If Hashem won’t help a person, he could never be victorious—and this must be the feeling of a person. If a person feels inadequate, it is because it is indeed difficult. This is how people are to feel when they approach doing teshuvah. A person’s ingrained habits are difficult to shake off. He has tried to wean off them many times, but it didn’t happen. He claims, “It’s too hard... you don’t understand my nature, my problems, my personality....” That’s all true. If Hashem doesn’t help, it’s indeed impossible. But what happens when Hashem does help? It is always this way. Whenever a person succeeds in doing teshuvah, letting go of his old ways—it is a miracle above nature.
If we would only think for a moment about how many ba’alei teshuvah exist in our times. Isn’t it an outright miracle?! In a world such as ours, an utterly materialistic world...people can abandon everything in favor of Torah and mitzvos! They abandon their old lives, and, more importantly, their old habits, and they become true ba’alei teshuvah. Thousands of people! Isn’t this an incredible miracle.
When we say that teshuvah preceded the creation of the world, it means that HaKadosh Baruch Hu instilled the power that is in teshuvah to be greater than everything else in creation. Thus, when we ask Hashem for assistance in teshuvah, we are asking Him to perform a miracle for us—to raise us up from the depths in a manner that we can’t even comprehend. It is among the tenets of emunah and bitachon that a person should feel he is asking for a miracle—for if he thinks he can do it alone, he is having bitachon in himself. One must feel that it is Hashem Who is performing a miracle for him, above nature.
The Root of Everything
Rebbe Mendele of Vitebsk, in his sefer Pri HaAretz (Parashas Shofrim), teaches us, “The root of everything is to know that a person cannot, with his own capabilities, do any action of mitzvos and good deeds and to cleave to Hashem—only through the hands of the Blessed One, Creator of fire, can the love and fear of Hashem be on a person’s face.” Thus, it is only through the miracles that Hashem performs for us that we are able to come to close to Him and attain ahavah and yirah.
