Regret and Hope
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Neither Peres, nor any one of us knows what the future holds. I have no doubt that he, like all of us, has a list of that which should have been done differently. But Peres’ answer strikes me as profoundly Jewish in formulation, because in it he acknowledges the choice that each one of us has as to how we relate to the past and approach the future. We could, if we wanted, live like that Harry Chapin song, mourning lost opportunities that can never be retrieved. We could, if we wanted, live with a perpetually wounded sensibility, believing that it is just a matter of time before we are hurt again. I believe that Judaism’s outstanding contribution to the landscape of religious sentiment is its contention that no matter what happened in the past, the best part of the narrative is yet to come. Every time a Jew prays, every time we recite the amidah, we return to the banks of the sea and stand on the cusp of redemption. Of course we remember the Exodus as an act of collective memory, that we were once slaves set free by God’s mighty hand. But more than preservation of the historical occurrence, it is the anticipation of redemption that is being cultivated. Our very liturgy reminds us that you and I, each and every one of us, every single day, exist forever with the best part of our story in front of us.
Everywhere you look in Jewish life, we return to this idea. I have spoken before of this past week’s little known observance of Pesah Sheni (Numbers 9), the second Passover. It was instituted in response to the request of a group of Israelites who had been unable to offer the Pascal offering on the appointed date. That a make-up date was extended to them at all is curious enough, but as Simeon Chavel of University of Chicago explains in his study on the subject, what is really remarkable is that the make-up date is codified for the generations. Not just the Israelites of the desert generation, but every generation is extended the chance for a second chance.
Perhaps the most famous text on this subject comes from Maimonides, who in the second chapter of his Laws on Repentance rhetorically inquires at what point someone has fully atoned for a past misstep. Famously, the answer is that full atonement is achieved when and only when a person finds him- or herself in precisely the same situation in which the initial act was committed, has the opportunity to commit the deed again, and nevertheless abstains from doing so. (2:1) The text is not without its problems. How and why in the world could or would a person thrust him- or herself back in the same position to make the mistake again? Fair enough. But what should not be missed is that Maimonides operated under the presumption that our imperfect individual could be extended a second chance. A misdeed does not eclipse the totality of a person’s humanity, and it certainly does not preclude him or her from having a future.
There are wrongs in this world that cannot be righted and there are losses that cannot be recouped no matter what we do. But to be a Jew means that you live your life facing forward – towards redemption. “I believe, in perfect faith,” wrote Maimonides in the twelfth of his thirteen principles of faith, “in the coming of the Messiah, and though he may tarry [im kol zeh] I await him every day.” You may or may not be theologically inclined, but anyone who knows the story of our people, knows that for two thousand years it was the yearning for Zion, the tikvah – the hope, against all odds and logic – that kept our people together. The Talmud explains that when we arrive in the heavens for our final accounting, one of the questions we will be asked by the Holy Blessed One will be Tzipita lishua? “Did you hope for redemption?” In other words, do you believe that each and every day brings with it the possibility for renewal, that we – you and I – have the Godlike capacity for daily and constant renewal, ha-m’hadesh b’tuvo b’khol yom tamid. Messianic or not, whether we live to see it or not, the conviction that things will get better, the notion that hope springs eternal, that there are second chances to be had – these elements are hard-wired into our people’s DNA. As Rabbi Elaine Glickman cites in her recent book on the subject, it was none other than Holocaust survivor Emil Fackenheim who, in writing on the messianic hope, reflected: “…You have to hold onto it even if you can’t say it is going to be…[For] where there is hope there is life. And when there is life there is hope.” (The Messiah and Jews, 116)
There is one detail I left out about my basketball adventure a few weeks ago – how it ended. As I noted, a few decades ago with everyone but me present – Michigan lost. And you know what? This time around, with everyone including me there – Michigan lost. There is never any guarantee, this time, next time, or any time, that things will work out the way we want them to. And while my seats were undoubtedly better than they would have been back then, and it is always good to pick up friendships where they left off, it was a sobering moment when I realized that neither the players on the court nor the students in the stands were even alive that year I missed the game. I don’t regret my decision to go, but fun as it was, the fact still remains that I didn’t go way back when, and nothing I do today can change that. Nevertheless, im kol zeh. there is always next year. In this and in all things, we look forward to the future.
My teacher Rabbi Byron Sherwin shares a story of the Rhiziner Rebbe, who once entered a room to find his students playing checkers. When the students saw their rebbe, they were embarrassed at being caught playing games and not studying Torah. To their surprise, the Rebbe was not angry; rather he said, “I am glad you are playing checkers, because in checkers, you learn something important about life. First, you move only one step at a time. Second, you move only forward, not backward. And finally, when you have reached the highest rung, you can move whichever way you want.” (Crafting the Soul, 204-5)
We are who we are as a result of the things we did or didn’t do. Regret is nothing more than the act of finding retrospective fault in those decisions. To move back, to seek to undo the past is an activity neither possible nor advisable. While it may come with a sting, the recognition that we wish we had done certain things differently need not bind us to a long irretrievable yesteryear. Our past is our wisdom. It is a rudder that steadily guides our present journeys, as we, with our sails filled by the winds of hope, move ever so gently into a bright, unknown and redemptive future.