TESHUVA - REPENTENCE: RETURNING TO GOD – Rabbi Michael Skobac – Jews for Judaism

During the 10 days that go between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so it's customary during the prayer is to add one of the psalms that we don't say during the rest of the year. We say Psalm 130, and one of the lines in that psalm, we say that with you Hashem there is forgiveness, with you Hashem there is the possibility of reconciliation, and therefore you will be feared. So the Baal Shem Tov asked a very obvious question. He said, why are we afraid? Meaning that if we're being reassured in this psalm that with Hashem there is the possibility of forgiveness and Hashem holds that out to us, that should be reassuring, it should put us at ease. Why would it terrify us? So we recently learned in Daf Yomi three stories that really ended on the same note. In the Tzachar Vot HaZorah on the 10th daf, 10b, the Gemara tells a story about Ketir Bar Shalom. Ketir Bar Shalom was a non-Jew, a Gentile, who had a debate with the Caesar, a big argument with the Caesar, and he was able to demonstrate to the Caesar that he should not wipe out all the Jewish people, and the Gemara goes on to tell us that Caesar acknowledged that he was right. Caesar said, you're right, but he said, you have a big problem because it's not polite, it's actually worse than not polite to beat me in an argument. And he says, we're going to have to take you out to kill you. So we're told that on his way out to be killed, a woman tells him that he will not be able to be admitted to Olam Haba, to the world to come, because he wasn't circumcised. So we're told in the Gemara that Ketir circumcised himself on the way to his execution, and he gave away all of his property and belongings to Rabbi Akiva and his friends. The Gemara goes on to tell us that a heavenly voice came out, a bat kol came out, and said that Ketir Bar Shalom has earned his place in the world to come, in Olam Haba. The Gemara tells us that upon hearing this, Rebbe cried out and said there are some people who take an entire lifetime, many, many, many years to earn their place in the world to come, and some people are able to achieve it in one hour, b'shah ahas. On Dafyut Zayin, the Gemara tells a very, very famous story about Eliezer ben Deradai. He was someone, the Talmud tells us, that had a particular temptation to be with women of ill repute, and we're told that there wasn't a prostitute in the world he wasn't with, and in this particular story, he finds out about a particular very high-priced trollop, and he travels across the world to be with her, he goes across the seas, he heard that this woman accepts for her price a purse full of dinars, a very expensive one. He takes out his money, gives it to her, and in the middle of their time together, she announces to him that he will never be accepted, his repentance will never be accepted. She gives him this very, very bad news, and he's upset by it, this sort of startling wake-up call, the Talmud says that he goes and he sits between two mountains, and he begs that they plead for mercy for him, he goes to the heavens and the earth, he asks them to intercede on his behalf, he asks the sun and the moon, everyone is turning him down, they can't really help him, he asks the stars and the constellations, please request mercy for me, and he finally realizes after appealing to everything in the world, they can't really help him out, he says he realizes the matter depends only on me, it's only up to me, so he sits down, he puts his head between his knees, he begins to tremble and cry until we're told that he dies, and a heavenly voice calls out, Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Durdoy is ready for the world to come, and upon hearing this, Rabbi Yudan Nassi says again that there are some people who can acquire their share in the world to come in a single moment, and they can even acquire the title of Rabbi, as Eliezer Ben-Durdoy did, and other people can take many, many years to achieve this. And finally, on the 18th page, 18a, the Gemara tells us this tragic story of the death of Rabbi Hanida Ben-Tradion, the Romans brought him out in a sefer Torah, they wrapped him up in a sefer Torah, they put around the sefer Torah bundles of vine shoots, set them on fire, and as a way of making his death more painful, they prolonged the death, they covered his heart with tufts of wool that were soaked in water, and the executioner, the Roman executioner says to Rabbi Hanida Ben-Tradion, if I increase the flame, and I take away these tufts of wool from your heart, will you bring me with you into the world to come? And Rabbi Hanida says yes, and the executioner insisted that the rabbi swear that he'll be able to do that. And so Rabbi Hanida swore that he'll be able to go into the world to come with him, so immediately the executioner increased the flames, and he removed the tufts of wool from Rabbi Hanida's heart, and he died quickly, he expired quickly. The executioner then jumped into the flames, and a heavenly voice again proclaimed that Rabbi Hanida and the executioner have been readied for the world to come, and again the rabbi heard this and he cried out, Bacha Rebbe, and he said there are those who acquire their place in the world to come in a single moment, and there are those who acquire their share in Olam Haba after many, many years of effort. The obvious