{"id":25916,"date":"2015-09-11T03:40:17","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T09:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=25916"},"modified":"2015-09-11T03:41:14","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T09:41:14","slug":"sorry-is-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/sorry-is-not-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sorry’ is not enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Ted_Roberts\"

To put it plainly, New Year\u2019s Eve to your Christian friends may be an office party with wine, stolen kisses and shrill music that drowns the clarion call of the shofar. Rosh Hashanah is both private and public sober meditation, as serious as death. You can tell it\u2019s Rosh Hashanah even without a calendar when Jewish faces go serious – when Jewish eyes are not smiling.<\/p>\n

In both religions we reexamine our behavior \u2013 note our lapses and vow to improve our moral balance. But in Judaism, ceremony and symbolism take the throne. The environment is much more regal. After all, we are asking of this shofar-announced first day of the year to come \u2013 the king of days, so to speak \u2013 mercy and goodness.<\/p>\n

And above all, life.<\/p>\n

May that lump on your leg be benign. May Bennie turn a dark corner and find through honest labor the means to feed his family. We attempt to woo good fortune with a shofar blast, the bugle call of the Jewish warrior. We give tzedakah\u00a0<\/em>(charity). We fling away our sins, contemptuous of our selfish errors of the past. This is the first bright, shining day of the year to come. Repent! so that the year to come will reflect the life to come, sweet as the honey in which we dipped our challah.<\/p>\n

And if we were a bit morally careless during the previous year, we bear down hard on the ten-day interval leading to Yom Kippur. We must be as angelic as a human can be so that we are properly inscribed in the Book of Life \u2013 and please, Sir, spell my name right. It\u2019s one \u201cb\u201d, not two.<\/p>\n

Forgiveness depends not only on repentance, but also on restitution. If I burned down my neighbor\u2019s house, I must rebuild it. \u201cSorry\u201d is not enough. I must repay my debts of insult, deceit, and thievery and violence. And to be heretical for a moment (rabbis, read no further) it IS<\/u> vulgar, but NOT<\/u> a sin to lust after your neighbor\u2019s wife, who looks like Jennifer Lopez. So long as you suppress your evil inclination and take no action on your devilish desire, that is.<\/p>\n

Deeds, deeds, Judaism is all about deeds.<\/p>\n

\"Share