Learning About Teshuvah
One of the themes of the Aseres Yemei Teshuva and Yom Kippur in particular is ‘Avinu Malkeinu.’ I’m not talking now about the formal prayer that we say after Shemoneh Esrei; I mean that it’s a theme of the days themselves. ‘Avinu Malkeinu’ is an attitude that the Am Yisroel works on developing during these Days of Teshuva and then it’s the last tefillah of Yom Kippur – right after Neilah we go away from this holiest of days with one more time shouting “Avinu Malkeinu”.
Now, it’s not a coincidence that these two words, Avinu and Malkeinu, are both used in the daily Shemoneh Esrei in the brachos of teshuvah and selichah. In all of the supplications of Shemoneh Esrei we don’t find the words ‘Avinu’ and ‘Malkeinu’ in the same brachah – only here in Hashiveinu and Slach Lanu. Open up a siddur and take a look; it’s the only place.
And that’s a very important point because it’s teaching us something about teshuvah. It’s telling us that turning back to Hashem in teshuvah, that’s the brachah of Hashiveinu, as well as the request for forgiveness, that's Selach Lanu, require one to acquire these two attitudes. Avinu and Malkeinu – it’s two perspectives that a person who is asking for forgiveness must work to acquire.
Don’t Bank on Forgiveness
Now that might come as a surprise to many people – “Attitudes and perspectives?! I just want to do teshuva. I want to say ‘I’m sorry’ and seek forgiveness.”
But that’s an error that people make because repentance and forgiveness are not formalities.
You know when you hand in your application for forgiveness so you might think that you're a pretty good fellow. After all, you went through the trouble of buying a ticket or a seat in the synagogue for Yom Kippur. And so you’re also congratulating yourself for making the teshuvah request. It's like going to the bank; naturally you expect to get what you asked for.
But that’s not how it works with teshuva and selicha. Because if you’re talking to somebody who is just a face at a bank window, a teller, and you hand in your application, “I hereby declare that that I did teshuva; now forgive me,” that’s not enough. Maybe it’s something, a miktzas teshuvah perhaps, but even if it is, it’s not the teshuvah and selichah we’re looking for. To accomplish what we all want to accomplish on Yom Kippur, ם∆יכ≈לֲﬠ ר≈ּפַכ¿י ה∆ּזַה םֹוּיַב יƒּכ – that it should be a day of wiping away our sins completely, there are important attitudes that we have to acquire.
Making Father Great Again
Number one proviso is that it should be Avinu; you should be talking, not to a bank teller but to your Father. You must acquire the attitude of Avinu – Hashem is our Father.
Now, to American ears the word ‘father’ is almost meaningless. Everyone knows that Father's Day means very little in America; Mother's Day at least has a little bit of significance but Father's Day is almost entirely ignored. The attitude towards a father, unfortunately, has not been developed properly in Western society and therefore the avodah of Avinu is something that has to be developed.
Where to start? So the first thing is to understand that the emotion of speaking to a father is an emotion of seeking his love. The word av, father, is the same word as ahav, love, only that the hei which is a weakly sounded letter, comes in between. And therefore ב‡ and הב‡ are all part of the same emotion; the av, the father, means the one whose love we seek.
And therefore the baal teshuva must yearn to be restored to the affections of his Father. Just like a man wants to see his father – if you’re a person who is of sound mind and let's say your father happens to be visiting in the neighborhood, you make it your business to see him; that's a measure of your love for your father – that’s how a person, a healthy, stable person, should feel about his real Father.
Pangs of Lovesickness
And if he sinned against Him and he’s estranged from Him, he has pangs in his heart. Not that he bangs on his chest and says he has pangs; it actually hurts him and he wants to be reconciled. A son who had quarrels and he left his house for some time, so he thinks, “Look, it’s my father. He loves me so dearly and he only wants good for me. Is it right I should be estranged from him? I really should beg his forgiveness and seek his love. I want him to look at me with favor once again.”
That’s what it means to come back to Avinu. “I put myself in a tiff with my Father; I broke off with Him – any sin is breaking off from Hashem – and I’m estranged from Him and so I want to regain His favor.”
That’s the point of teshuvah; not merely that we want our sins to be forgotten, that we don’t want to be punished. Kapparah means more than that. The most important ingredient of forgiveness is achieving once again the love and favor of Hashem.
That’s why when a person bring a korban it says that the result is יוָלָﬠ רּ≈פַכ¿ל ֹלו הָˆ¿רƒנ¿ו – he will gain the favor of Hashem, to atone to him (Vayikra 1:4). Now, it could have just said ‘it will atone upon him’ – the offerings, whatever he does, will serve as an atonement. But no, it says ֹלו הָˆ¿רƒנ¿ו – it’s a gaining of the favor of Hashem, יוָלָﬠ רּ∆פƒכ¿ו – and that’s what kapparah means.
Our Forefathers’ Father
Now you have to have patience with me if this idea is strange to you but the truth is that our forefathers understood it this way. If we look in the Tanach we see that they weren’t satisfied merely that Hashem would forgive them – forgiveness without His favor?! What is it worth?
