologies. Grant me atonement.

Let the forgiveness virus seep into your computers and provide protection against everyday conflicts and clashes. May you be inscribed in the Book of Forgiveness.

Begin Again? A Rosh Hashanah message

Begin Again?

*“Hey, you, begin again! Again? Again. Again, you’ll see it’s easy. Begin again.”*

*Grace Paley, author*

How easy is it to begin again?

Especially after the loss of a loved one, a financial downturn, a miscarriage, a cancer diagnosis?

How easy is it to begin again?

Not very easy.

And yet, at every moment, through every crisis, we are asked to begin again.

During the Days of Awe, the Jewish prayers remind us of the promise of teshuvah, the powerful possibility of return, renewal and repentance. We are asked to reroute and redirect our lives.

As Rosh Hashanah draws near, we think to ourselves, again? Please, God. Spare me the directions!

The directions come anyway like streams of light in a dark wooded sky.

In order to begin again, we must let go of what we imagined our life to be.

Every morning, I say goodbye to yesterday. I look into the dawn of the present daylight.

What choice do I have?

Shall I return to the deep, dark sleep of the night and stay hidden and
invisible?

Or, shall I dance into the music of life and step into the river of revelation?

I choose to begin again. What will you choose this year?

*Shanah tovah tikateivu,*

*May you be written into the Book of Life again!*

Falling Upward

I lift up my eyes to the mountains anticipating help. Psalm 121

I tripped and fell on a crack in the sidewalk. I scraped my knee and ruined my new pair of Calvin Klein sheer silky taupe pantyhose. I lay on the ground anticipating my next move.

I looked up.

A twenty-something, dressed-for-success man offered me his hand and lifted me up.

He then proceeded to gather the scattered contents of my feminine purse: lip gloss, hand lotion, Kleenex tissues, Trident Bubblegum, and a Chanel make-up compact case with the mirror now broken into tiny fractions. He handled each item with the care of a jeweler counting his diamonds.

There will always be cracks in the road. You will not always see them. Even if you detect them, you may not be able to avoid them. Pavement buckles from the heat. The earth shifts gradually and invisibly.

Chances are the cracks will find you off balance. Pray for diamonds in the sky. Look up.

The fall is temporary if you fall upward!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Wisdom

My mother’s chocolate chip cookies tasted different each time: always delicious but never the same. Each individual cookie varied in the number of chocolate chips it contained. Some had only one. The bigger ones had two or three. If you were lucky, four, and sometimes five, Nestle's Toll House milk chocolate chips could be found embedded deep in the crust of the cookie!

The treasure hunt for chocolate chips became a favorite pastime for all the cousins. My children inherited the same chocolate chip treasure hunt gene. Now the grandchildren, respectfully, call the round, rich-flavored cookies "Bubbe’s cookie," and the search continues from generation to generation.

It took me decades to realize that cookies, like life, are not a uniform endeavor. No two chocolate chip cookies are alike regardless of the intent to make them so.

A jumbo package of Nestle's Toll House Milk Chocolate Chips

A couple of eggs

A dash of salt

Stick of Mother’s Butter

Sugar to taste

As much flour as needed

Roll them, pat them, and form them into small balls.

Carefully select the chocolate chips for each cookie.

Place in the oven on a cookie sheet.

Say a prayer.

Encourage them to grow.

Remove from the oven just before they burn.

Eat your vegetables first.

Cookies are for dessert.

Healing the Past

Do you know what it is like to meet a Holocaust survivor in person?

From the first "hello" you realize that this person knows something that you will never know. You immediately honor the truth of that wisdom.

A few days ago I met one of Dr. Mengele's "twins." Dr. Mengele, a Nazi physician and scientist, singled out Jewish twins as they entered the camps. The young children were housed separately from the other inmates. Eva Moses Kor, together with her twin sister Miriam, were among the physically exploited twins who suffered under Dr. Mengele's inhumane experiments and survived.

Mrs. Kor came to share her wisdom in my class, "The Power of Forgiveness." She outlined the process that enabled her to forgive her perpetrator, Dr. Mengele, and other Nazis.

It took her fifty years to realize that she had "the power to forgive." With that power, she deactivated her victimhood and became free. She released all hurt, resentment and pain. She let go -- and a new life enveloped her.

Today she travels to Germany to listen to the confessions of the Nazis who desperately seek her forgiveness.

Forgiving is the most direct way to heal the wounds of your past. It is practical spirituality.

Practice, practice, practice!

The Robbery

A week ago Friday, my friends and I awoke to find our backpacks (with our money, cell phones, identification, etc.) missing from the condo in which we were spending a few days of rest and relaxation at the beach.

To be robbed is to know that the world is in disrepair.

And that brings pain of another sort:

Money and plastic cards can be replaced but

The loss of innocence again and again is a humbling hurtful happening

Reminding us that the ecstasy of having been in a Garden of Eden

Surrounded by love and God's presence

Is indeed irreplaceable.

I believe in yesterday

It was dark as we walked toward the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial. People told me to go after sundown to see the lighted benches and to hear the rippling water that ran steadily beneath them.

I obeyed.

At first, the night time walk around the Pentagon building seemed precarious. Where was everyone, and did they know we were strolling around the biggest military repository of information looking for the memorial? I felt so insignificant next to this flattened construction, but when we reached the memorial and saw the rows and rows of benches shaped like wings in front of us, a deep well of awe elevated my being.

The cool summer breezes rustled the crape myrtle leaves and whispered in every language the words of sanctification.

Holy, holy holy. Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh.

You who are the God of all the Units.

Forgive us our trespassing as we traverse our tragedies.

Names written, ages honored, space given to remember what happened here nine years ago.

Some names we knew. Others we knew of.

Something wasn't right, I declared to my friend Toby. Why this big grassy area? Did they leave something out?

Oh, no, she said. There is a space between the three-year-old child who died and the children who were in their teens. There is a gap that does not need to be filled. The rows of benches were designed according to the year the person was born.

We sat on the edge of the memorial looking out into the distant mini-tract lighting beyond time. We saw the calm after the storm of hatred and malice burned us. We came to honor and remember our fellow Americans. We felt a deep longing for yesterday, when all our troubles seemed so far away.