Someone once told me that I have an over developed sense of justice.  Issues of right and wrong become very personal to me.  As a result, whenever I don’t think something is right - whenever I sense some in­justice - I become outraged.  Of course, this explains my deep commitment to Tikkun Olam.  Now it would be just dandy if my over developed sense of justice was solely focused on such greater issues, but it is not.  If I permit it, it can manifest itself in every aspect of my life.  If I perceive that something is un­fair or that someone is not doing what I consider to be the right thing, it upsets me.

In reflecting upon my life, I have no doubt that I came by this over developed sense of justice honestly, having inherited it from my father.  Let me tell you about my father.  I loved my father very much, and he loved me, as he loved my mother and my sister, the Cantor and my brother-in-law, and all his grandchil­dren.  He was a very loving man, deeply committed to his family.  He had a wonderful sense of humor and loved to joke.  He truly enjoyed being with people and working with others - up to a point.

But as good a man as he was, my father suffered from a tragic character flaw - his over developed sense of justice.  Now you might wonder how being deeply committed to the values of right and wrong might be considered a character flaw.  But for my father, in his life, it was.  No question about it.

My father not only had a very strong sense of what he believed was right but he also had absolutely no tolerance for what he believed was wrong.  As a result, it was very hard for him to maintain a relationship with many people outside of our family, and it was especially difficult for him sustain a level of active in­volvement in groups and organizations, such as synagogues.  For it is inevitable that in relationships, especially group relationships, we will reach a point at which we will find that there is something about which we disagree.  For my father, whenever that point was reached, he dug in his heels, refused to com­promise and refused to move on, for they were wrong and he was right, and right is right; there is no mid­dle ground.  Every argument with a friend, every difference of opinion on the synagogue board, every spat with a neighbor, threatened to be terminal for that relationship.

My mother, on the other hand, was the great compromiser.  All she ever wanted was for people to get along and love each other.  She tried her best to moderate my father’s indignation and many times she succeeded, but not always, and not nearly enough.  Whenever she failed, my father’s universe shrank, for it was populated by fewer and fewer people.  Whether he wanted it or not, whether he liked it or not, with the passing years he became more and more isolated.

I remember when my parents moved to Florida.  They lived in an adult community with swimming pools and a club house and all sorts of activities.  When the Cantor, Shira, Josh, & I first visited, my father proudly gave us a tour of the facilities, raving about all the activities, especially his regular pinochle game, while he waved and extended greetings to many of his neighbors as we walked along.  By our next visit he was already pointing to this person and that person who he did not like, describing what they done to raise his ire.  Some time later, I asked how the pinocle game was going and he told me that he didn’t play any more because the other players didn’t really know the rules so they refused to play it the right way.  By the time he died, only his next door neighbor came to express his condolences, and then that man spent more time telling my sister and me about what a wonderful woman my mother was than he did talk­ing about my father.

I am sure that in his own way, my father was right.  I suspect that there were things that these people did that might have been wrong.  They may have made mistakes.  Whether they were right or wrong, they obviously did not define what they thought was right in the same way that my father did.  But still, be­cause of his deep commitment to what he saw as right and wrong, my father dismantled his connections to so many people.  In that way, his over developed sense of justice was most certainly a character flaw, a tragic one.

But even more tragic a flaw for my father than his over developed sense of justice was his apparent inabil­ity to even consider the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation.  For once you wronged my father, as far as he was concerned, he was done with you; you were out of his life and there was no returning.  Many a discussion he and I had on that topic.  For the life of me, I could not comprehend how a person as loving and as caring as was he could be so unwilling to consider any reconciliation with others.  But he was immoveable.

There is some of my father in each and every one of us.  It is impossible to go through life, dealing with people, individually or in groups, and not at some point or another come to some disagreements.  It is impossible to go through life and not at some point or another feel that there have been some who have wronged us.  That is just the way life is.  That is simply a natural part of being social creatures.  Living in the company of people means sometimes being disappointed, sometimes hurt, and sometimes even be­trayed.

When that happens to us, the question then becomes, what are we going to do about it?  My father’s consistent choice was to amputate; to cut off the source of the pain.  The flaw in his logic was that as long as there are people in our lives, we continually run the risk of encountering those who will inflict similar pain upon us.  If we continue to amputate with each recurrence, eventually there is nothing left.

