Umrah, Nails and Broken Hearts Healed

Islam and Judaism reject the doctrine of original sin. Humans do sin. But both Jews and Muslims believe that our Creator is most merciful, and forgives anyone who repents with a sincere heart.

No Muslim wants to miss out on the chance to ask for forgiveness for all their mortal sins. The year round pilgrimage of Umrah gives Muslims an opportunity to gain Allah’s mercy any day during the year.

Forgiveness and renewal through Umrah is an ultimate dream of every Muslim. Umrah is the journey of forgiveness and inner transformation. It is one of the most significant paths of redemption. You get to ask for forgiveness for all your sins and start your life anew with a clean slate.

Often called the voluntary pilgrimage, Umrah is undeniably significant in Islam. Muslims undergo this pilgrimage to show their devotion and submission to the Almighty. Because of its flexible timing, pilgrims always head to the sacred sites in Saudi Arabia for this pilgrimage. No matter when you visit the Holy Kaabah, you will always find other devotees there who gather together to please the Almighty One and have the ultimate spiritual cleansing.

The Qur’an commands Muslim believers to perform Hajj and Umrah. “And complete Hajj and Umrah for Allah…” (Qur’an 2:196)

This shows that Umrah, is an act of worship for Allah, as an ultimate display of devotion that brings endless blessings to the lives of pilgrims. It also shows that Allah’s door is always open for those who seek Him. Umrah strongly supports the concepts of tawbah (repentance), tazkiyah (purification), and rahma (mercy rakhahmah in Hebrew).

Numerous verses in the Holy Quran tell us about the mercy of our Creator. We know we sin, but Allah Almighty doesn’t abandon us if we repent sincerely. He is always there for us, waiting to realise our mistakes and return to Him. The Holy Quran informs us about Allah’s readiness to forgive his servants. “Say, ‘O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins.’” (Qur’an 39:53)

This verse gives hope and brings peace to Muslims’ hearts. We know our Creator will listen to our repentance and forgive our sins. It sets a backdrop for Umrah, which is all about yearning for divine pardon and renewal.

This is the first ritual of Islam that requires you to purify yourself completely and strip away ego, pride, and worldly distinctions before you arrive at the sacred house of Allah. It shows the pilgrims’ humility and teaches them a lesson of brotherhood, unity, and equality.

Performing Tawaf around the Holy Kaabah is the most spiritually reviving experience that revives the pilgrims’ faith. Like the planets revolve around the sun, the servants of the Almighty One’s revolve around the sacred house on earth. Each step the pilgrims take during Tawaf shows their devotion to the Almighty One and their deep yearning for divine forgiveness and blessings.

Rahma in Arabic, Rakhmah in Hebrew, mercy in English, blesses both Jews and Muslims who believe that our Creator is most merciful, and forgives anyone who repents with a sincere heart.

The Talmud (Yoma 85a-b) teaches us that if a person has made three separate attempts at reconciliation, and been rebuffed each time, that is sufficient for God to forgive, even if the other person never does forgive. And if God forgives you, you should forgive yourself. Yet many good hearted idealistic people keep trying to fix bad relationships, often exposing themselves, and sometimes others, to new hurts and rejections.

We must let them go; and to begin again with new opportunities. The following narrative gives us an example for everyone who repents with a sincere heart.

Her mother once gave her a box of nails and told her that every time she lost her temper or insulted somebody she must hammer a nail into a large tree in the back yard. The first day the girl hit 9 nails into the tree. Over the next few weeks, as she learned to control her anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled. She discovered it was easier to hold her temper than to drive those nails into the tree.

Finally the day came when the girl didn’t lose her temper at all. She told her mother about it and the mother suggested that the girl now pull out one nail for each day that she was able to hold her temper. The days passed. Finally, she told her mother that all the nails were gone.

Then the mother took her daughter’s hand and led her to the tree saying, “You have done well, my daughter, but look at all the holes in the tree. The tree will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like these.” You can put a knife in a person and draw it out. It does not matter how many times you say I’m sorry, a wound is still there. A verbal wound is almost as bad as a physical one.

“How can I fix the tree?” asked the girl. “Will it have to remain damaged forever?” “Yes and no” said the mother. “Our Rabbis say that if the tree is still alive, and responds to the way you have changed, it too can change and heal itself. If the tree is dead to the possibility of your repentance it will carry its scars onward. Either way the tree will never be as it was before, but it doesn’t have to become perfect to be a good tree. If you do your part and change, and the tree does its part in response, God will do something wonderful. God will promote a healing that will make you and the tree better than you were before. This process is called Atonement.

Atonement means that the changes that come about from repentance and forgiveness lead people to higher levels of relationship than was the case before; but if the tree remains dead to you even after you have changed, YOU can’t force it to heal. In that case you should help another tree somewhere else. There are always lots of trees that need care. That is the miracle of Atonement. God always responds to our attempts to change by helping us change; and always responds to our change by giving us new and wonderful opportunities for atonement.

This process of atonement and repentance is why we have a Day of Atonement ten days after the beginning of every New Year; so the New Year will be a better one than the last one.

Every committed relationship always involves both joy and sorrow; risk and reward, love and loss. This wisdom narrative says it well:

One day a young man stood in a town square proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole country. A large crowd gathered around him, and all admired his heart, for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen.

It was an ideal heart. As beautiful as a Greek stature of an ideal youth. The young man said that his perfect, beautiful heart, was due to his philosophy of following a path of self realization, reason, calmness and detachment. Then a Rabbi named after Martin Buber, a great Jewish philosopher, who proclaimed that, “the purpose of all great religions and religious movements is to engender a life of elation and fervor which no (later negative) experience can dampen and stifle.” appeared at the front of the crowd and said, “Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.”

The crowd and the young man looked at the Rabbi’s heart. It was beating strongly, but it was full of scars. It had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in; but they didn’t fit in quite right, and there were several jagged edges. In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared. How could Martin Buber say his heart was more beautiful than the heart of the ideal youth?

The young man looked at the older man’s heart and laughed. “You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine; my heart is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.”

“Yes,” said Rabbi Buber, “yours is perfect looking; but I would never trade with you. You see, every one of the scars represents a person to whom I gave my love. I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to people, and often they give me a piece of their heart, which fits into an empty place in my heart. But because the pieces are never exactly equal, I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared.

“Sometimes I give pieces of my heart away, and the other person doesn’t return a piece of his or her heart to me. Those are the empty gouges… giving love is taking a chance. And then there are places where my heart is broken, reminding me of the love I have had, and lost. I say the Kaddish then (a prayer for the dead, and then praise God for the pains of living a life of loving and caring; for it is better to love and lose, than never to love at all.”

The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the older man, reached into his perfect, young and beautiful heart and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands.

The Rabbi took the young man’s offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart. It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from Rabbi Buber’s heart now flowed into his.

They embraced and walked away side by side.