How to Go About Teshuvah in This Opportune Month
The King Is in the Field
HaKadosh Baruch Hu has given us the gift of this one month in the year in which we are granted special assistance to come close to Him; as we learn in chassidishe sefarim (see Likutei Torah Parashas Re’eh), the King is in the field during this month. HaKadosh Baruch Hu comes out to us, and He assists us in finding our way to Him.
Chazal have already taught us, “Who is a fool? One who destroys what is given to him” (Chagigah 4a). Thus, one who doesn’t take advantage of this incredible gift given to us behaves like a fool. In addition, there is a complaint against him. Hashem says, “I came to you, and I wanted to help you.” HaKadosh Baruch Hu reduces Himself, as it were, to the level of the person and his weaknesses, yet he doesn’t reciprocate?!
We must remember that, aside from being a hachanah for Rosh Hashanah, Chodesh Elul stands on its own as an opportune time for teshuvah, in a way that even Chodesh Tishrei does not—and a person must utilize this power. Some make the mistake of waiting until the end of Elul... but this is wrong, for when this exalted month arrives, it brings with it incredible ohr, light. That this time also serves as a hachanah to the Yom HaDin is a separate matter. This month must be utilized from its beginning until its end—each and every one of its days— for the endeavor of returning to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
The Yetzer Hara’s Nightmare
And, as he does regarding all mitzvos, the yetzer hara does everything to conceal this light from us. And if this is true for all mitzvos, which are each one detail of ratzon Hashem, how much more so is this true for teshuvah, a general and overarching mitzvah that contains everything within it—for when a person does teshuvah, he becomes close to Hashem, his davening becomes elevated, his learning becomes different, his emunah, his bitachon, his deveikus... all are transformed as a result of his teshuvah.
Thus, we can imagine how much ammunition the yetzer hara will deploy to prevent a person from doing teshuvah, for what power does he have if a person can still return to his Creator after having sinned, and yet is never pushed away?
The only thing the yetzer hara can do is to distract a person from ever engaging in teshuvah... to obfuscate and make it difficult for the person, and somehow ensure that he will find himself at the end of Chodesh Elul not having done teshuvah, and then the yetzer hara will do everything he can to ensure that even during the rest of the year a person will not give teshuvah serious thought, not to learn the Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuvah, not to learn Rabbeinu Yonah’s Sha’arei Teshuvah. “No, no, don’t learn those things... please... learn anything else,” he says. The bottom line is that the yetzer hara is very afraid of teshuvah, and he will do everything he can to distract a person from it.
Our avodah is to the contrary, to davkah immerse ourselves in this holy endeavor of teshuvah...davkah bringing more השכינה השראת to our neshamah and to This World. This bit of light that we will generate will push away any darkness and concealment with which the yetzer hara tries to blanket the world.
Creating Clarity
One of the tools in the yetzer hara’s arsenal in his war on teshuvah is lack of clarity—that is, he makes a person feel that he doesn’t know what steps to take regarding teshuvah. When we tell a person to shake lulav and esrog, he knows exactly what to do. This is a lulav, this is an esrog, this is a hadas, and this is an aravah. Take them together and shake them. True, there are numerous details and halachos. But this is the mitzvah. It is clear and straightforward. And it is the same with most other mitzvos. There is a clear order, and a person can clearly ascertain whether he carried out the mitzvah properly.
When it comes to teshuvah, however, it isn’t so clear. A person cannot easily touch it and proclaim, “Today I fulfilled one of the most important mitzvos... today I generated a nachas ruach to the Ribbono shel Olam.” Why? Because he doesn’t have clarity in the mitzvah.
Sure, he experienced pangs of regret. Any Yid, with a beating Yiddishe heart, who has transgressed will feel pain and regret. His neshamah is torn and it cries.... But what happens next? He feels something, and then he proceeds further without realizing that something big just happened. This thought of regret is a big step.
Regret and Resolution
Furthermore, when a Yid sits on Friday night, singing ותשבחות שירות to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and suddenly he feels yearning for kedushah... he feels an ironclad desire to become close to Hashem... this too is a form of חרטה. What is charatah, regret? Regret means thinking, “I want this, and I don’t want what I currently have.” And this regret comes in two forms. One is positive and one is negative. The negative is when he contemplates his spiritual position and he is broken and regretful about it. The positive is when a person sees that there is something even better out there, and he wants to abandon what he has in favor of what he can have.
