Week 3: Response from
Rabbi Marc Fitzerman
There is a kind of holistic rigor in Maimonides' approach that affirms the importance of complete engagement, body and soul, heart and mind. We live most of our lives in a state of fragmentation, torn from easy discourse with one another and hammered by the competing needs of the moment. Maimonides insists that there are developmental tasks that require an encompassing mobilization of the spirit. It is not enough to act in one domain only, to take care of the mechanical business of "making things right." In sins involving other human beings, it's essential to go beyond the borders of reparation and attend to whole of the other person by bringing the whole of oneself to bear on the process.

Maimonides acknowledges that this will not be easy. True repentance is a sweaty business. I have frequently tried to do what the sages suggest, only to meet with the resistance of those I have harmed. In the chaotic world of human emotions, we sometimes trigger responses of naked ferocity. "Death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Proverbs 18:21). Adult experience is clear on this point: hard words reverberate after other sounds die, a persistent echo, a ringing in the ears. There are words I have spoken in anger or in error that will follow me forever, like curs in an alleyway.

What I especially value here is Maimonides' sense of limits. There comes a point when enough is enough; when earnest confession, the attempt to placate, threaten to devolve into self-humiliation. We should not be allowed to collaborate in our own indignity. If the other is adamant, we should honor the refusal, and step away from it, refusing to be victimized in turn. At that point responsibility is shifted, and we can exit the exchange feeling released and clean. Nothing is perfect; the Other is still angry and unyielding, but Maimonides suggests that there is no shame in that. In the territory of the heart, that is perfection enough, and an essential step forward in the process of restoration.

Congregation B'nai Emunah -- Tulsa, Oklahoma