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Rav Kook – Orot ha Teshuvah (17:2)
When all of these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, you will consider in your heart, among all the nations where the Lord your G-d has banished you, and you will return unto the Lord, your G-d (lit. ושבת עד ה׳ אלוקיך), with all your heart and with all your soul, and you will listen to His voice, according to all that I am commanding you this day… (Devarim 30:1-2)
For the Lord will once again rejoice over you for good, as He rejoiced over your forefathers, when you obey the Lord, your G-d, to observe His commandments and His statutes written in this Torah, and return to the Lord, your God (lit. ושבת אל ה׳ אלוקיך)… with all your heart and soul. (Devarim 30:9-10)
Often, a person who wishes to do teshuvah encounters impediments. These blockages make him brokenhearted. Although he knows that his life is full of brokenness which must be rectified, he is unable to do proper teshuvah in practice. Nevertheless, his strong will for teshuvah purifies him. It sanctifies and illuminates his life, and the obstacles he encounters should not discourage him. He must continue to pursue exaltedness and spiritual elevation, in accordance with the holiness of his soul and its holy character…
Our parshah expresses this point with the way it describes teshuvah. It uses two different terms – one verse speaks of returning “unto” (lit.עד) G-d, whereas the other speaks of returning “to (lit. אל)” Him. Returning “unto” something means that you’ve come close, but haven’t yet reached what you’re seeking. Returning “to” something means that you’ve made it fully back. The Torah is clear that “return unto G-d” is also called teshuvah.
This is the teshuvah of the Jew who is seeking G-d’s embrace, but finds many obstacles blocking his way. We can call this “inner teshuvah” (lit. תשובה פנימית). It manifests itself in a person’s will, the deepest and most essential part of a person’s being. Although its light is obscured by many blockages and partitions, that light still shines, and ultimately, no obstacle in the world can prevent it from appearing in all of its beauty and perfection.
Commentary by Rav Moshe Weinberger (Song of Teshuvah, Vol. 4): When a person experiences a desire to do teshuvah… [h]e may suffer the confusion of not understanding what teshuvah means, he may feel that he lacks the strength to change, or he may be unable to repair damage that he had caused others. Perhaps he cheated someone who is no longer alive, perhaps he stole from the community, or perhaps he humiliated others without even realizing it. He takes his responsibility to do teshuvah seriously. He knows that he has to rectify everything in the most perfect way that he can. Yet he feels that in certain areas he cannot do teshuvah — and as a result his heart breaks. He might then think that his impulse to do teshuvah means nothing, that it is worthless. But a person’s will to do teshuvah — like his holy thoughts in general — stands on a high plane of existence… Thus, this person’s desire to do teshuvah is in itself something great and holy, a force that purifies and sanctifies him like a mikveh.
Therefore, he must not allow any obstacles… in his path to take him away from his desire to do teshuvah. He should not despair of reaching the most exalted level. And therefore, when he experiences any higher feeling, any spiritual ascent, even if it is of the most minor sort, he should not look down on it but hold onto it.
Rav Kook – Orot haTeshuvah (14:19)
Frequently, a person with newfound resolve for spiritual growth finds that his yetzer ha’ra grows stronger, casts him down and tempts him with lowly desires. The natural reaction is to take this as a rejection of the attempt to become a better Jew. This is a mistake. No one should ever regret their will for teshuvah. When you experience failure in the course of your ascent, the proper response is to redouble your resolve and to rectify those failures with additional teshuvah.
You should know that all of this is addressed by the principle (Gemara Shabbat 137a) that “when a person has erred in the course of performing a mitzvah, he is exempt from bringing a sin offering” (lit. טועה בדבר מצוה פטור מחיוב חטאת). No one should be afraid of failures or errors that occur as part of the teshuvah process. Instead, you must fortify your yirat Hashem, holiness, and sense of inspiration at every stage of the journey– even when you make a wrong turn on the way to your destination.
Commentary by Rav Moshe Weinberger (Song of Teshuvah, Vol. 4): When a person grows in Yiddishkeit, he is initially liberated from desires that had been plaguing him. His path seems clear and he feels good about himself. But “because the greater a person, the greater his evil inclination” (Gemara Sukkah 52a), he soon finds himself challenged by a new level of opposition… He expected that devoting himself to a more meaningful Yiddishkeit would earn him the world-to-come. Yet now he finds himself committing sins, or plagued by lowly desires, and he begins to think that he was better off before.
Nevertheless, he should not regret his resolve to serve G-d. To the contrary, he should realize that the troubles he is experiencing indicate that he is succeeding in his service of G-d… When a Jew’s life is spiritually trivial, even if he is keeping mitzvos, he is destroying himself and so the evil inclination ignores him. But the second that he grows stronger, the second that he begins to do something special and important, he experiences impediments and gains enemies. When he tries to accomplish anything meaningful…. he faces tremendous opposition. That tells him that he is doing something right.
A person may suffer terrible failures. Nevertheless, he should do teshuvah and move on. Once a Jew came to the Rizhiner Rebbe and confessed that he had committed adultery. He explained that it “just happened.” The Rebbe said, “That is the same way in which you should do teshuvah. Just let it happen.” When a person commits a sin, he does not make calculations. So too he should do teshuvah without calculations, without asking questions such as how this could have happened to him. He should consider that there are people much greater than him who had experienced more profound failures and fell to deeper places. With that thought, he should stop berating himself and simply do teshuvah.
When a person is not engaged in mitzvos, when he is living just to please himself, he sins because his life is unruly and meaningless. But when a person is engaged in mitzvos, any sin that he commits is refined and, in an inner sense, not even a sin part of but the fabric of his life of mitzvos. As a person does teshuvah — by fighting his evil inclination and struggling to become better, as he learns Torah, davens, and performs mitzvos — his life flows forward and upward….
In a broad sense, our Sages refer to this sort of individual when they speak of someone who “has erred in the course of performing a mitzvah.” They teach that if, in the course of performing a mitzvah, a person committed a sin, he is exempt from having to offer a sin offering because his intention was to do the mitzvah.[1] [For example, someone who is accidentally mechalel Shabbat in the course of performing a brit milah on Shabbat.]
Such a person may say that he committed the sin on purpose, that he knew what he was doing, that it was not an accident. We nevertheless tell him that he is wrong — that he was “erring in the course of performing a mitzvah”[i.e. the mitzvah of teshuvah].
Students in many yeshivas are constantly told that a person who has sinned is worthless, perverted, and corrupt. But if a sweet student who is living a life of holiness — working day and night to become a better Jew… commits a sin, somebody needs to tell him that he is not bad, and his path of teshuvah is simple. He need only do teshuvah, try not to let it happen again, and return to his Gemara. “He is exempt from bringing a sin offering.”
A person should not allow his failures to frighten, diminish or discourage him.
Questions for Discussion
- What are some common impediments to doing teshuvah? How does a person break through them?
- Is “inner teshuvah” always sincere and valuable? What is the difference between “inner teshuvah” and the idea of being a ‘Jew at heart’ (i.e. without mitzvah observance), which Orthodox Judaism decisively rejects?
- As mentioned above, our Sages teach that “the greater a person, the greater his evil inclination.” Is this counterintuitive? Why or why not? And why did G-d create us this way?
- Rav Moshe Weinberger writes “When a person commits a sin, he does not make calculations. So too he should do teshuvah without calculations, without asking questions such as how this could have happened to him.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
- How can person strengthen their will to do teshuva?