question is, why was Rebbe crying? Why was he so upset? Was he upset that people like himself struggled and worked for an entire lifetime to get their share in the world to come, and these people were able to do it very quickly? Was he jealous? And obviously that's not the case. The Telzer Rosh Hashiva explains that Rabbi Yudan Nasi was crying because he realized the incredible potential that exists within every single moment that we have. If in these stories we see that someone can achieve Olam Haba in one moment, Rebbe says to himself, imagine what would happen if this person worked on it consistently for their entire life. How much more of a reward could they receive? And so Rebbe was upset because he realized that we don't appreciate how much potential there exists in every single moment of our lives. And so he cries. We're now in a time of the year that's mesugol for tshuva. It is appropriate, it has got a special energy that we're living in now that makes this time more ripe for us to be able to do tshuva. The Rambam says in Hilchos Tshuva, chapter 2, he says, Although tshuva and davidi and prayer are always effective, during the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they are especially potent, he says, and immediately accepted. And he quotes the verse in Yeshayahu 55, seek Hashem when he is present. We know that there's a special time that we live in now that is special for tshuva because 3,000 years ago, after the Jewish people sinned with the golden calf, this was the time that Moshe was specifically pleading for them to be forgiven, this was the time that they themselves were praying their guts out for Hashem to reconcile with them, and we know that during this time ultimately ending with Yom Kippur, they are forgiven. So because this took place in the formative years of the Jewish people, it's sort of engraved into the DNA of who we are, and it's in this time itself, this time of the year is invested with this kind of energy of tshuva and reconciliation. The Alter Rebbe, the Balataniah in Likutey Torah, illustrated the special nature of this time of the year with a parable that he called the king is in the field, and he explained that normally it's not so easy for a common person to see the king, you have to get to the palace, you have to schlep to wherever the palace is, and then you have to get through all of the king's secretaries and minions and all the appointment keepers, then you have to travel through different gates in the palace, you have to clear security, it's not very easy for a person to be able to see the king. But the Balataniah said that once in a while the king leaves the palace, gets into his carriage, and travels through the kingdom, and he's in the field, and when the king is in the field, anybody is able to see the king at their delight. And so the Rebbe explained, the Alter Rebbe explained that this is the period of time of Elul and the Assaris who made tshuva these 40 days of the period of time when he explained that the king is in the field, and we have more access to Hashem at this time. Now this special nature of this time of the year is especially understandable in light of an opinion of the Ramban on a verse in this week's parasha. Torah said this morning we read, et ki korob eylecha ha-davar mi'od, bethicha u'glovavcha la'asoso that the matter, this thing, is very close to you in your heart and in your mouth, that you can do it. What is it talking about? Many Meforships say it's talking about the mitzvot of the Torah in general, but the Ramban says it's talking about the mitzvah of tshuva. The Ramban says that the mitzvah of tshuva is something that is very, very close to us, it's near to us, it's very accessible to us. It's interesting, we don't often think about tshuva as being an easy mitzvah, but the Gemarrian Tetz says that in a case where a rasha, a person who is totally wicked, betroths a woman on the condition, he says, I'm going to be married to you on the condition that I am actually a tzaddik gomor, a completely righteous person. So surprisingly, the Gemarrian rules that the woman might actually be engaged to him, because there's a possibility the Gemarrian says that in the moment before contracting this engagement with the woman, he had thoughts of repentance in his heart, and he could have transformed himself literally in a moment. So according to the Ramban, we see that the possibility of doing tshuva, of changing who we are, is not remote from us, it's very close to us, it's something that we're all capable of doing. The Menachem Mendel of Kotz, the Kotzgerebbe, once said to his students, you know, there's a verse in the book of Psalms, chapter 103, which says that we say about God that as a result of our tshuva, he quotes the verse, and it says, as far as east is from west, God has distanced our transgressions from us. So the Kotzgerebbe asked his students, perhaps one of you can tell me how far it is from east to west. How far is this distance from east to west? And his students cratched their heads, and they were wondering, yeah, it's a pretty large distance, and they were saying, maybe it's a thousand miles, ten thousand miles, and the Kotzgerebbe says, you're all wrong. He says the distance from east to west is just one dre. A person just turns, he's facing east, he turns west, that's the whole distance. That the Kotzgerebbe explained is the immediacy of tshuva, the ability