'Tis the Jewish season...for repentance, that is. We are currently in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which is known as Yamim Noraim (ימים נוראים). During these ten days, we are meant to reflect on the themes and motifs of the holidays while making amends for wrongs we committed in the past [year] by doing teshuvah (תשובה). Although teshuvah is commonly translated as "repentance," the word is related to the Hebrew verb לשוב, "to return." Teshuvah is more about returning to your good self. The teshuvah process for the High Holy Days reaches its climax during Yom Kippur. With regards to sins that are committed between man and G-d, they are forgiven, as is illustrated by Kol Nidre. As for sins committed between other people, the teshuvah process is meant to have taken place by the time Yom Kippur reaches its end, at which time, forgiveness is hopefully given because the individual who did the wrong has made amends.
This next bit is strictly from my personal observations, but it seems that after Yom Kippur ends, teshuvah is set aside. When I say "set aside," I don't mean that people aren't doing teshuvah during the rest of the year or that it never gets brought up again. After all, asking for teshuvah is in our daily prayers three times a day. On the other hand, it is one of many blessings and prayers recited in daily liturgy, and it can easily get lost among so many other motifs. In practice, there is a de-emphasis during the rest of the year to the point of "thank G-d I don't have to do this again until next Rosh Hashanah." I don't mean to say that we need to emphasize it year-round the way we do during the Yamim Noraim. At the same time, we have to remember that teshuvah is not reserved only for the Yamim Noraim, and I think as such for a few reasons beyond the daily liturgy.
At the Ne'ilah service during Yom Kippur, we are meant to gear up and shift our thoughts and actions towards the teshuvah that we were supposed to work on during Yamim Noraim. R. Israel Salanter even said that those who are really religious are those who start doing teshuvah during Ne'ilah instead of waiting until Yamim Noraim of the following year. This mentality helps us keep teshuvah at the forefront of our thoughts instead of being at the back-burner.
The idea of integrating teshuvah as a constant in our daily life is important. As Hillel said in Pirke Avot (1:13), he who does not increase [his Torah learning] decreases (ודלא מוסיף יסף). Although there are certain constants in life, the truth is that life is also in flux. You learn to adapt to the change or get stuck. You learn to improve or you will regress. There is no staying in one place. To quote Frida Kahlo, "nothing is absolute, everything changes, everything moves, everything revolutionizes, everything comes and goes." That is reality. As we develop our characteristic traits and our Torah learning, we have to keep teshuvah ever so in mind so we can grow. Growth and teshuvah go hand-in-hand. They also help shape our purpose. R. Yonah's commentary on Pirke Avot 1:13 is that one who feels no need to learn more is spiritually dead, and that the gift of life is wasted on that individual. Keeping teshuvah at the forefront is not just good ethical advice: it gives our life the fullest meaning possible.
There is another reason we need to keep teshuvah as part of our personal development, and that is the nature of the yetzer hara (יצר הרע), or the Evil Inclination. In Pirkei Avot 4:1, Ben Zoma says that a strong person is one who subdues his Evil Inclination (הכובש את יצרו). In Midrash Shmuel's commentary on Pirkei Avot 4:1, he reminds us of how the yetzer hara differs from an enemy of a physical war. One is that the yetzer hara can successfully pass itself off as your friend. The second is that physical war is about physical security, whereas the yetzer hara is a fight for your spiritual life. The third aspect, and the one that is most apropos to this conversation, is that in a physical war, once the enemy is vanquished, the enemy won't come back. That is not the case with the yetzer hara. Even if you manage to subdue or mitigate the yetzer hara at a certain time, that does not mean the yetzer hara cannot "come back from the dead." It can always make a reappearance. The idea of such relapse is regrettably all too familiar with those dealing with addiction, and that notion plays out in Jewish thought. Midrash Shmuel's comments imply that we need to be so alert about teshuvah that we need to be mindful of things that we might have thought were already resolved.
The process of teshuvah is not for the fainthearted because it makes us confront our ego and pushes us outside of our comfort zone. Teshuvah goes well beyond feeling bad for past actions or saying "I'm sorry." It is about making some major changes to our character traits, or at the very least, our behavior. As such, it requires constant reflection, introspection, and alterations to maintain a certain level of behavior. I believe that the story of Jonah and Nineveh is not read on Yom Kippur because it shows us an exemplar of teshuvah. Quite the opposite! If anything, the people of Nineveh managed to undo their teshuvah by the end of the Book of Jonah. My take on why the Book of Jonah is read on Yom Kippur is to remind us that even when we do teshuvah initially, we can always drop the ball and relapse later. The Book of Jonah reminds us how fragile our humanity can be, and how we need to be mindful of it for our teshuvah to have permanence. May our teshuvah be sincere and everlasting this Yom Kippur!
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