Can You Erase Your Sins? The Jewish Secret of Teshuvah - with Rabbi Michael Skobac

No human being is perfect. We all make mistakes. The Hebrew word for sin is cheit. And cheit actually means to miss the mark, to go off course on the path to life, to make that kind of mistake. And no matter how good we become, we can always do better. There's always room for improvement in life. King Solomon wrote in Koheles in Ecclesiastes 7.20 that there is no person so righteous on earth who only does good and never sins. Everyone sins. Everyone makes mistakes. And in Proverbs 24.16, King Solomon taught that a righteous person may fall down seven times but they will get up. This getting up from our mistakes in life is the process of repentance. In Hebrew, called teshuvah. And our sages identified a number of different parts to this process of repentance. Different sages will have a different number of parts in different orders, but the general contents are that we have to, first of all, recognize our error. A person is not going to be able to embark on a process of changing unless they first recognize they've done something wrong. There's a mistake. There's something that needs to be corrected. So first, we speak about hakarat hacheit, recognizing our error. So the second part, once a person has recognized that they've gone off course, that they've done something that's not proper, there has to be a regret. The person has to feel a regret for what they've done in order to then proceed in the process of repentance. The next step is to articulate what we did wrong by confessing to God. We don't confess to any other human being, but it's important for a person to articulate because unless you can articulate what you've done that's wrong, it's not clear to you. We always say this in education. Unless you can explain something to someone else, you yourself don't understand it. So we have to first recognize our error. We have to have regret for what we've done or what we should have done but didn't do. And then we have to articulate our error, our sin, by confessing to God. The fourth level is what we call azivat hacheit, to abandon the sin. Meaning if a person has been engaged in petty larceny for weeks and months and years, that's a terrible sin. So if they're going to begin to correct that sin, they have to stop stealing. That's part of the process. They have to abandon their sin. Number five, they have to pray for forgiveness. We can't assume that God is just going to forgive us automatically. It requires that we pray, that we ask God, please forgive us for what we've done. And number six, we have to resolve to change ourselves in the future. We have to resolve to be different people from here on in. These are more or less, according to most of our sages, the various parts, the various aspects to the process of teshuva, of repentance. It's important to understand that the process of teshuva is not only focused on correcting our faulty behavior. It also includes rectifying any negative character traits that led us to this misbehavior. Meaning that when we do something wrong, that doesn't come out of the blue. There's normally something rotten inside of us, and usually it's a negative character trait. And we have to work on those character traits that led us to misbehaving. Now the Torah designated one day out of the year, and we call that day Yom Kippur, as the day of atonement, which is a day fully devoted to repentance. But this is not the only time during the year when we are supposed to be engaged with teshuva, when we're supposed to be involved with repentance. In the Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer taught, repent one day before you die. Now his students were puzzled, and they asked him, but does a person know on what day they're going to die? So Rabbi Eliezer said, that's all the more reason to repent today, since one might die tomorrow. And so a person should spend all of their days involved with repentance. This is the kind of activity, the kind of process, that a person should always be thinking about. Every day should be a day when you think about, how can I correct my mistakes? How can I be better? The word teshuva also carries the connotation of returning. Because according to the prophet Isaiah, in chapter 59 verse 2, our sins separate us from God. So the process of repentance is not only about atonement and achieving forgiveness for our mistakes, it's also about returning to God and restoring our relationship with him. The Hebrew scriptures contain numerous references to this idea, that the biblical response to sin is teshuva, is repentance. The prophet Ezekiel articulates explicitly the question of what we are to do in the wake of sin. What are we supposed to do if we've sinned? And in chapter 33.10, he expresses this concern that people had. People were saying, since our sins and our iniquities are upon us, and we are wasting away because of them, we're basically, we're lost because of our sinfulness. How can we live? This is the question on the minds of the people. What do we do about our sins? What should the response be? And in the very next verse, God instructs Ezekiel how to answer this question. God says through the prophet, I do not desire the death of the wicked one, but rather that the wicked one return from his way and that he may live. Repent. Repent from your evil ways. So there's a clear question, what do we do if we're drowning in our sin? And God tells us what to do. Turn away from your evil ways. Repent. Repent from them. The prophet Isaiah teaches in chapter 55, verse 7, let the wicked one forsake his way and the iniquitous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and he will show him mercy to our God for he is abundantly forgiving. Again, the response to sin is repentance, is returning to God and forsaking our evil ways. The prophet Jeremiah in chapter 36, verse 3, the same idea. He says, perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I intend to do to them so that they will repent, each man from his evil way, and then I can forgive their sin and their transgression. The book of 2nd Chronicles, Devaray HaYamim, chapter 7, verse 14. God says, if my people, upon whom my name is proclaimed, humble themselves and pray and seek my presence and repent of their evil ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. And this idea is reiterated over and over again in the Bible many times, that the response to sin should be repentance, should be teshuvah. And we see from the book of Jonah, in chapter 3, an actual story of this inaction of people who have sinned and this is exactly what they do. Jonah the prophet warns the city of Nineveh that their behavior has angered God and that they are slated for destruction. And the king of Nineveh and the people engage in a heartfelt process of repentance, of turning away from their evil. And in verse 10 of this chapter, we read that God saw their deeds, that they repented from their evil ways and God relented concerning the evil that he had said he would bring upon them and he did not do it. The sages of the Talmud wrote extensively about the transformative power of teshuvah, of repentance. They teach that if a person repents, primarily out of fear of punishment, what might motivate a person to repentance? Could be that they're afraid of getting