Sincerely Sorry

Where do anger, jealousy and other troublesome emotions come from?  We think that our emotions mysteriously come to us, and attack us, and force us to go along with their way of thinking and reacting to things.

But the opposite is really true. We go to them! We are actively seeking out all our negative emotions, and we have any number of strategies to help us engineer situations and justifications to enable us to let out all that anger and impatience and frustration on other people – often times on innocent children or a similarly innocent spouse. Maybe it's not a conscious decision, but unconsciously, we are looking for a strategy to unload on our kids, and to feel good for the two seconds of adrenalin release. But then, what happens afterwards? We're going to have tremendous regret, and feelings of guilt.

Spiritually, when we do this, and we have a go at someone else, we've just broken something so precious; not just the trust of that person, but that's person very neshama, their soul. Rabbi Arush teaches in the Garden of Education that we can break someone when we use violent speech or actions. So now, how are we meant to fix that?

In the physical world, we can't fix things so easily. If we break an expensive vase, that's it – it's gone. If we shatter a window, it's simply impossible to pick up all the pieces and to piece the window back together, good as new. When we yell at other people, we are literally breaking the souls, spirits and hearts of the people we supposedly love the most! Fortunately, in the spiritual world there is a way to fix this mess. It's called: repentance.

What does it really mean to repent? Very simply, it means that we come back to G-d. G-d doesn't want oodles of self-persecution and self-affliction. He just wants to see that we're ready to move in the right direction, and to chart a new path for ourselves, even if it's only a millimeter or two… Many of us have trouble believing that these small gestures, these very small movements towards improving ourselves, can really have any value. But if you talk to any golfer, they'll tell you that a millimeter or two when they are teeing off can make all the difference between hitting the hole-in-one or landing in the water.

If we've broken something or someone, we have to say “sorry”- and we have to say it like we mean it, with passion and love, and not just to say the words by rote. We have to say sorry to anyone we hurt, and in particular, we have to say sorry to our own kids and spouses.  

Our hearts know how we can be a good parent and a good spouse. Whatever our background, whatever our circumstances and issues, G-d gave each and every one of us the ability to have healthy, normal, loving relationships. How do I know that? Because G-d simply wouldn’t send us down here, with all the challenges we face every day, and all the challenging people and difficult personalities we have to deal with, without the wisdom to know how to handle all these difficult and different relationships.

Heaven is watching and recording everything that we do – but Heaven also has given us the know-how to control our emotions.  It's our job to seek this knowledge out, and to actively incorporate it into our relationships.