I guess it was about two years ago that the various book review digests and journals and publishing trade gurus were fiercely preoccupied with their analyses of Philip Roth's latest novel, The Human Stain. As best as I can recall, the book was anything but a runaway success, and perhaps that was due to its unrelenting pessimism as to our human nature.

The novel's chief character, Faunia Farley, lived her life based upon the certainty that, as she expresses it in the novel,

we leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error. . . there's no other way to be here. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It's in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent. Defining. The stain that is there before its mark. . . the stain that precedes disobedience, that encompasses disobedience and perplexes all explanation and understanding. It's why all the cleansing is a joke.

What a clear contrast with our Judaism, which has absolutely no use for such undiluted gloom and doom. There's a 400 year-old story, a Rabbinic tale, which underscores the difference of perception between Philip Roth in this novel and Jewish thought. According to the story, a student once came to his teacher and asked:

What good do these High Holy Days serve? Humans pray, they repent, they begin with high intention, then fall into sinning again.

The Rabbi nodded in agreement, but ordered his student, "You go to the creek at the outskirts of town and observe what goes on there for a week. Then return to me."

A week later the student returned, and the Rabbi asked him, "So what did you see at the creek?"

Women and men washing their clothes.  Stained dresses, shirts and pants. Day after day, the same garments. Cleansing them, scrubbing them over and over again.

And the teacher commented-

Our souls are just like those garments.  They become soiled, stained from our mistakes, failures, insensitivities, lies and anger. They require constant scrubbing.  And the miracle is that we alone have the power to renew them.

My friends, unlike Faunia's conclusion that it is a joke even to try to purify our stained nature, our Judaism testifies to its optimistic belief that atonement is humanity's invitation to triumph, to transform ourselves from regret to renewal, from sin to reconciliation, from hurt to love.

This Shabbat Shuvah is named by its unforgettable Haftarah portion, taken from the Prophet Hosea. Near the end of Hosea's poignant and sad prophecy, Hosea tells his people:

Shuvah Yisrael. Ad Adonai Elohehcha, kee cha-shalta Ba-avonehcha.
Return O Israel unto the Lord, your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity.

Over and over again, Hosea is publicly betrayed by his shameless wife! And yet, time and again, Hosea swallows his pride and takes her back as if she were a chaste maiden.

What happens, of course, is that Hosea comes to identify his humiliation, disappointment and pain resultant from Gomar's public unfaithfulness with God's. Says Hosea, God waits, too, for His wayward people to stop betraying him in faithlessness.

Hosea's catastrophe of a marriage to Gomar becomes for us the perfect prophetic metaphor for God's disappointment with unfaithful Israel. And throughout it all, God simply waits on the front porch through the long night of betrayal for Israel to come limping back home.

Shuvah Yisrael-Return O Israel, for you have stumbled in your iniquity.

Marilyn Manning learned that lesson in a wonderful story she shares in Jack Canfield's insightful book, Chicken Soup for the Soul. Here's how Marilyn Manning told it:

Several years ago, while attending a communications course, the instructor asked us to list anything in our past we felt ashamed of, guilty about, regretted, or incomplete about. The next week, he invited participants to read their lists aloud. This seemed like a very private process, but there's always some brave soul in the crowd who will volunteer. As people read their lists, mine grew longer. After three weeks, I had 101 items on my list. The instructor then suggested that we find ways to make amends, apologize to people, or take some action to right any wrongdoing.

The next week, the man next to me raised his hand and volunteered this story:

"While making my list, I remembered an incident from high school. I grew up in a small Iowa town. There was a sheriff in town that none of us kids liked. One night, my two buddies and I decided to play a trick on Sheriff Brown. After drinking a few beers, we found a can of red paint, climbed the tall water tank in the middle of town and wrote, on the tank, in bright red letters: "Sheriff Brown is an s.o.b." The next day, the town arose to see our glorious sign. Within two hours, Sheriff Brown had my two pals and me in his office. My friends confessed and I lied,  denying the truth.   No one ever found out.

Nearly 20 years later, Sheriff Brown's name appears on my list.  I didn't even know if he was still alive.  Last weekend, I dialed information in my hometown back in Iowa. Sure enough, there was a Roger Brown still listed.  I dialed his number and after a few rings, I heard:  "Hello?"

"Sheriff Brown?"

Pause. "Yup."

"Well this is Jimmy Calkins. And I want you to know that I did it."

Pause. "I knew it," he yelled back.

We had a good laugh and a lively discussion. His closing words were, "Jimmy, I always felt badly for you because your buddies got it off their chest, and I knew you were carrying it around all those years. I want to thank you for calling me. . . for your sake."

Jimmy inspired me to clear up all 101 items on my list. It took me almost two years.

Ole Hosea the prophet kept insisting to Gomar, "I'll leave the light on, Honey. Come on home and we'll begin again." Jimmy Calkins finally realized that, and came "home" to set the record straight. God waits for Israel just as Hosea waits for Gomar and the sheriff waited all those years for Jimmy. So when you think you've got problems, it's worth our coming "home," not just for heaven's sake, but for our own!