You remember the story of the eigel, when the Bnei Yisroel sinned with the golden calf, so Hashem said that He’s not going with them anymore; He said “I’ll send a malach, an angel, to accompany you into Eretz Canaan. You’ll be brought into the land and you’ll get everything that I promised you, only that I won’t go with you.”
When the nation heard that, they were grief stricken. ֹיו¿„∆ﬠ ׁ ̆יƒ‡ו ָׁ̇ ̆ ‡ֹל¿וּלוָּבַ‡¿ ּ̇ƒיַו – they were in mourning; nobody had the desire to even put on their respectable clothing (Ki Sisa 33:4).
And Moshe spoke on behalf of the nation and he said, נוָּמƒע יםƒכ¿לֹהָיך∆נָּפ ין≈‡ םƒ‡ – “If Your face, it means if Your favor doesn’t go with us then, הּ∆זƒמּנו≈לֲﬠַ ̇ לַ‡ – don’t take us out of here” (ibid. 15). If You’re going to be estranged from us,” he said, “so we don't want to budge from the wilderness. We’ll just remain here until You reconcile with us. Because all the great promises of a fertile land, flowing with milk and honey, all the happiness, we'll conquer our enemies, all these things are meaningless to us if You don’t go along with us.” In those great days they understood that that’s the success of a man, to gain the favor of Hashem; which means Hashem should like you.
Orthodox Atheists
Now I know that nowadays we are very remote from this concept. For us, we consider a person special if he has gained a certain awareness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu and to him Hashem is more than a word in the siddur. After all there are very many Orthodox atheists, people who in their hearts have nothing. It’s ם∆יה≈ ֹ̇יו¿לּƒכƒמ ֹ̃חוָר¿ו ם∆יהƒפּ¿ב הָּ ַ̇‡ בֹרוָ ̃. Like the navi said, “You’re close in their mouths, but far away from their insides” (Yermiyahu 12:2). And so if someone will work themselves up to the madreigeh that when he says atah Hashem, he feels that he’s talking to an actual Somebody so we imagine that he’s made it, that he’s achieved everything already.
And the truth is that it is a big achievement. But when we talk about accomplishing forgiveness it’s not enough though. Because Awareness of Hashem is still far away from the attitude of Avinu, of reconciling with our Father. And therefore, that’s one of the very big jobs that we have to do on Yom Kippur – we try to reconcile with our Father. That’s the best profit we can take away from the day of kapparah, the tremendous accomplishment of closing the distance that we made during the year and attaining His favor again.
Creating Distance
That’s what it means when we say to Him, חַל¿סּנו‡ָטָח יּƒכּינוƒבָ‡ּנוָל; chatanu does not mean ‘we rebelled,’ chatanu means ‘we missed out, we lost.’ The word cheit means ר≈סָח, to lack. Like Shlomo Hamelech's mother said to Dovid when she was concerned that someone else would seize the throne after Dovid's death: יםƒ‡ָּטַח הֹמֹלׁ¿ ̆ יƒנ¿בּו יƒנֲ‡ יƒ ̇יƒיָה¿ו – I and my son Shlomo will be chato’im; it doesn't mean they will be sinners; it means ‘we will be missing out.’
That’s the real meaning of a cheit; that you’re missing out on being close to your Father. Because when a person understands what the sin is, he feels a sense of loss, of estrangement from his Father. And so we ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu to wipe out that cheit, to wipe away the estrangement and accept us back.
And you should know that if teshuva is approached in this way, sometimes we can accomplish an achievement more than even before the sin. If your teshuva includes a feeling of humiliation – it means you despise your misdeeds because they caused you to lose the favor of Hashem – and now you want with all your heart to be accepted and loved by Him once more, so this new frame of mind, this desire to regain the attitude of Avinu is actually such a great achievement that sometimes a sin can accomplish for a person more than before he even sinned.
Don’t Scorn the Seeker
Kapparah means he wants to make up again with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He wants to come back and renew his covenant of loyalty to Hashem; he wants Hashem to love him. The details, all the al cheits, are important but we’re asking for forgiveness on the details because we want ratzon Hashem. That in itself is a very big achievement, the desire to come back.
That’s why we consider it an achievement when even a Jew who is mechalel Shabbos all year, a person who doesn’t keep anything, but he has the good sense to come on Yom Kippur to the synagogue; and he stands with all the people even though he can’t read Hebrew. People don’t understand what a big thing it is. We look down on them – after all we know that it’ll take a lot of al cheits for him to do teshuva – but actually it’s a tremendous thing just to come to the synagogue. The mere fact that he comes in is a salvation for him because it’s a sign that his heart is yearning to make up with his Father, at least by this one little sign, this small token of seeking his Father’s favor. He still has a long way to go but that itself is a great accomplishment. We want to be once more reconciled with our Father.
And that’s the attitude you have to practice up on when we approach Hashem and ask forgiveness. We want to gain the feeling that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is our Father and we’ll thereby deserve that He should want to take us back into His arms; like a father forgives a son.
ינוƒבָ‡ּנוָל חַל¿ס we say; Forgive us our Father, נו‡ָטָח יּƒכ – because we have distanced ourselves. And if we talk to Hashem as Avinu, our Father, He’ll take us back; because when a father forgives a son, that's how it is.
