Achieving Teshuvah Through Partnership: Shabbat Shuva 5783

Today is Shabbat Shuva– the Shabbat quite literally of return, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Drawing its name from the first line of our Haftorah portion:

שׁוּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ בַּעֲונֶךָ
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, For you have fallen because of your sin.

This special Shabbat is liminal, standing humbly between the two most significant and dramatic days on the Jewish calendar. And so, Shabbat Shuva gives us a special opportunity to do in miniature– quietly and humbly– what we are called to do throughout this season. On Shabbat Shuva, we are given yet another opportunity to start, for the very first time, doing our Teshuvah. 

Every year, as Elul approaches, I tell myself that this will be the year. The year that I really buckle down and do Teshuvah. Some years, that means setting a goal to journal more introspectively. Some years, it means trying to build a personal meditation practice, or do better  at keeping in touch with dear friends and family. Every year, I have high hopes for my Teshuvah practice, but by the time Rosh Hashanah rolls around, I usually feel that I’ve fallen short. And if I am being honest, the very concept of Teshuva has itself always felt so vast, and so vague. And my own lack of clarity around what Teshuvah actually is, often leads me to feeling overwhelmed. Totally daunted. How can I possibly achieve this great big, transformative, and existential project all on my own? The stakes are so high. 

I think we’ve reached a general consensus about what Teshuvah means, or at least what that word has come to represent: reflection, introspection, trying to grow into better versions of ourselves. But our tradition has amassed a myriad of definitions and understandings of this idea:

For Maimonides, Teshuvah is all about total and radical transformation. So that a person should say, “I am not the same person who committed those sins; Rather, I am a completely different and distinct person now.” For Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Teshuvah is about returning to oneself. And Rabbi Joseph Soleveitchik understands Teshuvah as the art and process of  recreating oneself. 

So how do we engage in Teshuvah that is personal, genuine, and leads us to satisfy these interpretations? And in pursuing genuine Teshuvah, how can we do so in ways that strike that most delicate balance between motivation and paralysis? How in the face of such an enormous, and endless task, can we be even mildly successful in our Teshuvah?

For me, the answer to this question lies in accountability. Holding each other and ourselves accountable to the goals we set; to the ways in which we want and need to grow.

I finished Rabbinical School online. I was working both toward Rabbinic ordination and my masters degree when everything came to a halt. And for all of my years as a student, I had developed a routine and a rhythm that helped me manage my time and my workload. Going to class in person, finding a library or coffee shop to work in. Going for walks, and most importantly, finding time to work quietly in the company of friends and classmates. I had systems in place to keep me accountable: to myself, to my work, to my community, to my program. And I felt helpless and unfocused, and anxious about how I was going to get it all done once those systems fell away. So I had to create new systems of accountability. Start from scratch, and re-learn what would work, how I could support all of these endeavors in a radically changed world. 

Thank G-d for Zoom. Soon after the pandemic started, my best friend and classmate suggested that we co-work together on Zoom. Join a Zoom room, and quietly work alongside one another for a few hours. Moving through our respective to-do lists, checking in periodically and bouncing ideas off one another. A chevrutah for the digital age. Having someone there to watch the work happen, to keep me focused, and productive. And it changed everything. I had discovered this new way to work, and this new method of accountability. 

Just after the sin of the Golden Calf, in Exodus chapter 32 we read:

וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהֹוָה עַל־הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ׃

And G-d renounced the punishment planned for God’s people.

Just a few verses earlier, we see how G-d, consumed by anger, disappointment, and likely strong feelings of rejection, is prepared to destroy the entire community:

וְעַתָּה הַנִּיחָה לִּי וְיִחַר־אַפִּי בָהֶם וַאֲכַלֵּם וְאֶעֱשֶׂה אוֹתְךָ לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל׃

Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation.”

To which Moses responds: 

“Let not Your anger blaze forth against Your people, whom You delivered from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand.

Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth.’ Turn from Your blazing anger, and renounce the plan to punish Your people.

Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, how You swore to them by Yourself and said to them: I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of which I spoke, to possess forever.”

Moses holds G-d accountable to G-d’s own vision for the Jewish people. Moses reminds G-d of the promises G-d made, and in turn, G-d does Teshuvah. G-d renounces G-d’s anger toward the whole of the Jewish people. And G-d can only do that because Moshe is there to reflect something essential back to G-d. 

In the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, the Rabbis actually translate our verse to mean: And God regretted the evil that G-d thought to do to his people. And regret, is an essential first step in doing Teshuva. 

Rabbi Kalynomous Kalman Shapira, the Piezetzner Rav, writes that it is a well known teaching of the Rabbis (that we see in the Talmud and Midrash) that G-d observes all of the commandments of the Torah. And we see that clearly illustrated in the moments after the sin of the golden calf. G-d, like us, does Teshuvah. Reflects on G-d’s own feeling and behavior, and changes course for the better. 

G-d, like us, must also do Teshuvah. G-d, like us, must be continuously engaged in a process of thoughtful and genuine introspection, reflection, and change. And we learn from Exodus 32, that the kinds of Teshuvah we seek alongside the divine, become possible when we have a friend, a trusted companion, to reflect back to us both our best and worst tendencies. 

When I think about G-d doing Teshuvah. When I think about G-d caught in the thicket of right and wrong, of regret and guilt and indecision, I suddenly imagine G-d as a partner, that best friend, that classmate who is knee-deep in the process, doing the work right alongside me. A partner to reflect with, to commiserate with, to share the ups and downs and growing pains of becoming our very best selves. The specifics of our to-do lists differ slightly, but our end goal one in the same. 

What would change for you if you imagined G-d as a supportive partner in your personal Teshuvah process? What might change if we believed that G-d was working as hard as we are to become a better version of G-d’s self? What would it mean to trust that G-d is also struggling to do this work?

It can be easy to lose ourselves and our motivation in the face of such a large and daunting, and limitless project. As we approach Yom Kippur, I encourage you to find that person who can hold you accountable to the goals you are setting for this year. And as we approach Yom Kippur, think about the ways you might hold G-d accountable. And how might you imagine G-d holding you accountable on this essential spiritual journey?

Shabbat Shalom!