Shlomit, I will never forgive you. Shlomit, I will never forgive you. Shlomit, I will never forgive you. That is all Shlomit could hear in her head. She turned to G-d and said, “G-d!!! I want to do Teshuva! I want to come back to You! I know that You always accept Teshuva, and that You always forgive, EVEN IF MY FATHER WILL NEVER FORGIVE ME! But this voice in my head is not letting me come back!!! Father in Heaven, HELP ME GET OUT OF THIS!!!” She called a cab, and she went straight to the Kotel, to pray her heart out.
She stood up front, crying, like a daughter who is leaning on her father; she leaned on the Wailing Wall, right near the Mehitza. As she cried her soul out, she looked up to the sky again, and saw the letters in the Wall. She decided to write a letter, and push it into the cracks between the stones in the Wall. She wrote, Father in Heaven, send me a sign of forgiveness. Send me a sign of acceptance. Send me a sign that what I have done to my father will not stop me from coming back!!! Send me a sign that my father forgives me!
She folded this letter and looked for a crevice to put her note in, but there was none. She tried to find a spot, but she could not find one. She felt that maybe G-d was just telling her, Shlomit, I will never forgive you.
But Shlomit did not give up hope. Any woman who attended a Bar Mitzvah at the Kotel knows there is some sort of step, on the Mechitza. She stood on the step and looked over the Mechitza for a spot on the Wall: maybe she could reach a spot in the men’s section. The Kotel was empty, as it was midday, and she noticed that nobody was paying attention to her, when she leaned over the Mechitza. So, she pushed in her note... and another note fell out, into her hand. She was about to put that other note back, but then she saw that written on that note, was the same name as hers. Shlomit.
Out of curiosity, she opened it up to see what was written on it. She started to shake. “Master of the Universe! My daughter is in India. Please bring her back; make her repent! Her name is Shlomit bat Rivkah! If I could speak to her, I would tell her, I forgive you for everything, just go in the right path in life!!!”
She cries out her thanks to G-d, and she repents completely. A father of flesh and blood can forgive his daughter, no matter what she has done. G-d, who can do the impossible, who is א-ל טוב וסלח, the Almighty of Forgiveness, He for sure can forgive!
Reprinted from Shabbat Shalom from Cyberspace.