for us to distance ourselves from our past is basically one simple term. Now, not only is tshuva accessible to us, and not only are we living at a time now during these 40 days of the month of Elul and the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Kippur that are especially ripe and propitious for doing tshuva, but we know that Hashem himself is even working behind the scenes to help us. The Medrash in Beratius Rabbah says that God sent 10 famines to the world, and the Medrash goes on to enumerate each one of these famines. The 10th famine, the Medrash says, actually didn't take place in the past, only. It takes place in every single generation, even the generation we're living in now, and the Medrash says that that famine is the famine that's alluded to by the prophet Amos, who says that God is going to send a famine to the world, a hunger and a thirst, not for bread or for water, but for the dwar Hashem, for spirituality. So the Medrash is telling us here that all of the spiritual yearnings that we feel that come up in our minds occasionally are yearnings that really were planted here by Hashem himself. The Gemara actually says to us that a bas kol, a heavenly voice, goes out every single day in the world, and the bas kol beckons to us to all do tshuva, to repent and come back to Hashem. So the obvious question is, what is the purpose, what's the utility of such a heavenly voice if no one hears it? No one hears this voice. So Relev Yitzchak and Berditch have said that in reality, any time we get a thought that intrudes into our consciousness, that sort of draws us closer to Hashem and to his Torah, that's an echo of this heavenly voice. We actually do hear this bas kol. It comes up in thoughts and moments during our life when we sort of are drawn closer to Hashem. And so we know that even the fact that tshuva is accessible and we can do it, and we're living in a time right now where tshuva is especially easy for us to do, and the fact that Hashem is even there on the sidelines calling out to us to push us forward, it's Because of all of this, that Baal Shem Tov explained, that's why we're terrified during this time of the year. He said, because there is the possibility of forgiveness, because ki imcha ha'slicha, because there's the possibility of reconciliation with Hashem at this time of the year, there's so much riding on the line and there's so much potential, he said the fear is, will we actualize the potential? Will we ever be able to fully rise to the occasion? And so in the same way that Bachar Rebbe, Rebbe cried when he realized after these three stories that every moment is so precious and we often don't utilize the potential within each of the moments of our life, so that Baal Shem Tov said that's why this time of the year, because it has this potential for tshuva, we could be terrified. Because we don't want it to slip through our fingers. So how do we begin to think about tshuva and how do we focus on it during these days? The Rambam says in the second chapter of Hilchot Tshuva, if you want to find a place where you can really sink your teeth in and spend years learning about the topic of tshuva, the Rambam's Hilchot Tshuva is a very, very rich depository and he says in the second chapter that tshuva basically, perfect tshuva, is when a person confronts the same situation they have failed in in the past and they rise to the occasion, they don't repeat the mistake that they made. And in Halach HaBeis, the second halach in the chapter, he says he defines tshuva basically as abandoning our sins, regretting our past, confessing our sins, resolving never to repeat the sins. He goes through the guts, the mechanics of tshuva. That's the second chapter of Hilchot Tshuva. But in chapter seven, five chapters later, the Rambam doesn't say a word about our sins, about repenting, about confessing. The Rambam spends the whole chapter basically saying that tshuva is something that draws us close to Hashem. We used to be people who were separate from Hashem and now he's brought us nearer through our tshuva. There are many, many commentaries that have explained what is going on between these two chapters, but I think that one of the things that may be happening here is that the Rambam might be hinting to us a very vital issue in Judaism, and that is the trap of religion. The possibility of being people who are religious, but not people who are spiritual. We often think about tshuva as fixing a car. We always think about tshuva, that we take our car in, we get the brakes repaired, we have to replace a broken light, a headlight that's broken, we have to get a tune-up, we have to replace the oil, and we think about tshuva as basically making those kind of adjustments in our life. We're going to be more careful next year about not speaking so much Lashon Hara, we're going to try to be more careful about giving tzedakah, we're going to learn more Torah, we're going to go to more classes, we make a whole list for ourselves of things about our life that need to be repaired. Not that there's anything wrong with this, but the Rambam might be hinting that it's not really what tshuva is all about. In Parsha Shmini, in the Sefer Vayikra, Parsha Shmini describes the eighth day of the inauguration service of the Mishkan that was built after the Jewish people left Egypt. The eighth day takes place on Rosh Chodesh Nisa. Moshe Rabbeinu himself had