Freud wrote of a repetition compulsion. He thought that we reenact scenes or situations in our lives in an attempt to get a better result. Of course, if we ourselves have not changed, then the outcome will not change. So many of us go on making the same mistakes in new guises, wondering why things never seem to improve.
The essays in this wonderful booklet are about how to repeat the past differently, about how we ourselves can be different. Our souls need not be static. In the Torah, years after a bitter break, Jacob reencounters his brother Esau, and the meeting ends not inrecrimination, but in reconciliation and in tears. It changed
repetition into encounter.
What was your moment? Was there a time that you could revisit and relive as a lodestar for progress When I am tempted to despair, I recall certain moments that remind me I am lucky to be alive — like the moment my daughter was born, and the revisiting of that moment when I see her, eloquent and insightful, writing in this very booklet.
God, the prayers tell us, renews creation every day. We too can be renewed each day. Reach into your past to change your future. These wise meditations will help point the way.
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