Quotes

“Teshuvah means I can take risks, knowing that I may fail but knowing that failure is not final. Time and again Moses failed to engender in his people a clear sense of history and destiny, even a basic gratitude for what God had done for them. But failing a hundred times does not make a failure. Indeed in God’s eyes none of us is a failure so long as we still have breath to breathe and a life to live. Teshuvah means that if I get it wrong and make mistakes, God does not lose faith in me even though I may lose faith in myself…That alone is a life-changing fact if we fully open ourselves to its implications. Teshuvah means that the past is not irredeemable… [it] means that from every mistake, I grow. There is no failure I experience that does not make me a deeper human being; no challenge I accept, however much I fall short, that does not develop in me strengths I would not otherwise have had.”

Ceremony & Celebration p. 88