Efrat, Israel – "And you shall return to the Lord your G-d and listen to His voice in accordance with every thing I have commanded this day... with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 30:2).
So begins the Biblical portion which Nahmanides (12th century, Provence) calls "The portion of repentance.” The commandment to repent is germane 365 days a year, but it is especially relevant during the 10 days beginning with Rosh Hashana and concluding with Yom Kippur. Hence, reading this particular passage less than one week before Rosh Hashana is especially opportune.
How do we fulfill this commandment? Maimonides seems to explain it in clear terms:
"If an individual transgresses any commandment of the Torah, whether it be a positive or negative command, whether he transgressed wittingly or unwittingly, when he repents [does teshuva] and turns away from his sin, he is obligated to confess before G-d, blessed be He, as it is written, 'A man or woman who transgresses... must confess the sin they have committed...' This refers to a verbal confession, and this confession is a positive commandment..." (Laws of Repentance, 1,1).
I would have thought that the command to repent would be an inner process, a shredding of one's evil impulse and the uplifting of the Divine which informs the soul of every human being, but from here it seems that it could be reduced to a mouthing of words which may be uttered by rote. Why is that?
My teacher Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik taught that there are actually two aspects to the commandment of repentance: firstly, kappara, forgiveness, the mechanical bringing of a sacrificial offering and/or the mouthing of the confessional - which are minimal, at best - and secondly, the more optimal tahara, purity, which requires a transformational experience. Maimonides discusses this second, more powerful aspect of repentance in his second chapter, and calls it "complete repentance" (teshuva gemura).
Despite the classical brilliance of Rav Soloveitchik's interpretation, these last three years have taught me that Maimonides hit upon a significant existential truth when he insisted that the fundamental commandment centers on confession. Apparently, what many might think of as a fairly simple and even mechanical formula - "Please [G-d, spouse, parent, child, neighbor, coworker] forgive me, I have transgressed, sinned, rebelled against you by having done what I did; I am contrite and ashamed by my actions and will never do them again" - is exceedingly difficult for most individuals.
Over the past few years, an inordinate number of high-powered civil servants, cabinet ministers and even our foremost citizens have been indicted by the attorney-general, several have been found guilty and several are beginning prison sentences. We have also seen a number of high-profile rabbis and communal leaders apprehended and charged with crimes. To the best of my knowledge, none of them has confessed to wrongdoing, none has publicly admitted guilt. No one stood before the public that elected him, or the congregants who revered him, and said "I'm sorry; I repent of my actions, I'm ashamed. Please forgive me." Why not? Why is confession so difficult?
A great sociologist-psychologist once wrote: "There are four 'yous' to every individual: Who you think you are, who others think you are, who you think others think you are, and who you would like others to think you are." The distance between these four "yous" especially between who you are and who you would like others to think you are, is what can cause a tragic disconnect within the psyche of many individuals, producing hypocrisy at best and psychosis at worst.
Every human being, from the biblical perspective, is a complex creature consisting of earthly flesh and Divine image:
"And the Lord G-d formed the human being of dust from the earth, and He breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living being" (Genesis 2:7).
Each morning as we get up, we say the prayer: "My Lord, the soul you have given me is pure. You created it. You fashioned it. You breathed it into me from your divine essence." Here the rabbis were teaching us that the essence of every individual is the Divine entity within them. The external body is merely a shell, which can be peeled away. Each of us wears an outer uniform: the soldier, the policeman, the rabbi, the businessman, the politician, the parent. The word persona or personality comes from the Greek word meaning "mask." Many of our professional identities, the clothes we wear and/or the personality we exude, are meant to express the way we want others to see us. They are the manner in which we want to impress others, but are not necessarily our real selves. Sometimes the garb, the mask becomes so powerful that it overwhelms the Divine image within. And if our transgression is of such a nature that it will cause the mask to fall away and reveal the nakedness of the emperor beneath, then one dare not admit one's guilt - perhaps not even to oneself. If we do, it would be like committing suicide, because there would be nothing of ourselves left.
If, however, we do play act - utilize an external mask to appear to others the way we wish them to see us, but nevertheless maintain a Divine image within us not so far from our public persona - there is still the pristine "you" lurking behind the covering curtains. Then, one can apologize; peel off the external trappings, and the real "you" within the image of the divine can be freed from the mask we thought society wanted us to wear. Even the High Priest began his holy-day ritual, in his eight priestly vestments, with a cry of repentance: "Please, G-d, forgive." His divine image within was always waiting to come out.
The Talmud (B.T Hagiga 13,14) speaks of a once-great Rabbi; Elisha ben Abuya, who became a heretic, joined the Roman philosophers and was called Aher, meaning ‘the other one.’ Rabbi Meir, his disciple, begged him to come back, to repent. "No," he said. "For me it is too late. I heard the divine voice from behind a partitioned veil say, 'Return, wayward children, except for Aher.'"
Rabbi Soloveitchik explained: Aher had overwhelmed his Divine Image; indeed, as long as Elisha was submerged, it would be too late for repentance. But for Elisha ben Abuya it's never too late.
Reactivate your truest self and no matter how far you may have wandered, you too can return to the G-d whose essence initially formed you.
Shabbat Shalom
