Wipe the Slate Clean
The zodiacal sign for the month of Elul is בתולה, the "maiden,” known in English as Virgo. The Ramban explains that this signifies Hashem’s love for Kenesses Yisrael.
It seems to bear another meaning as well. We know that a sinner is likened to a wife who was unfaithful to her husband. And Halachah states that a wife who commits adultery is forbidden to her husband. If so, how can K’lal Yisrael do teshuvah, after they betrayed Hashem?
The power of teshuvah creates a reality in which Hashem calls out to the Jewish people: שובי בתולת ישראל – Return, O maiden of Yisrael!
Hashem calls the Jewish people a “maiden,” i.e., a virgin girl. It is as if they never sinned at all.
The deeper meaning of this is brought out by Rabbeinu Yonah’s teaching in Yesod Hateshuvah:
On the day [that a person does teshuvah], he should cast away all the sins he did, and make himself as if he was born that day, and he has neither merits nor demerits. This day is the beginning of his deeds.
Teshuvah does not just mean that a person has no sins. Rather it means, as Rabbeinu Yonah said, that “he has neither merits nor demerits.” It is turning over a new leaf, it is starting with a clean slate, and that means no chovos and also no zechuyos.
The Rambam writes:
Among the ways of teshuvah is that... he changes his name, to say: I am someone else. I am not the person who did those deeds.
Even a married woman who never sinned, who conducted her whole life in kedushah and taharah, is not called a besulah. But teshuvah means “as if he was born that day,” like a besulah who is entering her initial relationship with her husband.
Whatever took place in the past, for better or for worse, is as if it never existed. Everything starts anew! This is the avodah of the month of Elul.
The Close and the Far
The Prophet Yeshayahu declares:
Those who are far, hear what I did. And those who are close, know My power.
Rashi explains that “those who are far” refers to people who believe in Hashem and have been doing His Will since their youth. And “those who are close” refers people who did teshuvah and recently drew close to Hashem.
Rashi is expressing a startlingly original idea. Simply speaking, we would consider those who fulfilled Hashem’s Will since their youth as being closer to Hashem than those who drew close to Him only now. However, Rashi says the reverse. Because there is an inherent drawback in the behavior of people who have been doing Hashem’s Will since their youth: it is habitual. And for this reason, they are termed “those who are far.”
