Part IV. Midsummer Teshuva
Summer Repentance
Now, if summertime is such a glorious opportunity, we begin to understand why this season precedes immediately the great days of teshuva, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. After all, if it was up to us we would think the Yomim Noraim should fall out maybe Chanukah time, or better yet around Asara B’Teves, in the middle of winter. The cold months! Oh, that’s a wonderful time for teshuva! Nobody is interested in the streets or travelling on the mountain roads. It’s cold outside; everybody’s indoors anyhow and so they’ll come to hear the teshuva drashas in a warm building. And so that’s the most suitable time, it seems, for repentance.
But we see that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the Architect Who planned this universe according to the Torah, He has other ideas. He made Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, the days of teshuva and kapparah, follow immediately after the summer.
The First Teshuva
Now, before we continue, one important comment on the word teshuva. When we talk about repenting let’s not make an error. We’re not talking merely about righting some wrongs that a person did; teshuva in that sense is too limited. When we talk about teshuva, we are talking about v’shuvu el Hashem, about returning to Hashem; which means, not merely to repent for things that were done incorrectly but more importantly to gain certain qualities, certain attitudes, and certain practices that you haven’t done before—or haven’t done sufficiently.
Now, the biggest teshuva, the first and most important obligation of v’shuvu el Hashem is the great subject of coming back to being aware of Hashem; to come back to Awareness of Hashem precedes and transcends any other duty. And you know when the best time to do that is? The happy days of summer! It’s what we’ve been saying all along: Summertime, that’s when the good Jew starts making teshuva.
Early Elul Zman
You know, up till recently Elul was considered the month of teshuva; it was the month which the Jewish nation utilized to prepare for Rosh Hashana. Today, already the whole thing has been Americanized, gentilized; they prepare for Rosh Hashana on Rosh Hashana evening. The frum Jew, when he has to go out to Ma’ariv on Rosh Hashana night so he begins to be meharher b’teshuva.
But you have to understand that in the better days, Elul was only part of the story—the wise people did it even earlier. Because we know that the Alter of Slabodka, in the middle of the month of Av, right now, he forsook his beloved yeshiva Slabodka where he was the mentor, the teacher, and he went to his old alma mater, so to speak, in Kelm. Kelm was the source of the old ba’alei mussar. And he sat there as a disciple; he was an old man already but he sat as a disciple for the second half month of Av preparing for Elul.
So why is it so that Av, the summer, immediately precedes Elul? It’s an accident of creation? Oh no; it’s in the blueprint of creation. It’s because Av is a glorious month of happiness which is best suited for teshuva. The highest teshuva is the teshuva of people who see the Hand of Hashem when it’s most active, when it’s most bounteous, when the cornucopia of Hashem’s blessings is shedding all of the happiness upon mankind. The summer is a time when all of nature is alive with happiness and therefore, that’s the time to do teshuva.
