Your mind sits, alone, in an empty room. Hovering before you is your life’s work. It is a sculpture you have been creating and molding since you were born. You, for the first time, see the sculpture. You, for the first time, behold its true beauty, or naked hideousness, in its entirety. You built the sculpture with the clay of action, your conscious serving as the sculptor. For the first time you are beholding the sculpture without the mental self defenses that had shielded your mind from what ugliness it may have contained.
Your actions towards G-d are among those that make up the material of the sculpture. Where your actions were good, and where you are proud of them, beauty can be seen. However, where your actions were shameful, you see ugliness in the work. Where they were evil, the sculpture reflects hideousness. Had you asked forgiveness, from G-d, for those sins, and done Teshuvah for them, the shameful ugliness of them would have vanished from the sculpture. Only the beautiful would have remained.
But your actions towards G-d are not the only ones that make up the sculpture. Your actions towards man are a part of it as well. As with the sins against G-d, had you received forgiveness from your fellow man, for your sins against him, the ugliness born of those actions would not hover before you. Erased from your conscious, they would have disappeared from the work. Only the proud beauty of your other actions would have remained.
You will stay in the room.
If you had purged the ugliness, pride will flow through your soul as you behold the beauty that is your life, until the time of Moshiach.
If, however, you failed to purge the hideousness, it will remain in the sculpture. If you fail to receive forgiveness for your sins, both those against man, and those against G-d, you will remain with them, unable to pull your eyes from their hideousness. If you failed to receive forgiveness, you will remain with your sins, shame overflowing your soul, until the time of the Moshiach.
It is said that the Rasha will be the first in line when Moshiach comes. This is not because he is pompous, or pushes ahead in the line. Rather, it is because he has done enough sincere Teshuvah, after death, to merit such an honored place.
It is during the Aseret Yemai Teshuvah that we try to purge our lives’ sculptures of their ugliness. With regards to our actions towards God, we must each follow our own path. But with regards to our actions towards our fellow man, we must seek out forgiveness where we can. Thus, I am asking the random group of people I have e-mailed, to forgive me for my actions towards them. A E-mail response would be appreciated.
Of course, I forgive all of you, and pretty much everybody on this nice little blue and green globe of ours, for whatever they have done to me.
L’shana Tova!
Joseph Cox