How many roses will you buy?

The story is told about a young man who seemed to be taking an unusually long time to place his order at the flower shop. When the clerk asked how she could help, he explained that his girlfriend was turning 19 and he couldn't decide whether to give her a dozen roses or 19 roses -- one for each year of her life.
   
The flower shop saleswoman put aside her best business, and suggested to the young man, "She may be your 19-year-old girlfriend now, but someday she could be your 70-year-old wife."
   
The young man quickly bought a dozen roses.
  
What this young man did was to make his decision from both his heart and his head, using both his emotional side (wanting to buy his girlfriend flowers) and rational side (if I buy her 19 flowers this year and we get married, how many will I have to buy when she gets old?).
   
This cute little story, in its own way, illustrates the dynamic and the tension of this High Holy Day season.  This month we observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when we are urged to focus on thoughts of teshuva, repentance, and how we are to change for the better during the coming year. It same bizarre to you, but, based on various passages in the Talmud and Midrash and from numerous prayers we recite on the High Holy Days, I am convinced that God wears glasses.  (I am being metaphorical, not literal!)  To be exact, God wears bifocals. Whether God wears metal frames, wire-rim frames, plastic or tortoise shell frames, I cannot tell you; but I am confident that God does wear bifocal glasses. 
   
And I’ll explain to you why: While we Jews believe in One God, the Rabbis of the Talmud, Midrash, and liturgy conceived of God as relating to the world in two ways.  The first way is with His attribute of din, which literally means “judgment,” but more accurately is defined as judgment according to the letter of the law.  When God acts through His attribute of din, God acts in a very rational way.  For example, if it is written in the Torah, “Thou shalt not do ‘x,’ and, if you do, the punishment is ‘y,’” and we do ‘x’, it would be entirely rational for God to punish us with punishment “y” for committing that sin. 
  
But God possesses another attribute, and that is His quality of rachamim, or mercy and compassion. This is God’s emotional side. It is this compassionate aspect of God that allows God to say to Himself, so to speak, “How can I punish them strictly?  They are my creations.  I created them in My image. I gave them free will.  How can I hurt my own children?” 
  
Din, strict, rational judgment, I would say, reflects God’s mind. Rachamim, merciful compassion, I suggest, reflects God’s heart.  And our Sages depicted God as looking at the world with his bifocals: one part of the lenses refracting din, the other refracting rachamim.
  
In fact, the Midrash claims that rivalry between din and rachamim pre-existed Creation.  When God decided to create the universe, din demanded that God create the world with din alone, claiming that if God did not, the world would quickly become full of violence, crime, and chaos.  Rachamim chimed in that God should create the world with it alone, otherwise God would only end up destroying the world in short order because man would undoubtedly sin. So what did God do?  He combined din, strict judgment, and rachamim, merciful compassion, and created the world.  God used his mind and his heart, his rational side and his emotional side, to create the world.  And ever since then, whenever God relates to the world and to us, he puts on His bifocals and looks at us with both din and rachamim.
 
  And what do we do on the High Holy Days?  We pray that God will look through that part of the lens that refracts His attribute of compassion more than He gazes thorough that part of His divine bifocals that refracts strict judgment.  We pray that God will arise from His Throne of Judgment and sit on His Throne of Mercy; we pray that God’s rachamim overwhelms His attribute of din.  We understand that God looks at us with both judgment and compassion; we just want Him to use more mercy than strictness when He judges us. We want God to utilize His heart, His emotional side, more than His rational side.
   
It seems to me, if that’s what we want from God during these High Holy Days, we should demand the same from ourselves.  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur only effect atonement for the sins we have committed against God; they have no impact on atoning for the sins we have committed against others. Forgiveness is obtainable only from the person whom we may have hurt or insulted.
   
But let’s face it: frequently we do not want to make the first move, or do not want to accept the other party’s contrition. That’s precisely when we must do what we pray God will do:  look at the other person more with rachamim than with din, with more compassion than strictness, with our hearts more than our heads, with our emotional side rather than our rational side.
   
Do you know who my model is in finding the proper balance between din and rachamim between strictness and compassion?  My paradigm is one of the greatest Presidents this country ever elected: Abraham Lincoln. Yes, Abraham Lincoln used his sense of din, strict judgment, against the South when the southern states seceded from the Union. 
  
Yet, when it came to the treatment of the South at the end of the war, Lincoln exhibited unquestionable rachamim, merciful compassion.  He pardoned more prisoners than any President before or since.  When one of his generals asked Lincoln how the defeated Confederacy should be treated, he replied, “Let ‘em up easy.”  After the South surrendered, Lincoln could have ordered every Confederate soldier shot for treason, but, instead, he exhibited tremendous magnanimity and allowed the surrendering Confederate soldiers to return to their homes after swearing loyalty to the United States so that they could rebuild their lives. Lincoln knew when to use din and when to employ rachamim.
   
We must learn to do the same. True, there are those situations in which we should not back down, we should stick up for and demand our rights, and firmly hold on to our principles.  In these cases we will act with din, strictness. In other cases, when it comes, say, to family issues and squabbles or our disagreements with friends, we should use our rachamim, our compassion, and make the first step toward reconciliation, and be forgiving.