Today, I completed my first Yom Kippur outside of the United States. While I observed the fast in Buenos Aires and did so in the spring instead of the fall, the imagery of Yom Kippur does not change. One of the most vivid images is depicted in the liturgical poem Unetaneh Tokef. The imagery of the Book of Life grapples with the ultimate question who lives and who dies. Not all of us make it another year. No matter how hard we try, there is a chance this year could be our last. There are things that we cannot control, whether they are natural disasters, pandemics, traffic accidents, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While we live in a world where plenty is out of our control, this poem also reminds us that we are meant to do what is within our control.
The poem Unetaneh Tokef gives us three interrelated tools: praying, giving money to worthy causes, or making up for previous mistakes. It is this last one, teshuvah (תשובה), that I would like to focus on today. While commonly translated as "repentance," it comes from the Hebrew verb "to return" (לשוב). We return to our truest, best selves: who we are meant to be. How in the world do we do that? In order to know where to go in any journey, whether physical or spiritual, you need to know where the starting point is so you can head in the right direction to your destination or destinations. In this case, to understand your starting point, you need to know where you are emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Without that, you simply end up wandering.
For teshuvah to work, you need to remove the mental fog, which includes the ego. As I explained last week for Rosh Hashanah, my former rabbi described this phenomenon as the "Avimelech Syndrome." This syndrome was his way of saying that excuse-making, shifting blame, and rationalizing behavior get in the way of this internal work. As long as one succumbs to the Avimelech Syndrome, it will be impossible to move forward spiritually. It is akin to having the brakes on a car or an anchor on a ship and expecting to make any significant movement.
At the Chabad house where I attended services for Yom Kippur, the rabbi told a Chassidic story about the Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak saw a man smoking on Yom Kippur. When asked why he was smoking, the man replied that he knew it was Yom Kippur and that he knew that Jewish law prohibits smoking on Yom Kippur, but he was doing it anyways. The man who was smoking was not lying or making excuses. He admitted the truth plainly and honestly. It is not a story told to excuse inappropriate or morally problematic behavior. Rather, it is a stark contrast to the Avimelech Syndrome because we need that level of radical honesty to open ourselves to spiritual growth. Why? Because to reiterate, if you do not know where you are at, how do you know where you are going or how to get there?
Once you remove those spiritual blinders, you have to take inventory of your failures and shortcomings without deflections or excuses. To quote G.I. Joe, knowing is half the battle. While it is common for Jewish tradition to go through the errors, I had expressed concern two years ago that focusing only on one's mistakes can lead to despair or paralysis. That is why it is important to also focus on our strengths and the good that we did in the previous year, especially given the human tendency towards negativity bias. By holding contrition and celebration in tension, we can have a balanced view and the motivation to do the work of teshuvah.
However, to paraphrase and infer from the G.I. Joe quote, there is another half of that battle. If teshuvah is to be complete, it cannot merely be Yom Kippur service performance. The goal of teshuvah is transformation, and that takes even more courage than facing what your emotional baggage is. That transformation does not happen by mere confession that is then put on the back burner for another year. Real teshuvah involves acknowledgment of wrongdoing without excuses; making clear commitments to change; structural repair and recompense (if one harmed another); and finally resolving not to return to the same patterns that resulted in the initial error, mistake, or wrongdoing (Maimonides, Hilchot Teshuvah, Chapter 2).
As I pointed out last week, the beauty of teshuvah is that we are not defined by our worst moments and that our past does not dictate our future. We do not have to succumb to old patterns and our futures are not predetermined. The spiritual capacity to change and to return to our truest selves is within our grasp. The question is whether we will seize the moment or not.
