A Forty Year Old "Ghost"

We hear a lot today about school “bullies.” Do you ever wonder if they feel bad about this when they grow up?

I haven’t, which is especially ironic right now. Recently my high school class from Mississippi has virtually all reconnected on Facebook. Some of these are the same folk who -- decades ago -- did pick my best friend and me.

As I reconnected with my old classmates, the old stuff didn’t matter. Who was nice to me, who wasn’t nice to me – hasn’t mattered for decades. We are all different people now – tied together by a common past.

I have good memories of Clarksdale; they’re related to my friends, my family, our Temple … and definitely include driving with friends to the Mississippi River to enjoy the peace and quiet, to read, to talk. Teasing? Those memories have long faded.

And so … imagine my surprise when I recently received a note of apology from a “girl” in my class! Okay, she’s not a girl anymore.

Here’s what “Becky” – not her real name, wrote: “I often think how mean some of us girls were to you and Nancy back in high school... it gives me great shame. I am glad to see you well and with such a nice family!”

She wrote this to me nearly 40 years after the teasing, and mere days before Rosh Hashanah. Becky is a Christian, she didn’t realize her incredible timing, that part of our holiday preparation is to make things right with people we have hurt.

… I was moved … incredibly moved … to hear from her.

While for me, her memory of cruelty was only small part of a chapter of a time that was mostly good. To Becky, it was a dark memory that brought with it a lot of regret and shame.

When I connected with the class, it never occurred to me that anyone in that group ever gave a second thought to those days and attitudes. After all, the Clarksdale High Facebook class of ’68 now consists of – well, you do the math, we’re not teenagers anymore! It was so long ago. Who cares at this point?

Becky cares. She did something she felt was wrong and has felt badly for years.
I wrote back: “Becky, that was so long ago, none of us are the same. We learn from all our experiences. But that was such a nice thing to say. Thank you so much. It's a wonderful thought to take into our holidays. May God bless us all.”
Then I dashed off a second note: “Life is all about change and returning, always, coming closer to God. Our beliefs are different, but our God is the same. Your timing was amazing.”

Becky graphically demonstrated that when we do wrong things, our choices are limited.

Among them:
1. deny or rationalize our actions. If we do that, correction is impossible.
2. admit our mistakes and try to make amends.

If we do the latter, we don’t have to carry around guilt and shame. We can wipe it away, cleanse our souls, and embrace the Holy One with joy.
Until death shuts the final door, it’s never too late to do this in any relationship.

For the well-being of our souls, it is vitally important to ‘fess up to things we did wrong. Sometimes it takes us a while to recognize these actions were wrong.
Rabbi Abraham Twerski discusses this in his latest book A Formula for Proper Living. He points out that we should never defend our mistakes. Doing so results in our lying – to others, to ourselves.

Rabbi Twerski cites the example of the great Hasidic master, the Baal Shem Tov, who taught: “The world is a mirror. Inasmuch as a person is blind to one’s own faults, God arranged it to see them in other people. The defects you see in others are your own.”

Take a moment now to look around. … do you see people who annoy you? … When we go home, we should take another look in the mirror. There’s a really good chance that we do the same annoying ourselves…

No one likes to see character defects in himself. We find ways to rationalize or lay the blame elsewhere. Like small children, we say: it wasn’t my fault!

Or even worse – it was someone else’s fault.

Rabbi Twerski illustrates this with a Peanuts cartoon.

Peppermint Patty, a child infamous or not doing her homework, called Charlie Brown. She said: “I failed again, Chuck, and it’s all your fault.”

Charlie Brown is dumbfounded. “My fault?”

Patty’s answer: “I need someone to blame.”

Blaming others is irresistible. In the short run, it’s easier than saying: I did this.

In the long run, when we blame others – when we do not take personal responsibility – we lay extra burdens on our souls.

Blaming others is a way to avoid looking in the mirror.

This concept showed up two thousand years ago in the Talmud (Kiddushin 70a): “And Samuel said: With his own blemish he stigmatizes [others] as unfit.”
When we see faults in others, we must consider that we could have the very same faults!

Hasidic literature is replete with tales on this subject.

Here’s another one from the Baal Shem Tov. He once saw a person violate Shabbat. We don’t know how the person violated Shabbat. That isn’t important to our story. The important part? The Baal Shem Tov noticed. He was distressed. He felt sure that he, the Baal Shem must have done the same thing. If he hadn’t personally – unwittingly even -- violated Shabbat, it wouldn’t be on his radar screen. He was sure that otherwise, he wouldn’t have noticed. Even though he couldn’t remember what he did, he prayed and begged God’s forgiveness.

He took seriously the notion of our souls as mirrors.

So must we.

Rabbi Twerski explained that people can see the same objects but give different descriptions. They are drawn to see the object in a particular light. Why? Their psychological needs drive them.

However, this is not hopeless. This mirror is important!

Becky looked in a mirror and saw her actions as mean. She said that without qualification, without rationalizing, without blaming anyone.

Recognizing that what we did wrong – without qualification, without making excuses - is the only way we can correct our lives and turn them around. But please understand, while we must be honest – while we must admit error, we don’t have to feel shame! Why not? Because in most cases, we can correct – or mitigate – those mistakes.

Just as importantly, while we must see the bad, when we look at our soul in the mirror and we can and absolutely SHOULD see goodness as well. If we look closely, we will see things to fix. Just as if we look closely at others and find things to criticize, we must ask ourselves – are we guilty of the same thing?
The answer is: probably.

But if we do recognize a problem, we can – we must – take steps to fix it.
Whether or not we see flaws in ourselves … if we have wronged others … if we have wronged Hashem – these things will lay on our souls like heavy rocks.

Recognizing our own errors – our sins – is embarrassing to ourselves, even more so when we admit them to others. It makes us vulnerable. For all Becky knew, I could have responded by saying: that’s right, you were mean back then, you should be sorry.
That’s a chance we have to take if we are to keep our own souls on the right path.

Whether or not our confession leads to a positive response from others, the important issue is what it does for US – it cleanses us and allows us to stop carrying around the weight of our own wrongdoing.

This release allows us to take a better look at our strengths. Rabbi Twerski points out that it’s equally important for us to be aware of our own potential and to capitalize on it. These assets are divine gifts!
Even at that, our strengths must be actively used for goodness. Listen to this gem from the Talmud:

1. The world is judged according to the status of the majority of its population. If the majority is sinful, God judges us poorly. If the world is meritorious, God judges us well.
In today’s world, this is definitely scary! However, we cannot forget, it only takes one act of goodness to tip the world’s balance toward blessing.
The second part is equally important, to each one of us and to the world:
2. Each person is judged according to the majority of his or her good or bad acts. For our own souls, one act of goodness tips the scales in our favor.
Therefore, imagine the world as equally balanced between good and evil, and your soul the same way. One good deed can make a difference – not just for you, but for the whole world.

With this in mind, we return to my conversation with Becky.

Becky’s letter removed a weight from her soul that she has carried for years. More importantly, that one act increased the likelihood that she will treat people with greater kindness. Even better, her example will serve as a beacon to others to act and speak kindly. If they realize they are being unkind, they will learn from Becky how to make things right.

After all is said and done, Becky has to be an innately good person: an uncaring person in her fifties would hardly be troubled by actions from their teen years.
For me, it was an amazing spiritual boost and a revelation about people’s goodness.
My prayer for myself – for all of us – is that when we look at others, that we make an effort to seek out goodness. May the Almighty help us to know that the flaws we see in others are actually embedded in ourselves.

We call about His might and grace to help us seek the good in others – and in ourselves – that we might bring about a world rooted in His love.






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