done everything during the seven days before. He had done all the preparation, all the sacrifices, the entire service, Moshe Rabbeinu did himself, he put up the Mishkan, he took it down, he did everything by himself. On the eighth day, now Aharon and his children take over, and they perform the service. So Moshe instructs Aharon and his sons to prepare special sacrifices, which they do, and then the Torah says the following. The entire assembly, all of Cli Israel, approached, and they stood before HaShem. The next verse continues that Moshe said, this is the thing that HaShem has commanded you to do, that the glory of HaShem will appear to you. And the $64,000 question is, what is the thing that HaShem has commanded that we have to do for Him to appear to us? So Rashi and many of the Meforshim say that the thing that we have to do are the commandments, the sacrifices, that God instructed us to do during these days of the inauguration of the Mishkan. But the Or Chaim HaKadosh takes issue with this and says no. It's not referring to the specific laws and practices and things that you do in the inauguration ceremony. He says it's referring back, it often happens when something isn't clear, you really have to refer back to the previous passage. So when it says in the verse, this is the thing that HaShem has commanded you, your Or Chaim HaKadosh says that it's referring back to the previous phrase which said that the entire assembly, all the Jewish people approached and they stood before HaShem. Your Or Chaim explains that what Moshe Rabbeinu helped the Jewish people understand is that what was vital to be able to have HaShem appear to them was that they see themselves as standing before HaShem. This is what HaShem wants them to be able to do in order for Him to appear to them. What happens is we often live our lives with a split personality. Part of our lives we dedicate to what we want to do and to living with our personal agenda and part of ourselves we dedicate to what God wants and we follow His agenda. And so our Avodah during the Yimei Elul and the Asar Yisumei Tshuva is to overcome this tendency in our lives to living a double life where we have a religious corner carved out for ourselves and we view the rest of our lives as totally our own. The Avodah at this time of the year then is to identify with the words of Dover HaMelech that we say every day now during our Dovening. That we want to identify with what Dover HaMelech said. We don't want to just say these words, we want to be able to sincerely and honestly say to ourselves, I want to put all of my life before HaShem, not just part of my life. I want HaShem to be the center of my life, the focus of my life. I don't want to just have my life where I take a little bit of it and I give it to HaShem. I want it to be totally integrated into who I am. And so on Rosh Hashanah we don't focus on our sins, we don't mention our sins in the liturgy, we don't speak about, we don't think about what we did wrong last year. The entire focus of Rosh Hashanah is to put HaShem front and center in our lives. God is the king of the entire world and that includes my little world, my olam katan. And after getting clarity on this, after we recognize in Rosh Hashanah that God is the center of the world, that God should be the center of our lives, we then spend the next week through Yom Kippur focusing on our faults and our mistakes and our errors and our little things that have gone wrong during the year. And we try to bring our lives in line with our new vision of what our life should be about. This, by the way, I think is what Chazal had in mind when they approached this topic in our daily Shemona Esrei. If you look at the Shemona Esrei, we have two brachot that focus on the topic of tshuva. The first bracha is the bracha of our tsebbet tshuva. It doesn't mention, it doesn't speak about our sins, our faults, correcting any bad behavior. It just speaks about the fact that we want to be reconciled to Hashem, we want to really have Hashem in our lives, and Hashem wants us in His life, and it basically speaks about this word of tshuva, of returning, just returning to Hashem, as the Katzkir said, turning our life around, making that one simple dre, that one simple term when we say, Hashem, I want to be living with you, that's all I want. In the next bracha, we say, Hanun ha-merbelu sloach, there we talk about being forgiven for all the little things that we do wrong, that aren't in line with this vision statement. And so Rosh Hashanah is focused on refining our conception of who we are, and where our lives should be taking us. The Sfarma Kadoshim explain, therefore, that the judgment of Rosh Hashanah is not so much on our past year. The judgment of Rosh Hashanah is that we're going to be judged on what is the vision of our life that we put together for next year. It's often called Yom HaRas Olam, the birthday of the world, it's really the conception of the world. How do we begin to conceive of our lives in the coming year? And that is the judgment that we're going to be facing on Rosh Hashanah. And so they explain in the Sfarma Kadoshim that that pen that's written about so often, that's going to inscribe our name in the book of life, that pen is in our hands. We're the ones that ultimately will write ourselves in the book of life based upon whether or not we indeed developed this proper vision of our life. The