The Persuasion We Often Overlook: Ourselves

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change

Welcome to my first Persuasion Pearls on Substack!

In our quest to persuade, we often overlook the toughest target: ourselves. But what if the real challenge is to Think Again about our own deeply held beliefs, rather than trying to convince someone else to change their mind?

This was the question I grappled with as I faced my father’s mortality. The close bond we’d enjoyed throughout my childhood became strained after his remarriage, leaving me with complicated emotions.

I believe that holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to get sick. But forgiveness isn’t easy, especially when mutual apologies aren’t forthcoming.

So, how do we forgive amid pain? How do we move forward without denying the past?

This post — To Forgive Is Not to Forget but to Remember Differently — recounts how I answered these questions. It’s from a sermon I gave last Rosh Hashanah amid an ordeal that began immediately after my father’s passing. The ordeal intensified the following week, prompting my Yom Kippur sermon — Six Insights to Cope Through Crisis — which I’ll be posting next.

I share my story knowing others face similar struggles. I hope they too might find strength, clarity, and even serenity by following the theme of this newsletter — Think Again….you might change your mind.

In thinking again, I experienced what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks observed, that “the deepest crises of your life can turn out to be the moments when you encounter the deepest truths and acquire your greatest strengths.”

So wise!

And for her wisdom, I thank another rabbi (in training), Hilary Cohen, who’s been my partner in cultivating a High Holiday spiritual community which we call Temple HilMel.

Everyone has a story with lessons, so I hope I get to read some of yours in the comments below!

---

To Forgive Is Not to Forget, But to Remember Differently

It’s been a hell of a year since we last met, and I mean that literally. As if global issues weren’t overwhelming enough, many have been challenged personally over the last year.

So, I’d like to share how the wisdom I’ve gleaned from Temple HilMel — Hilary’s readings, our group discussions and my sermon preparations – equipped me to handle my life’s most vexing situation – the tumultuous relationship with my dad, who passed away on August 17^th.

For our Temple HilMel regulars, you may recall three readings about forgiveness.

In the first, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks encourages forgiveness because to hold resentment is like drinking poison while expecting someone else to die. The moral: don’t drink the poison.

In the second, Rabbi Brad Artson cites Holocaust survivor Simon Weisenthal who was asked by his guards for forgiveness. Wiesenthal declined. The moral: certain acts are unforgivable.

The third by Rabbi David Wolpe strikes a middle-ground. Agreeing that you shouldn’t drink poison, Wolpe insists that when forgiving, it’s reasonable to expect a change in their behavior. The moral: Absent change, adjust your expectations to avoid resentment.

It took a couple of years, but I finally figured out how to apply these forgiveness lessons to my dad.

It’s hard to describe my sense of loss after my dad married his wife 36 years ago and adopted the narrative that his first family was a failure from which his second family needed insulation. And so I was excluded from everything that mattered most to him -- everything.

I grew up adoring my father, and he adored and cultivated me. But in fighting their narrative, I further entrenched it, proving to them that I was indeed a problem child from the failed marriage.

Two years ago, I finally broke free of the narrative.

Though not on speaking terms at the time, I’d heard my dad might have cancer. I was overwhelmed with guilt. How could I uphold the fifth commandment – honor your father and mother – without talking to my dad? If I couldn’t honor all that he gifted to me, what does that say about me, especially to my son? After all, doesn’t our tradition teach that we sow with our parents what we’ll reap from our children?

So, I called my dad. He was elated, and I was relieved. Turns out, though 90 years old, whatever he had at the time was not life threatening. He asked me to put our disagreements behind us.

Here’s where the forgiveness lessons helped me achieve the serenity that comes from knowing how to fold ‘em when you can no longer hold ‘em.

As Rabbi Wolpe implies, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. So, I adopted two strategies. First, I began to think of my dad as my uncle, from whom one naturally expects less. Second, I began to act like a winsome student class president, which was the advice offered by a family therapist we’d all seen decades prior.

