Imagine you find out that someone attached a micro-video camera to you at birth and has been recording every move you made and every word you uttered. Every time you lost your temper, every time you indulged yourself – it’s all there. And it’s about to go public. Everyone you know is going to get a copy. What would you do to hit delete on that original file? How much money would you pay? The day of Yom Kippur we have that opportunity - to erase everything and start fresh. We are able to burn that file forever. Who wouldn’t grab such an opportunity? What a chesed from Hashem!
Teshuva is a metzios that Hashem had to create. If a person does an aveira, he sinned. What can he do? It’s too late – the deed is done! Hashem says no, it’s not too late, do teshuva and you will get a kapara. Says the Nesivos Shalom – if a person would have a limb chopped off Rachmona litzlon, can he fix it? No. Once it’s off, it’s off. The same should be with an aveira - once you did it, it should be over. You sinned and now you are a baal mum. It’s like you lost a limb. However, Hashem created a metzios in the world, a new creation called teshuva. Once this creation exists, we can now erase that sin. We can turn back the clock and become a new person. We know the famous chazal that b’makom shebaal teshuva omdim ein tzadikim gemurin yecholin laamod. There isn’t a tzaadik out there who didn’t do an aveira. But he’s still a tzaadik – he did teshuvah. A baal teshuva is someone who turned his life around. I am a baal teshuva. I turned around. I am not the same person. I am someone else. Yom Kippur is the biggest day of simcha. It’s a huge opportunity of joy – a chance to burn that file for good. Rabeinu Yona says that after teshuva you are reborn. You are brand new.
The Dubna Magid tells a mashal of a simple villager who traveled from far away and came to the big city. Of course, he’s enthralled with the skyscrapers and huge building and everything that city life has to offer. He checks into a hotel and is woken up in middle of the night from the sound of drums banging. What’s going on? He finds out that drum-banging is a message that there’s a fire. And as he watches, people come running with water and put out the fire. This simple-minded villager is amazed. He makes sure to purchase a drum and returns to his village breathless with excitement. He has the solution to put out fires in a most amazing way! The next time a fire breaks out, the villager smiles, takes out his drum, and begins to bang. Of course, the fire continues to rage.
When we just bang al cheit, it’s like that villager who bangs on the drum and hopes to put out a fire with his banging. We can’t just bang. We have to actually change ourselves; it’s the only way to put out the fire of cheit.
Nevuchadnetzer gave advice to destroy the Bais Hhamikdash, and then he warned his soldiers to keep the captives busy. Don’t give them time to rest – because then they’ll do teshuva and Hashem will accept it and we won’t be successful. Even a rasha understood the koach of teshuva. But what is teshuva? Teshuva means that when you return to your original struggle, you are now successful. That means that it’s okay to struggle – we are human. But we must reach the point that we win. That’s real teshuvah.
We are told that one who does teshuva from fear, his sins that were done purposely are now considered as if he did them mistakenly. But one who repents out of love, his aveiros turn into mitzvos. Teshuva from fear is not real teshuva; he’s just scared of being punished. But teshuva from ahava, that’s true repentance. Love means that you are coming close to Hashem, you are counting your blessings and feeling indebted to Hashem, you love Him so much that you just have to return to Him. That is truly teshuva, and that’s what Hashem desires.
Why is it that when one does teshuva from fear, his aveiros become as if he did them accidentally, and when he does teshuva from love the aveiros turn into mitzvos? Shouldn’t it be that when he does teshuva from love, it’s like he never did that aveira? Why does it skip two steps to become as if he did a mitzvah? Says Rav Baruch Ber, there are 613 mitzvos – and one of those mitzvos is teshuva. If a person never did an aveira, he would not be able to fulfill the mitzva of teshuva. How could a person repent if he never sinned? Comes out that the aveira he did is a hechsher mitzva – a preparation for the mitzva of teshuva. And so, all aveiros he did become like mitzvos.
The question is, why do we spend lots of time on improving our behavior if after Yom Kippur we go back to our old self? Rav Chaim Friedlander (brought down in sefer Aleinu L’shabaiach Parshas Nitzavim) answers this with a mashal. There was a wealthy man who owned a boat which was anchored. Every few months he would have to buy a new rope because the old rope would gradually corrode. Someone asked the owner, “Why do you bother always buying a new rope if it will corrode again?” The owner said, “I have no choice, because if I don’t buy a new rope the boat will eventually totally rip off and the boat will drift away forever”. The same applies to us. During Elul and the Yomim Noraim, we have to anchor ourselves to Hashem and His Torah to ensure that we don’t drift away spiritually. It’s true that when these days past we typically go back to our old self, but the new rope, the new teshuva resolution that we accepted upon ourselves, protects us from being lost in the sea of spiritual confusion and iniquity. Teshuva ensures that we never completely drift away.
Rav Shimshon Pincus compares teshuva to a heavy beam. During the year it’s very hard to lift the beam and move it to where you want it to go. It takes lots of effort. However, on Yom Kippur, Hashem holds the beam in the air and raises it up with a rope. With the slightest touch, we can move it to any direction we want. So too, during the year, change is very hard, but on Yom Kippur Hashem raises us up in the air to great spiritual heights and with little effort we can push and head successfully to where we want to go in life. And we can go as far as we want.
It’s like a person who wants to travel very far. Right now he’s in the train station, and all he has to do is take one step into the train and that train will take him many miles away to his destination. However, the fool will remain in the station, unwilling to take that tiny step. Says Rav Pincus, this is what Yom Kippur can do for us – with one tiny step we can go so very far. One step can take us to places we never imagined. But we must take that step, or we will remain on the platform in the station with a long, arduous journey ahead.
The Seforno says on the Pasuk 30-2 “V’shavta ad Hashem Elokecha” – your teshuva should be in order to do the will of Hashem alone. That is the teshuva that Chazal say reaches to the kisei hakavod.
We mentioned previously that doing teshuva from fear switches one’s sins to be as if he did them accidentally, and doing teshuva from love switches his sins into mitzvos. But the Sfas Emes (Shabbos Shuva 653) tells us that there is even a higher level of teshuva. The highest level of teshuva is called “teshuvas emes”. Teshuva from love means you are doing teshuva because you want to connect to Hashem and teshuva removes the barrier between you and Hashem. But the highest level of teshuva is even if the barrier will still be there between you and Hashem, you are still going to do teshuva because you understand the severity of the aveira you did against Hashem and you understand the truth to do teshuva. This is peshat in the Seforno that the highest level of teshuva that reaches the kisai hakavod is a teshuva that you do only to do the will of Hashem. That is a teshuva sheleima.
May we all take advantage of the incredible gift of teshuva and return to Hashem with a complete heart. G’mar Chasima Tova!
