As we are about to enter the new year many of us reflect on the year just past. Especially as it affected each of us individually. There is not a man among us that has not sinned. And on the first day of the year God judges us and determines our fate for the year to come.
The great gift from God is Teshuva. It is this important element of Judaism that gives us the opportunity to avoid the negative consequences of even our willful sins. Both in this world and in the next.
This is why many of us have spent extra time on prayer this past week saying Selichos. We admit out sins supplicate God, the Ultimate Merciful One, to grant us forgiveness out of pure grace. Even if we may not merit it on our own. And we continue to do so through Yom Kippur and on Hoshana Rabba.
One of the biggest problems facing the Jewish world today is in the area of belief. The Torah spends a great deal of time warning us about idol worship. Something that has no real attraction to the vast majority of us.That does not however mean we have overcome veering away from belief in God. In our day the danger is NOT other gods, but denial of ANY God.
I believe that in our day - more Jews go OTD because of doubts about God’s existence than at any other time in history.
Denial of God is a pervasive issue. It is almost impossible not to be aware of it. Does that mean that if anyone has a fleeting heretical thought, they are doomed for life (and an afterlife)?
The answer to that is no. *No less a great figure than the Chofetz Chaim addressed that very issue. He stated categorically that there is not Jew alive that hasn’t had such a thought. Those thoughts are NOT punished. What IS punished is when those thought become your philosophy.
This, says the Chofetz Chaim, is what verses in Yesterday’s Parsha of Netzavim deal with (Devorim 29: 18-19)
When such a one hears the words of these sanctions, he may think to himself immune, thinking, “I shall be safe, though I follow my own willful heart”—adding the thirsty after the drunk.
God will not be willing to forgive him; God’s anger will rage against that man, till every curse written in this book rests upon him… and God will erase his name from under heaven.
It is when one says to himself that “I shall be safe, though I follow my own willful heart” that God’s wrath is kindled. However, in His infinite mercy God forgives the fleeting heretical thought.
At this point I wish to ask Mechila (forgiveness) from anyone that I might have in some way hurt whether intentionally or unintentionally. I cannot ask God for forgiveness without asking for it first from those I have hurt.
In that spirit it is without any reservation that I completely forgive anyone that hurt me.
I wish everyone a happy and healthy new year illed with much joy and happiness. May all of our prayers be answered.
*Dvar Torah adapted from Torah L'Daas