Bedtime Prayer of Forgiveness

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Rabbi Michael Lerner rabbilerner

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Bedtime Prayer of Forgiveness

Sun, 27 Jun 2004 10:36:20 -0400 (EDT)

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Tikkun

June 14, 2004

Shalom and Salaam and summer greetings!

A central message of the Tikkun Community is that

inner healing and transformation is an important

element in, though not the totality of, the social,

economic and political transformation of the world.

I thought I'd share with you a prayer that I use

each evening before I go to sleep. Perhaps you might

want to use this prayer, or modify it in any way

that fits for you (for example, eliminate the prayer

element and turn it into a before-sleep meditatin).

If you decide to use it, then after using it for a

few months, tell me if it has had any positive

impact in your life! It has been a powerful tool for

me in getting through the past years when the events

in the larger world might have made it hard for me

to get to sleep at night, by helping me transform

the righteous indignation I'd been feeling during

the day into a sense of compassion for others as I

contemplated the ways that I, too, might have gone

astray. Of course, prayer is not a form that works

for everyone--and I admit to being very

uncomfortable with any notion that suggests that

there is a God who is a cosmic bellhop waiting to

take our orders if only we say them with the right

words (to paraphrase my teacher Abraham Joshua

Heschel). But prayer can also work when one thinks

of God as I do--as the Force of Healing and

Transformation in the Universe, the Force that makes

possible the transformation from That Which Is to

That Which Ought to Be, the Force that makes

possible the transcendence of the repetition

compulsion (these ideas are developed in my book

Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and

Transformation, and they are not just for Jews, but

for anyone thinking about God or the meaning of life

or about the spiritual reality of the universe, but

that's not what I'm writing about, so lets get back

to this particular prayer, which you can use in any

way that seems fitting to you--it is based on a

rendition from Hebrew by my teacher Rabbi Zalman

Schachter Shalomi).

Bedtime Prayer of Forgiveness

YOU, my ETERNAL FRIEND, WITNESS now that I forgive anyone

who hurt or upset me or who offended me--

damaging my body, my property, my reputation or people that I love;

whether by accident or purposely;

with words, deeds, thoughts or attitudes.

I forgive every person who has hurt or upset me.

May no one be punished because of me. May no one

suffer from karmic consequences for hurting or

upsetting me.

Help me, Eternal Friend, to keep from offending You and others.

Help me to be thoughtful and not commit outrage

by doing what is evil in Your eyes.

Whatever sins I have committed, blot out, please,

in Your abundant kindness, and spare me suffering or

harmfulillnesses. Help me become aware of the ways I

may have unintentionally or intentionally hurt

others, and

please giveme guidance and strength to rectify those

hurts and to develop the sensitivity to not continue

acting in a

hurtful way.

Let me forgive others, let me forgive myself, but

also let me

change in ways that make it easy for me to avoid

paths of

hurtfulness to others.

I seek peace, let me BE peace.

I seek justice, let me be just.

I seek a world of kindness, let me be kind.

I seek a world of generosity, let me be generous

with all that I have. I seek a world of sharing, let

me share all that I have.

I seek a world of giving, let me be giving to all

around me. I seek a world of love, let me be loving beyond all

reason, beyond all normal expectation, beyond all

societal frameworks that tell me how much love is

"normal," beyond all fear that giving too much love

will leave me with too little. And let me be open

and sensitive to all the love that is already coming

to me, the love of people I know, the love that is

part of the human condition, the accumulated love of

past generations that flows through and is embodied

in the language, music, recipes, technology,

literature, religions, agriculture, and family

heritages that have been passed on to me and to us.

Let me pass that love on to the next generations in

an even fuller and more explicit way.

Source of goodness and love in the universe, let me

be alive to all the goodness that surrounds me. And

let that awareness of the goodness and love of the

universe be my shield and protector. Hear the words

of my mouth and may the meditations of my heart find

acceptance before You, Eternal Friend, who protects

and frees me.

Amen.

The Tikkun Community

There are many orthodox atheists in our community

who might mistakenly think that by suggesting a

prayer I'm challenging their worldview. I don't mean

to be entering into such a dispute, but only

intending to offer something that may be of value no

matter what your metaphysical commitments. This is a

spiritual practice--try it, and you may find it

useful. If not, not. But forgive me if in any way

the suggestion of the usefulness of this prayer

offends you or makes you feel uncomfortable. In my

own synagogue there are many people who tell me that

they don't believe in God, but nevertheless feel

comfortable praying in the way that we do so in Beyt

Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco, in part because

we start each service by making clear that the

vision of a God as a big man in heaven looking down

and judging us is not the way we think, and so we

give permission to people at the start of every

service to stop worrying about the God that they

don't believe in so that they can have space to find

whatever spiritual truth is true for them. If you

want to share high holidays with us this year in

September, you are certainly invited to do so--go to

www.BeytTikkun.org to find details.

Many blessings to you and all who seek a world of

love, kindness, peace, social justice, ecological

sanity and generosity.

May peace prevail on earth and let it begin with you and me.

Rabbi Michael Lerner

Tikkun

 

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