Return: Daily Inspiration for the Days of Awe

Repentance requires that we love no less, and possibly more, than we did before the distance set in.

Teshuva is a never-ending process because we are always changing and the context of our universe is always shifting.

Recovery is a powerful English word, capturing the emotion of returning in its grandest sense.

many thank yous are really hidden requests for something else, like acknowledgment letters from charities that are really just another solicitation.

If we ask, every day of these ten days, that God balance truth and peace, justice and mercy, on the divine scale when judging us, we, too, must learn how to balance the scales.

the capacity to encompass the entire range of your human experience without hardening or closing yourself. It means that even in the midst of disappointment and defeat, you remain connected to people and to the sources of your most profound purposes.

Without meditating on wrongdoing or believing that repentance is possible, we allow our lives to move in only one direction: the spiral of descent.

repentance had to be discovered. It was neither instinctive nor assumed.

We do not wait for a generous impulse to give or to help others. That impulse may never surface, but if the world is built on kindness (Psalms 89:3) then enforced behaviors, witnessed and supported by communities of caring, help us manage our worst selves to bring out our best selves.