In 1684, a group of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who fled the Inquisition (see "Today in Jewish History" for Tevet 22) held a Rosh Hashanah service in New Amsterdam, thereby founding congregation Shearith Israel ("Remnant of Israel"). On this 17th of Tevet in 1728, the congregation purchased a lot in Lower Manhattan to erect the first synagogue in New York.
Rabbi Aaron Zelig ben Joel Feivush of Ostrog, Russia, author of Toldot Aaron, passed away on Tevet 17 of the year in 5515 from creation (1754).
Tevet 17 is also the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yaakov Wolf Krantz (1740-1804), the Maggid (itinerant preacher) of Dubna, particularly known for the parables (meshalim) he employed in his sermons and writings.
Life is true; every step of it is divine.
There are paths we wish we never traveled; decisions we wish we never took; actions that we wrestle to tear out of our memory, rip out of our hearts with agony and remorse.
But it is never life that we reject. Life has meaning; life is good—not a moment of it can exist without a spark of truth throbbing somewhere within. Including that moment you so much regret.