God gives free will. It is up to us to use it responsibly.
Good morning. Now for a quick Devar Torah.
Every morning during this period, we come to the synagogue a little earlier to say Selichot. The word Selichot roughly means “forgiveness” or “pardons.” We are asking God for forgiveness, but we are also doing something else: we are trying to wake ourselves up.
We are looking back at the past year and recognizing that we made mistakes.
We are human. Human beings make mistakes. All of us do. The important question is not whether we made mistakes. The important question is whether we recognize them and what we intend to do about them.
And there is a tremendous lesson here about how we make the world a better place.
We often hear people talk about changing the world. They want to change society, change institutions, change governments, or create some kind of perfect society. But Judaism begins somewhere much closer to home.
If you want to make the world better, begin by making yourself better.
Ask yourself: Where did I fail this past year? Whom did I hurt? Where could I have behaved differently? Where could I have been more patient, more generous, more honest, more understanding? And, most importantly, what can I do differently in the coming year?
We cannot force another person to become better. Judaism places enormous importance on free will. God gives us the freedom to choose between right and wrong.
But freedom is not the absence of responsibility.
In fact, with freedom comes responsibility.
If I have free will, then my choices belong to me. I cannot simply blame someone else for what I have done. I am responsible for my actions, and ultimately I am responsible before God.
Pirkei Avot teaches:
“Know from where you came, where you are going, and before Whom you are destined to give an accounting.”
We came from something insignificant. Eventually, every human being returns to the earth. Yet between those two points, our lives matter enormously.
And perhaps that is the remarkable part.
Compared with the Creator of the universe, what are we? We are tiny. And yet God considers every human being important enough to give us free will—and important enough to hold us accountable for how we use it.
That is what Selichot asks us to think about.
Don’t begin by asking how everyone else should change.
Begin with yourself.
If I become a little kinder, a little more honest, a little more patient, a little more responsible, then I have already made the world a little better. And perhaps someone else will see that example and decide to do the same.
God gives us freedom.
What we do with that freedom is our responsibility.
Something to think about.
Leave a Reply