Dear Ahavat Achim Family:
The Book of Second Samuel, chapter eleven, tells us a tale of deep
moral lapse on the part of King David. This is the Bathsheba incident,
when he sleeps with the wife of one of his oldest soldier-buddies, Uriah.
She gets pregnant. David gets leave for Uriah to come home to his wife,
so that hopefully none will be the wiser, but Uriah will not enjoy the
comforts of home when his troops are out in the field. Finally, David has
his general Joab send Uriah to his death in the next battle.
David is roundly condemned by the prophet Nathan. The king himself
seems to almost awaken from a dazed state of evil; he is knocked to the
floor in horror and self-loathing with the full realization of what he has
allowed himself to become.
A period of mourning for Uriah... A hasty wedding... The child is born,
but it dies. Bathsheba will have one other child only, but that child will
be Solomon. And this whole sordid tale is introduced in a curious
manner. We learn that it all happens "at the turning of the year."
Consider: it may well have been during the days between Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur that David's most terrible sin was committed. Yet
beyond the cryptic phrase "turning of the year," which refers to this time,
there is no mention made of either of these awe-filled days.
For David (who no doubt sponsored lavish, well-choreographed and
musically brilliant services for the holy days of Tishrei) there was no Yom
Kippur. At the turning of the year, when we are called to turn toward,
David turned away.
But David came to his repentance later, and he had his, albeit delayed,
Yom Kippur. The text tells us that after terrible contrition, God forgave
his beloved. The rabbis explain: it was because his t'shuvah was
powered by a might and a passion as great as was his passion in the sin
itself. No greater? Should it not have been a greater passion?
Is there indeed a greater passion than that which motivates sin of this
sort? God created the human spirit and knows its measure, even if we
still merely guess at it. T'shuvah need not be empowered more
passionately than the sins we repent. As passionately will do. The
passion with which we stray is quite enough.
A great rebbe once advised his students, "Fear God as greatly as you
fear the judgments of your fellow human beings." "No more greatly than
that?" asked the students. "That is great enough," answered the rebbe.
"Have you never noticed that when one starts out to do wrong, he or she
looks all around to make sure that nobody sees, but pays no heed to the
One Who Sees?"
From even deep and terrible wrong, a spirit may be turned toward the
One. From even the worst lapse, the worst self-forgetting, a return may
be made. One may have fallen down a hill, but need only walk up that
same hill. No higher. And maybe the true heir of the self will be born.
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
HOURS
Thursdays
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
REMEMBERANCE
Form available Here
Due by September 10