There is an alternative to amputation.  Indeed a far better alternative.  It is to that alternative that the day of Yom Kippur is dedicated.  Reconciliation.

It is extremely important that we know the difference between right and wrong.  But it is equally impor­tant that we are capable of discriminating between those situations when that difference should evoke of us outrage and struggle, and those when it should not.

Barb Arland Fye is the publisher of the “Catholic Messenger,” our local Catholic newspaper.  She and her husband also happens to be the Cantor’s and my good friends.  One evening, in the midst of a conversa­tion, she shared with me a very powerful piece of wisdom.  She learned it from a nun, and now I wish to share it with you.  She said that many are the times as the publisher of the Catholic newspaper, that she finds herself caught in a dispute.  This nun had suggested that at those times, she should ask herself one question, and then, based upon the answer, decide her course of action.  The question is a simple one: “Is this the ditch I wish to die in?”

“Is this the ditch I wish to die in?”  That is a very powerful question.  Since that conversation, I find my­self asking that question very often.  For life is filled with disputes and disagreements.  Many are the times when we find ourselves in situations where we know that we are right and others are wrong and we have to decide what we are going to do about it.  It is in those moments that, if I can muster the strength to exercise some control over my emotions, I ask myself, “Is this the ditch I wish to die in?”  Is this issue important enough for me to invest myself in the battle?  Is this truly where I wish to draw the line?

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, in so many of those situations, the answer is “No.”  While in the heat of the moment we may be convinced that we are involved in an ultimate just cause.  God is on our side.  We are so right while they are so wrong.  But if we can take the opportunity to step back and ask that question, then often are the times when we come to realize that in the greater scheme of things - in the vast panorama of life - even if we are in the right, it is not worth the effort and the anguish of the struggle.  It is not one of those ditches we wish to die in.  So let us not get trapped there.  Let us move on.  Let us turn our attention and energy, physical, emotional, and mental, to more important matters.  It is just not worth the sacrifice.  The price is too high to pay.

The avoidance of the conflict is a reward in itself.  For conflict demands of us so much energy, and too much of it is negative energy.  There is so much stress and so many sleepless nights.  So why expend all this, and why go through all this for issues which, when all is said and done, really don’t matter a heck of a lot?  There are times in our lives when we find ourselves facing issues that do matter; when the answer is “Yes.  This is a ditch I wish to die in”.  The struggle over those issues are indeed worth the high price they demand.  Those are the times when we should be more than willing to pay it.  But at the end of the day, it is nothing short of foolishness, if not arrogance, to pay such a price for the small stuff, for the is­sues that really don’t matter that much in the greater scheme of things.  It is far better to let them drop and get on with our lives, focusing on the positive rather than the negative.

Conflict wounds us.  Righteous conflict and meaningless conflict alike, it wounds us.  To avoid conflict is to avoid injury, both that which we suffer and that which we inflict.  By asking, “Is this the ditch I wish to die in?” we may be able to save ourselves and others from much suffering.  But while that may help us in the present and the future, what about the past?  What about those wounds already inflicted and suffered?

“Is this the ditch I wish to die in?” need not only be a question we ask in the heat of the moment.  It can be a question we ask about the conflicts and controversies of our past as well.  It is never too late to ask it.

Yom Kippur calls upon us to look at the conflicts in our lives - present and past - and ask this question.  For this question is the key to atonement and forgiveness.  Its answer can contain the healing balm for the wounds inflicted upon us by others and for those which we have been guilty of inflicting.

Yom Kippur pleads with us to seek healing in our lives.  That is what atonement is all about; healing the wounds.  We have been wounded and have wounded others.  That is what sin does, it wounds.  We have been responsible.  Others have been responsible.  Sometimes we have been perpetrators, sometimes vic­tims.  In the end, there are more than enough wounds to go around, and we are, in one way or another, connected to them.  Therefore, it is incumbent upon us, in one way or another, to participate in the heal­ing process.

Perhaps healing can only start if we are willing to look at those situations in which we wounded others or others wounded us, and in retrospect, ask, “Were these the ditches I should have been willing to die in?”  We very well may be shocked to find that more often than not, the answer is “No.”

Of course there will be some situations which, even in retrospect, we will be completely convinced that these were battles well worth fighting.  These were battles that spoke to the very essence of who we are, as individuals, and to the very core of our values.  But if we are being honest with ourselves, these battles were few and far between.