These changes worked, inspiring last year’s sermon about forgiveness: When should we have a long memory like an elephant, and when should we have a short memory like goldfish, which are the happiest creatures according to Ted Lasso because of their 10-second memory span?

I explained the memory distinction with this story:

Once upon a time, two friends found themselves lost while walking through the desert. Exasperated, they began arguing and one friend slapped the other. The one who got slapped said nothing but wrote in the sand, “today my best friend slapped me in the face.” Continuing their journey, they found an oasis and decided to bathe. The one who’d been slapped started to drown but was saved by his friend whereupon he etched into a stone, “Today my best friend saved my life.” The best friend asked, “when I slapped you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?”

The friend replied: “When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

I concluded my sermon linking the story to the insights I’d gleaned in my relationship with my dad:

The truth is, everyone will disappoint you, so you must have a selective memory, especially when no apology is forthcoming. You don’t have to do the full goldfish. But you can change your memory so it doesn’t induce mind-numbing resentments that you harbor for an eternity. You can forgive, as did Jesus, believing “they know not what they do” and move on to a more comfortable status quo in your relationship. Expect less, then be pleasantly surprised when you receive more. Meanwhile, you’ve willed yourself to greater freedom and tranquility, changing the trajectory of your life and enabling you to become a blessing to the world.

This is the season of forgiveness, which doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting, but it does mean remembering differently to move on. So, know when to write your memories in sand, and when to etch them in stone.

In other words, know when to be goldfish and when to be elephants for memories not only shape our past, they mold our identities and chisel our futures.

Last May when my dad did receive a cancer diagnosis, I shared this sermon with him. He loved it, particularly the story about the boys in the desert. Although I never received the apology for which I’d longed, he expressed his love and pride for me and my family.

That’s when becoming an elephant by recalling the attentive father of my childhood helped me find peace with the withdrawn father of my adulthood. I am incredibly grateful to have once had him as my teacher, role model, champion and father.

As his condition deteriorated last summer, I was the dutiful daughter, shuttling to/fro Denver (often with family), taking him to treatments, staying overnight in the hospital, feeding and keeping him company with my punditry (as he’d done when I little), sharing our correspondence from my childhood, shopping and cooking for the family and friends who came to visit.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but notice what a blessing his wife and my half-sister and brother were. So, one night I shared this observation with his wife, apologizing for not accepting sooner that the decisions my dad had made in his life were right for him. She asked me to share my apology with my dad. Weakened to the point of exhaustion, he spoke gratefully with his eyes.

I knew I’d done everything I possibly could to help him exit the world unburdened, which was my way of honoring my dad and, frankly, unburdening myself.

After he passed, I thought the acrimony of the past had dissipated for his wife as well. But I was wrong.

Those ensuing days were the most stressful of my life. Not only had his wife decided that I wouldn’t be allowed to eulogize my father, she’d also initiated a legal matter requiring me to make a difficult decision within ten days.

Fortunately, cooler minds prevailed allowing me to deliver a eulogy, albeit forcibly shortened. Despite the traumatic circumstances, the eulogy was easy to write because I’d learned how and when to be an elephant and a goldfish.

Best of all, God’s merciful hand appeared in the form of a limo driver who chased me down after the burial to tell me, “I listen to a lot of eulogies, and yours was the best.”

You can imagine my relief, exceeded later when two guardian angels who double as attorneys rested on my shoulder to help with the complicated legal matter.

These are examples of Rabbi Jonathan Sack’s teaching that the world is a book in which our life is a chapter. Whether our chapter inspires others depends on whether we make a blessing of our life by turning life into a blessing.

So, here’s to turning our lives into blessings by successfully navigating when to be elephants and goldfish, helping create ever-widening ripples of goodness. May we all be inspired to live lives worthy of remembrance so that the world will be that much better because we have been in it.

These remarks were made by Melanie Sturm on October 3, 2024 at Temple HilMel’s Rosh Hashanah (New Year) service and were intended to inspire a spirit of forgiveness and renewal during the High Holidays.