The Meaning of Martha's Ordeal

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I had correspondence with Jean Harris [convicted of murdering her lover Dr. Herman Tarnower, the "Scarsdale Diet" doctor], and gave her some help going in. I don't think she became a Christian, but she got into a lot of projects where she was helping the other inmates and teaching them. She made her whole time in prison worthwhile, and she really redeemed it as much as you could redeem something apart from Christ. And that would be the example that I would give to Martha Stewart.

The biggest thing I would tell her is to accept her fate-don't fight it. Martha Stewart's got to look herself in the mirror and say, "I committed a crime and now I'm going to pay for it and I'm not going to think about it again. I'm going to get on with myself." If you start dwelling on the past you really destroy yourself.

Thomas Moore: Her Own Greek Tragedy

Thomas Moore, a Beliefnet columnist, is a best-selling author, psychotherapist, and lecturer who spent 13 years as a monk in a Catholic religious order. His latest book is

Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals

(Gotham/Penguin).

I don't know any details of her personal experience of this situation. But it appears she is going through a sort of Greek tragedy of her own: A person in a high place, perhaps placing herself above the limitations of other mere mortals, suffers a significant setback. This is the full pattern-rise to fame, success, and fall. It's a painful arc that most of us experience in our own way at some time or other.

Now everything depends on how you fall. Do you find someone to blame? That's avoiding the fall. Do you make excuses and over-explain yourself? That's another avoidance. The best thing is to take the experience to heart. Really feel it. Be changed by it in some way. Don't give in to self-pity. Don't make empty resolutions. Use the complete fall, with its full penalties, to become a deeper person. Allow it to make a deep change in your outlook.

I assume this is a dark night for her. In my book I speak of "Dark Nights of the Soul" as rites of passage. You have to confront yourself honestly. See yourself for exactly who you are. Judge yourself for just what you did wrong, and get some insight into what weakness in yourself brought you to this place. Then you can on from there and live a life somewhat differently. You may realize how important it is to the meaning of your life to make a positive contribution to the society you have wronged. The idea is to have as little ego in all this as possible.

She hasn't had a failed life at all, just this bad mistake. As we tell kids, you're not a bad person, you've done a bad thing. The point is not [just] to learn from your mistake and make it all right. You have to be a different person, one who definitely will not act this way again, and in fact will be significantly more ethically sensitive in the future. Martha may feel like doing something very positive in response to this ethical slip. It's partly a matter of character.

This kind of failure is a gift, as long as you receive it precisely for what it is, neither too much nor too little. Martha Stewart could become a truly significant person now. It all depends on how she reacts.

Rabbi Steven Z. Leder: "I haven't heard her say she was wrong"

Rabbi Leder, senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, is the author of

More Money Than God: Living a Rich Life Without Losing Your Soul

(Basic Books). Members of his synagogue include some of the wealthiest and most successful people in Hollywood, and part of his ministry is to help his congregation "not confuse their outer life with their inner life" and to teach their children solid values.

I have not yet heard her say, "I was wrong, I'm sorry, and here's what I'm going to do to make up for it." Without that component, it would be hard to imagine much growth coming from this, other than "Don't get caught." Perhaps because she pled not guilty, after the sentencing when there's no longer a need to maintain her innocence, she might say something like that. To me as a rabbi, the real healing, what Jews call

teshuva

, repentance, comes first from accepting what you've done and taking steps to assure that it's never repeated, and then changing your life in a way that supports better values. I haven't heard her say, "I'm going to give 100 times that amount to charity." If I were her spiritual adviser, those would be the steps that I'd advise her to take.

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