All Things in Moderation

A good and sweet year to you all.

Today is a happy celebration for me and my family. But it begins the ten days of penitence, in which I am to find the people I mistreated during the previous year and ask their forgiveness. I am to do this so that I can seek God’s forgiveness ten days from now on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. If I have not honestly sought forgiveness from those I have injured first then it is thought my prayers for forgiveness to God will not be heard.

This exercise has been mirrored in the Twelve Steps of AA, btw.

Let me add that I have only once seriously pursued this outside my family and close friends in 69 years. It is difficult, and not so much for the reason one would anticipate, the discomfort in making the request. It is difficult because we never know whom we mistreated inadvertently unless they tell us, and then we clean it up at the time, as best we can. Further, it is difficult to recall whom we mistreated purposefully if the emotion that caused the outburst or action is long gone, or if we don’t think of what we did as “mistreatment” at all.

We only trade words here, so I do not recall mistreating any of you save one, and that was inadvertent. I offered my regret at the time. You are welcome to correct me on my faulty memory of mistreatment of others by email to me.

In the Jewish version, it is unnecessary that the the one I mistreated forgives me. It is, however, required that the request by me be sincere.

Filed under: religion |