The heilige Ropshitzer Rav says that we ask Hashem, “Bring us back to You and we will return” (Eicha 5:21). Hashem says to us, “Come back to Me and I shall come back to you.” (Malochi 3:7)
Surely, explains the Ropshitzer, even though Hashem asks us to repent and return to Him first, of our own volition, still Hashem will fulfill the will of His children, especially when they are asking that He bring them back. We then do the opposite: we nullify our own will before His and we do teshuva first. Then both our words and Hashem’s are fulfilled.
Chazal say that Hashem asks us to open for Him a small opening the size of a needleprick and He will open for us a large opening the size of a grand hall (Shir HaShirim Rabba 5:3). This Medrash reflects the will of Hashem that we act first; even if our action seems small and insignificantly tiny, Hashem responds with help by enlarging the small opening we made. The Ropshitzer observes that Chazal say in Kiddushin 30b regarding the battle we wage against the yetzer hora that without Hashem’s help we simply fail; we cannot overcome the evil yetzer without Hashem’s help!
The Ropshitzer concludes that the small opening we make the size of a needleprick also requires Hashem’s help! Even that small effort requires strength that we don’t have; without Hashem perhaps we cannot even open that small hole. This is why we cry out, calling to Hashem, “Return us to You, Hashem, and then we will return!” Hashem then considers this outcry to be the small opening of the needle and He enlarges it to open the gates of teshuva, bringing us inside!
When Hashem creates the soul, He grants her the power to overcome the evil yetzer and to do teshuva. However, this power is latent potential waiting for us to actualize it and to strengthen its bonds through Yiras Hashem. When we gather this strength from all our limbs we can be strong enough to overcome the evil yetzer.
This is why our pasuk begins saying, Isha ki sazria veyolda zochor – “If a woman conceives and gives birth to a boy...”, alluding to our first seed; the planting of our seed is the effort we contribute when we push open that small opening the size of a needleprick. The sowing of seeds is the first step before germination and conception; the process of birth begins with seed, and the final stage is the actual birth of a baby boy. This is similar to the two songs: the feminine song of exile – Golus – and that of the first Geula called (Shir HaShirim Rabba 1:36) Shira Chadosha which was a song about the redemption which was temporal, for there was another exile that followed and another redemption that would follow as well.
It is in the feminine form because it is like a female who gives birth several times and can have many children. But the future song that will herald the Final Redemption will be called Shir Chodosh because it is masculine and men cannot give birth. That is the song we aim for when our pasuk concludes with the birth of the baby boy.
