Shabbat Teshuba 5779

Shabbat Teshuba 5779

Frustrated. That's really the best word for it, isn't it?

I know that I'm standing here yet again, about to ask on the holiest day of the year for forgiveness, promising change.
Will God believe me? What if I don't even believe myself? So what am I even doing here??

If that's what you're thinking right now as you read this in Synagogue or at home before you go, you are not alone. In fact, most people feel this way. Rarely have I met someone who says, "I am ready for Yom Kippur." It kind of sneaks up on you like the birthday of a sensitive relative you perennially forget and always manage to offend.

"You forgot again!" 

Oh no. "Was that today? It feels like we just celebrated, er, you just celebrated that yesterday!" Disaster.

Wasn't Yom Kippur just yesterday? Didn't we ask forgiveness for the exact same mistakes on this year's list last time around? Did we dramatically change the next day? Who are we kidding?

The truth is we don't need to be frustrated, or feel like our Viduy, or confession, is disingenuous. We just need to understand the process of change.

We are taught that the creation of teshuba, or repentance, preceded the creation of the world. This implication is a powerful one. Teshuba needed to predate the world because a human, with expectations of perfection, could only be born into a world in which teshuba already existed. Yom Kippur was given to the world not just as a day to obtain purity and a new start; it was born of the Divine understanding that human beings are complicated admixtures of soul and body, spirituality and physicality. As the two sides of our inner selves pull us, each in their own directions, inevitably we all make mistakes. Teshuba allows for perfection in the intrinsically imperfect.

People change over time. Slowly. Excruciatingly slowly. As our brains learn new neural pathways of thought, and our tongues new ways of speech, our hearts learn new ways to feel and care and regret and love. And ever so slowly we imperceptibly climb into a new reality. It is not so much the beating of fists which softens a hardened heart, as the painful knowledge that my heart has become so callous as to require it.

And on this day, with its tunes, solemn devotion, fasting and sincere prayer, there is a moment.

It might be the way the hazan sang a certain note, the way an elderly gentleman walking to his seat reminded you of your upstanding grandfather, your hero, or the sincerity of the furrowed brow of a young child trying to plug into what the adults tell him is a supremely important day. Different cues jog the subconscious or conscious of different people.

Whichever it was for you, suddenly there it is, a moment where our hearts are open. It may last an hour, minute or second, maybe even a nano second. In that moment we see clearly. We realize that we could indeed do, or far more importantly, be, better.

Right there. In that split second, we were in fact genuine. We did, in fact, want to be a better husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, Jew, human...

That is the moment for which He was waiting, the split second of Teshuba, even the most removed among us occasionally feel.
Seize that moment. Ask yourself what it is that would truly elevate you? What would the people you love want to change or tweak, if they could have the remote control in their hand in that fateful second, minute, hour or day? Would they wish you to be more understanding? Flexible? Kind? Giving? Honest? Loving? Available? Here is our chance to commit to take the tiniest of steps in that direction. The moment we take that step is the moment we have won. We have exhibited the powers of Teshuba. The desire to create a better future, the regret over the imperfect past, and the willingness to shift from one to the other.

Perhaps then, the greatest enemy of change is speed, or, at the very least, the expectation thereof. Perfection is measured not in days but in lifetimes.

So take your time. You have waited all year for this. Take it all in. Engage. Focus. If you don't know the words, hum, or give the Explanatory Service a try. Whatever it is let Yom Kippur and its internal power of change come to you. And on this great and holy day, when it does, and you are ready, and you have sincerely taken on the battle plan for this year, know that you are on the arduous continual path to real change, not the speedy motorway to nowhere.

May our prayers and thoughts on this Yom Kippur be precious on high, and yield the year we so desperately need: a year of peace between men, understanding between religions, love between families, collaboration between competitors and balance between extremes. May our community grow strong, our people united, our country prosperous and our homeland safe. May this Yom Kippur be the day we step up in our personal lives and make the improvements that cause the gradual, but elemental change that will, in concentric circles make those dreams our blessed reality.

Shana Tova,
Tizku L'Shanim Rabot! Gmar Chatima Tova!
Rabbi Shlomo Farhi