Often, a person feels regret when he finds something better in his spiritual life. Until now, he also learned Torah—but it was without doing teshuvah beforehand, and so it wasn’t with the right mindset and attitude. But one day, he experienced learning amid bittul to Hashem... he said Tehillim beforehand, he did teshuvah prior to learning, and then he sat down to learn. And since that time, he regrets his prior attitude to learning. He says, “Now I want this! I don’t want my old learning anymore.” Similarly, a person goes through many such thoughts, and he doesn’t pause to appreciate the fact that he is experiencing teshuvah.
The same applies to positive resolutions that a person takes on—one of the central tents of teshuvah. A person accepts upon himself a positive kabbalah for the future. He sets an alarm clock to wake up at an earlier time to learn and daven.... Something special just happened; this person engaged in the mitzvah d’Oraisa of teshuvah.
The third aspect of teshuvah is ווידוי, confession of one’s past transgressions—the most explicit of all three aspects, which we see clearly in the Torah: עוונם, את והתודו and they will confess their sin. A person says explicitly, “I have sinned... I have committed aveiros... I don’t want such a life... I fell prey to the yetzer hara. Ribbono shel Olam, please accept my teshuvah and help me for the future.”
Confessing Clearly
It is important to bring clarity to our situation, to gather all aspects of teshuvah together, to feel regret, to confess with clarity where we went wrong. Just as when warning a person who is transgressing an aveirah, we must warn him precisely and clearly, “Know that you’re transgressing this-and-this aveirah,” so too, we must be clear about our own situation. Lack of clarity will cause a person to stall rather than to progress forward.
It’s exactly as in money matters. People who aren’t clear about their financial situation—how much money they have, how much they owe to others—live in an incredible confusion. We ask the person, “How much debt do you have?” And he will say, “I believe that it’s about 60,000.” And we say, “What does belief have to do with this? How much do you owe?” And he is forced to sit down with pen and paper... and it will usually turn out that he owes far more than he originally thought. This is how it looks when there is no clarity.
If a person doesn’t confess where he went wrong, he lacks clarity. True, no one likes to have to pronounce, “The words that I have just spoken involve a serious issur d’Oraisa of lashon hara, about which the Chofetz Chaim tells us that I have transgressed numerous transgressions.” It’s far easier to simply say, “Listen, I’m not always a great tzaddik... sometimes, I fail a little bit with avak lashon hara.... Chazal already tell us that everyone is sometimes nichshal in this. We can proceed further....”
Asking for Help
When a person brings himself to clarity, when he feels regret and confesses his aveiros clearly, and when he asks Hashem, “Please help me. I cannot do it alone [as we are taught: If not that HaKadosh Baruch Hu helps a person, he could never be victorious against the yetzer hara]—how much siyatta diShmaya will he merit! And then he can further say, “Today, I did teshuvah. I don’t know what will happen in the future. I hope and I daven to Hashem that He will help me.... In any case, I am deeply ashamed of the past.”
A person need not advertise his transgressions to others, as we learn from the pasuk חטאה, כסוי פשע נשוי אשרי praiseworthy is one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered over. But internally, he must clarify the specific transgressions for which he is regretful—being able to come and daven secure in the knowledge that he has committed teshuvah. The Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizensk guides us to awake in the early hours of the day and cry bitter tears in order to erase his aveiros and remove the ...הלב טמטום and this person has fulfilled this in its entirety.
But there is no limit to the depths of teshuvah that a person can do... as we have noted, this mitzvah preceded the creation of the world, and it is a mitzvah that encompasses everything, all of Torah—for it touches the essence of our existence, and returns us to our previous selves so we can truly change and come close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The main thing is that a person must know that teshuvah is a mitzvah that we must carry out in fact, and there are set times for it. One of these times, according to the Arizal and the Ba’al Shem Tov, is before Kriyas Shemah al HaMittah. One should designate this time for confessing to the Ribbono shel Olam what he has done wrong, and daven that he should be assisted. Then he will see that true changes—not just passing emotions—will transpire in his life.
