redemption

I visited a seventy-two year old diabetic preparing for surgery to remove his toe with gangrene. We talked about his life, and he declared again and again, "It's no good. It's no good." It seemed to him that his life didn't amount to much. The happiest moment he could remember was winning a $20 bet during the Ford administration.

He told me that God had never found him a girlfriend or wife, and he would die lonely. When I pushed to find out what he had done to improve his life, he couldn't think of anything. I wondered afterward if he was paralyzed by his age, and felt that it was too late to make things better.

Was it like the junkie who stole his brother's silver, cleans up, but still feels too ashamed to come back 'round while he's in recovery? For all of them, I say we can always make amends, and improve ourselves.That's the moral of Jesus' parable of the prodigal son: it's never too late. Even at seventy-two, we can't let shame paralyze us. Our lives can still be redeemed.

The Talmud (Avodah Zara 17a) tells about the last days of Elazar ben Durdaya, “a man who had sought out every whore in the world.” He searched the earth to beg mercy for himself and no one would; in the end “He placed his head between his knees and cried bitterly until he expired. At that moment a voice from heaven declared ‘Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya has been received in the world to come.’" Sometimes, it seems that we can never repent for our misdeeds. The simple truth is that we can.

And when we finally make the effort, God is ready for our repentance. We should not be ashamed, for God calls us to be redeemed: “Go as far as you are able, and I will come the rest of the way to you.” God meets us half-way in the act of redemption, and our lives can have fresh value.

Then, if we're truly blessed, we can bring redemption forward, through good deeds, teaching and advocacy. The shape of our lives becomes new meaning we add to the world. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “It is by lives that the world will be redeemed.” If we each choose value and testify to it with every last muscle, bone, and blood vessel, that will be our redemption.