We find ourselves in the month of Elul, a time of introspection, contemplation and soul searching to help ready us for the high Holy Days. During this time we take the necessary steps to better understand what will be asked of us during these holy days - namely, repenting for the mistakes of our past year.
We often translate teshuvah as repentance. But a better translation is “returning" and in alignment with the Hebrew words for sin, chet, which in Hebrew means “to go astray.” Thus the idea of repentance in Jewish thought is a return to the path of righteousness.
Today we will explore Teshuvah and how we might return to the path of righteousness.
שבעה דברים נבראו קודם שנברא העולם ואלו הן תורה ותשובה וגן עדן וגיהנם וכסא הכבוד ובית המקדש ושמו של משיח
Wasn’t it taught in a baraita: Seven phenomena were created before the world was created, and they are: Torah, and repentance, and the Garden of Eden, and Gehenna, and the Throne of Glory, and the Temple, and the name of Messiah.
- What does this text reveal about the meaning of Teshuvah?
- What are the implications of saying that Teshuvah was created pior to the world's creation?
In Rav Kook’s book “Orot Hateshuva”, Rav Kook talks of returning to one's self and writes:
‘When we forget the essence of our own soul… everything becomes confused and in doubt. The primary teshuva, that which immediately lights the darkness, is when a person returns to himself, to the root of his soul – then he will immediately return to God, to the soul of all souls’.
- How does one forget the essence of their own soul? What does that look like?
- What do you think the text means by "primary teshuvah"?
The well-known saying of Rav Meshulam Zusha of אניפולי , brother of the famous Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk:
"If they ask me in Heaven why I wasn't Elimelech, I will know how to answer. But if they ask me why I wasn't Zusha – I will have no words".
This is the essence of Teshuva – to be like Zusha again, the call from ourselves to be us and to fulfill our mission in the world, and not to try and be like anyone else.
(יד) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי:
(14) He [Rabbi Hillel] used to say: If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?
How do these sources relate to Rav Kook's concept of teshuvah as 'returning to yourself'?
HaRav Kook explains that sin results from forgetting the "me", whether as individuals or as a collective. The question "איכה" – where are you - is the question that lies at the core of sin. He writes:
The sin of Adam, [the first man,] which according to the Gemara took place on Rosh Hashanah, was that he became estranged from himself, `that he yielded to the snake's opinion, and lost himself. He failed to answer a clear response to the question of איכה because he didn't recognize his own soul, because the real sense of self was lost from him(Orot HaKodesh 3, 97)
- The true work of Elul and the High Holy Days is figure out how you will answer the question "Eicha" Where are you?
- What are the other questions you use to help you figure out where you are?
- We began by learning that Teshuvah helps one return to the path of rigtheousness, that's a loaded word. How do you understand righteousness now in light of the commentaries above?