beginning of the year presents us with a special opportunity to make these kind of changes in our life. And it's critical for us to grasp this opportunity when we have it. There's a Gemara in Brachos, the beginning of Brachos 7a, where the Gemara talks about this story where Moshe is pleading for Klal Yisrael after the sin of the golden calf. And he says to Hashem, show me your glory, hareni es kvodecha. And God says to Moshe, you can't see my face. And according to Veshua ben Korcha, what Hashem meant is the following. Hashem is saying to Moshe Rabbeinu, when I wanted to show you, you didn't want to see. At the burning bush, you turned aside. You didn't want to look at me. Now that you want me to show you my face, God says I don't want to at this point. It sounds like on some level God is being very petty here. Oh, so when you want it, that's not what's happening. Retzadek HaKayan of Lublin explains that what's being taught here is that there's a certain energy that's available to us at the beginning of any process. The beginning of any time is a time which is invested with a tremendous amount of potential blessing. And so, at the very first meeting between Hashem and Moshe Rabbeinu, at that very, very first meeting, Moshe Rabbeinu had the ability at that point to actually look at Hashem. He could have done it. But Hashem is saying that once you didn't take advantage of that possibility in the very, very beginning, it's just not there anymore. It's not available. Not that I don't want to and I'm not going to be petty and take it away from you. It's just not there anymore. You don't get a second chance at a first impression. So we're living in a time now where we're about to enter the new year and the beginning of any process is incredibly important. When a child is conceived, that's when so much is going on. That's why it's so critical, those first moments of conception. Things that go wrong at that time can affect the child for the rest of its life. When a rocket ship is blasting off, if it's not going exactly the right direction at that moment of takeoff, it could be one millionth of a degree off when it lifts off, it'll be 10,000 miles off in a few years from now. And so at the beginning of the year, Rosh Hashanah, we have an incredible opportunity because it's the beginning. It's the Rosh. And there's opportunities here that we don't get during the rest of the year. And so the challenge for us is to try to grasp these opportunities fully. They tell a story about this, two fellows, two men that were hiking in the woods and they spotted a huge bear approaching them. They're terrified. And one of the people bends down, takes off his hiking boots and starts to put on his sneakers and lace them up. So his friend says to him, what are you crazy? You can't outrun a bear. He says, I don't have to outrun the bear, I have to outrun you, not the bear. So the thing for us to, I think, walk away with before we begin Tzlichos is to think about what exactly do we need to do? We have to realize that it's not our responsibility to bite off more than we can chew. And one of the great mistakes that we often make in life is getting very inspired at certain times of the year and making huge resolutions or making no resolutions, just having these great feelings of what life could be like next year. And without putting it into some kind of concrete form, the opportunity evaporates through our fingers. And so the challenge for all of us during this time of inspiration, we go through Tzlichos, we go through Aser Hasemei Tshuva, is to really take the inspiration, take those feelings that we do want our life to be different and to concretize it in very concrete and very discreet ways. The Ramban says at the end of his Geras, his famous letter, he says, when you get up from reading the Torah, anytime you study the Torah, you should always try to figure out what specifically can you implement that you learned. Take something that you learned, something that inspired you, and actually give it a cleat, give it a vessel, make it real in your life. And that's the challenge for us. It's not that difficult for all of us to get inspired. Most of us can get inspired during this time of the year. The challenge is to try and figure out a way, how can I concretize it in a way where it will become real and where I can build and I can grow. So just like those two hikers, one of them had to really understand what he had to be able to do. It doesn't have to be able to outrun the bear. We don't have to become the Ville Nogon over the next few days. But we have to try to understand what small changes can we make in our life to begin the process that really gives expression to what the entire big picture of this period of time is. The big picture story, the big ticket item story, is just to be able to walk into the Asar HaSumei Tshuva saying, I want a life that's not a double life. I want a life without a split personality. I want to be a person that's a spiritual, I want my life to be spiritual. I want to be a spiritual person. I want to be someone who lives with the agenda of Hashem. And then we take that moment of clarity and we try to then make the small steps, the small changes that will bring our lives into that vision. I want to wish all of us Hatzlocha success in accomplishing this and we should see a lot of brachot and perot over the coming year. Thank you all very much.