You probably think that there isn’t anything that an impending presidential election might have to say to us about the aseres yimei teshuvah. Ah, but there is.
Those of us old enough to have been observers of politics back in 2004 might recall the now largely-forgotten “Dean Scream.” Howard Dean, then the governor of Vermont, was seeking the Democratic nomination for President. He blew his chances in a matter of seconds.
It was at the end of an address that, in an attempt to show his enthusiasm, he let loose a roar somewhere between a jihadi war cry and a leafblower. That decision to express himself in that way left the public – a public that, at the time, still expected a degree of decorum from candidates – wide-eyed with something other than wonder. Some called it the candidate’s “I Have a Scream” speech.
Then there were other blown-in-a-moment presidential campaigns, like that of Maine governor and four-term Senator Edmund Muskie, who, in 1972, defending his wife’s reputation, seemed to shed tears, which some American voters felt disqualified him. There was also Gary Hart’s 1988 marital indiscretion (ah, times were so different back then) and, the same year, Michael Dukakis’s donning of an ill-fitting combat helmet, which helped sink his bid for the White House.
See where I’m going? No? Understandable. Let me spell it out.
Every one of us, too, in our personal lives, comes face to face at times with opportunities of our own that, wrongly handled, can lead to places we don’t want to go. And, rightly handled, benefit our spiritual growth.
And we are vying for something much more important than a mere nomination for public office. We’re in the race to fulfill our missions in this world.
In the bustle of everyday life, it is all too easy to forget that decisions we make, sometimes almost unthinkingly, might be crucial ones, that seemingly minor forks in the roads of our lives can, as Robert Frost famously put it, make all the difference.
Seizing an opportunity to do something good changes one’s world. Letting the opportunity go by unaddressed – which is also choice, after all – does the same. Offering an encouraging word can make a great difference. Doing the opposite can be as self-destructive as Howard Dean’s scream.
As Chazal teach us, “One can acquire his universe” – the one that counts: the world-to-come – or, chalilah, “destroy” it “in a single moment.”
We can even, through sheer determination, create our own critical moments. Consider the case of the “conditional husband.”
A Jewish marriage is effected by the proposal of a man to a woman – the declaration of the woman’s kiddushin, or “specialness” to her husband – followed by the acceptance by the woman of a coin or item of worth from her suitor. If the declaration is made on the condition that an assertion is true, the marriage is valid only if the assertion indeed is. Thus, if a man betrothes a woman on the condition that he drives an electric car, or still has his own teeth, unless he does, they aren’t married.
The Gemara teaches that if a man conditions his offer of marriage on the fact that he is “a tzaddik,” even if the fellow’s reputation isn’t flawless, the marriage must be assumed to be valid (and requires a gett to dissolve it).
Why? Because the man “may have contemplated teshuvah” just before his proposal.
That determined choice of a moment, in other words, if sincere, would have transformed the man completely, placed him on an entirely new life-road. The lesson is obvious: Each of us can transform himself or herself – at any point we choose – through sheer, sincere will.
And potentially transformative situations that present themselves are hardly uncommon. When we make a decision about where to live or what shul to attend – not to mention more obviously critical decisions like whom to marry or which schools our children will attend – we are defining our futures, and those of others. We do ourselves well when we recognize the import of our decisions, and accord them the gravity they are due.
Ksiva vachasima tovah!
© 2024 Ami Magazine