punished. So if a person repents because they're afraid of getting punished, any intentional sins they did will be treated and viewed as unintentional sins. You don't get severely punished for unintentional sins. But the Talmud says that if a person repents, not out of fear, but out of their love for God, their intentional sins are transformed and viewed as good deeds, as meritorious deeds. In Jewish thought, repentance is the stuff of life. Improving, growing, and working on ourselves is the very essence of what our lives are supposed to be all about. When creating human beings in the beginning of the Torah, God said, let us make man. The question is, who is God speaking to? And one of the answers proposed by our Hasidic masters is that God is speaking to each and every one of us. When God said, let us make man, He's speaking to every human being who will ever be born. Because when God created everything else, it was done unilaterally. God said, let there be trees, let there be lions, let there be tigers, let there be bears. God can make anything. But when it comes to the human being, God is basically saying, I cannot fully create a human being. God is saying, I can give the human being a body and a soul. I can give the human being the raw ingredients. But what they will become ultimately is a product of what they do with these raw ingredients. And that's why God says to each of us, let us make man. God challenges every one of us. Let us. God is saying, I and you are going to combine forces and create who you ultimately will be. And to highlight the centrality of this, the idea that the most important thing that we are on this world to do is to create ourselves. We spend the first 10 days of the year involved with Teshuvah, with repentance. We call the first 10 days of the year the Aseret Yimei Teshuvah, the 10 days of repentance. These are the days that are beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and ending with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And these 10 days are 10 days where the major theme is Teshuvah. It's all about working on ourselves and improving ourselves. And that's how the year begins. And that really should set the tone for the rest of the year. And Judaism is based on the premise that we can change. This is the premise of Judaism. In Genesis chapter 4, verse 7, God says to Cain that sin will crouch at the door. Human beings will always be tempted by sin. We're always going to be tempted to do the wrong thing. But God says, but you can rule over it. You have the ability to change your life. Rabbi Tzedek HaCoin of Lublin, a great Hasidic teacher who passed away in the year 1900, he famously said that we're not only supposed to believe in God, we have to believe in ourselves as well. And what he meant by this is that God created each of us with tremendous potential. Each one of us was created with incredible spiritual potential. We have the ability to use our free will to choose to improve our lives and to change whatever needs to be changed. And this helps explain why Abraham and not Noah was chosen to be the progenitor of the Jewish people. We know that both Noah and Abraham faced the exact same challenge. Noah is told by God, look Noah, I'm going to destroy the whole world with a flood. Abraham is told essentially the same thing. Abraham is told by God, I'm going to destroy Sodom and Amorah and Admah and Sivoyim, which were the major population centers of the world at that time. But they react very differently. Noah says to God, look, you want to destroy the world? You're God, you know what you're doing. I'll do whatever you tell me. I should build a boat and save my family. Fine, I'll do that. That's the reaction of Noah. He doesn't protest. He doesn't ask God, you're going to really kill the whole world? Everybody's going to be killed? But Abraham does not accept this death sentence upon all of these people. Abraham screams at God. He says, can the judge of the whole world not do justice? He challenges God, will you destroy the righteous and the wicked? You're going to kill everybody, the good people and the bad people? And he says to God, what if there are 50 righteous people within these cities? Okay, maybe there aren't 50. What about 45? Okay, but about 30, 40, 30, 20, he goes all the way down to 10. What if there are 10 righteous people within these cities? And God agrees that if there are 10 righteous people within these cities, he will spare the entire city. When you think about it, it's incredible. Abraham is asking for much more than sparing the lives of the righteous people. Abraham's not saying if there are 50 righteous people within those cities, take those righteous people out and kill all of the rest of them. No. Abraham is saying if there are 50 or 45 or 40 or 30 or 20 or even 10 righteous people within these cities, he says to God, you've got to save all of the people. Because in Abraham's mind, if you have 50 or even 10 such righteous people, not just righteous people who maybe are hiding in some monastery somewhere, Abraham says they're living within the city. They're amongst the people. He says to God, you have to spare the entire city. Because Abraham believes that if you have righteous people living as a living example of righteousness, they can have an impact on everyone else. And they have the ability to transform everyone else through their example. So Abraham believes that people can change. And that's why Abraham argues for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. What about Noah? Noah obviously didn't really believe that people could change. Noah sees a world that is wicked. Noah sees a world that God sees of people that are so wicked, God is prepared to destroy them. And in Noah's imagination, he can't even picture the possibility of these people changing. And so the idea that people can change is the very reason why God chose Abraham to be the first Jew. Because Judaism is based upon the premise that each one of us has free will. We have the ability to choose to transform our lives. Each individual can become different. And we believe ultimately that the world itself can become different. The whole promise in the Torah of the messianic age is based upon the idea that the world may not be perfect now, but the world can become perfect through the influence of God's chosen people. That is the ongoing message of the prophets that God says to the Jewish people, you will be a light to the nations. You will be my witnesses. You will be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests. And God says that at some point in history, the nations of the world will come to your light. It's going to happen, God promises. And when the world comes to the light of the Jewish people, the whole world is going to embrace God. The whole world is going to become a world where each person lives at peace with everyone else, because we're all going to be children of one God and therefore brothers and sisters. And so therefore, the entire worldview of Judaism is based upon the premise that each individual can change, can change their life, can change from being a person that is going in the wrong direction to change directions and now go in the right direction, and that the whole world ultimately will change. That is the basic premise of Judaism throughout the Bible.