The main theme of this day is expressed in one word, the word תשובה. This word means “repentance,” or, literally, “return,” for repentance does mean that Man returns to G-d. He leaves behind his weaknesses and frailties and sins and transgressions, and he returns to G-d. But today our hearts and minds and souls are focused on more than the return of Man to G-d, more than the תשובה of Man. We also hope and pray and look forward to the return of G-d to Man; we hope and pray that G-d too will do תשובה. The promise that G-d will do תשובה, that He will return to His people and no longer leave them to the wiles of a capricious fate, this promise is held out to us by our prophets as one of the greatest goals of human history. G-d will indeed some day return from His Divine exile, He will return to Israel along the road of charity and benevolence and loving-kindness and pardon.The only question is: how are we mortals going to get G-d to do תשובה? How can we bring about this wonderful return of G-d? Listen closely to the Prophet Malachi as he gives the Israelites new hope: שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם אמר ה׳ צבקות. “Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts.” Do you know what that means? That means that G-d is willing to meet you halfway. Certainly G-d is willing to do תשובה, to return to Man – but Man must have the courtesy to go towards his G-d and greet Him. First Man must attempt to return to G-d, then G-d will surely return to him. שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם אמר ה׳ צבקות. First Man does תשובה, and then his reward is – the תשובה of G-d.So, then, if Man is to take the first step on the road of return, if we are to repent first, the problem of our redemption as individuals, as members of a people and as citizens of humanity, resolves itself into: How can we best repent? How shall we go about this business of תשובה? Once we have learned the techniques of תשובה and applied them, once we have read the sign-posts on the road of return and followed their directions, G…

The two key words of this day, words which in their opposition and antagonism to each other summarize the moral story of man’s life and his conscience-struggles, are one, “Chait,” and two, “Teshuva.” Chait is usually translated as “sin,” and Teshuva as “repentance.” The ascendancy of Chait or Teshuva, the supremacy of one over the other, is what marks the moral tone, the religious level, and the ethical success of a man, a community, or a people. It is interesting to note, therefore, that these two words also bear another relationship to each other. If we will analyze the original meanings of the words, if we will investigate their etymology, we will discover that Chait originally meant “to miss the mark,” or “stray from the path,” while Teshuva means “return,” or return on the proper path. Sin means to take the wrong road, to be lost; repentance means to find your way back again. And indeed, this matter of treating the great issues of life as one treats a voyage on a road is not new to us. “Ki yesharim darkei ha’shem,” exclaims the Prophet in today’s Haftorah. The ways of the Lord are straight. So there are ways of G-d. We speak too, in our everyday language, about a “way of life.” Courtesy, politeness, and sympathy are referred to in Hebrew as “derech eretz,” which literally means “the way of the world,” for on such a way must a world progress. We speak, in scholarly circles, of “a derech in lernen,” a way in study. Our Torah has its ways, the ways of pleasantness – “deracheha darchei no’am.” The Mishna speaks of the ways of righteousness – “aizohi derech yeshara she’yavor lo ha’adam.” And our Rabbis talk much of “darkei shalom,” the ways of peace, on which we must strive to travel, and of “darkei ha’emori,” the ways of the Amorites, the ways of wickedness and evil and corruption into which he sometimes wanders.And perhaps most interesting is a point made by Prof. Finkel of Yeshiva University. The word-root L-M-D, from which we derive the words “to learn” and “to…

הרמב"ם פ"ז מהל' תשובה ה"ד. אין צדיק גמור עומד במקום שבעל תשובה עומד. מקורו מברכות ל"ד ע"ב, מחלוקת אמוראים שם בין ר' אבהו ור' יוחנן איזהו גדול, ומשמע דלכ"ע אינם שווין מפסוק שלום שלום לרחוק ולקרוב. בעל צפנת פענח הקשה למה פסק הרמב"ם כר" אבהו ולא כר"י ותירץ דסמך על גמ' קדושין מ"ט ע"ב וכן נפסק להלכה בש"ע אה"עסי" ל"ח סעיף ל"א המקדש את האשה ע"מ שאנ' צדיק אפילו הוא רשע גמור ח"ז מקודשת מספק וא"כ מוכח דבע"ת גדול מצדיק דאל"ה אינה מקודשת אף אם עשה תשובה. דהא כל הטעם דמקודשת שם דשמא הרהר בתשובה.

גמרא זבחים די"ד: חוקר הגמרא אי שחיטה הוי עבודה או לא, לענין שיהא כשר בזר, ואומר שם דשחיטה לאו עבודה היא. רש"י מנמק דין זה בדרכו-הוא, אבל הר"י מאורליינ"ש מובא בתוספות מסביר, "לפי ששוה בחולין ובקדשים, א"כ לאו מטעם עבודה צוה המקום שחיטה." מו"ז מקשה (שו"ת עמק הלכה חלק ב' סימן מ"ב) ע"פ הגמרא זבחים דף צ"א דתדיר ומקודש איזה עדיף, ובעי למפשט מהא דתנן תמידין קודמין למוספין אע"ג דמוספין קדישי - רש"י: דבאים מחמת קדושת היום.

דער תוכן פון די ימים נוראים ווערט באצייכנט פאר אונז אין איינע פון די הייליגסטע תפילות... דר" מאהל אין די עשי"ת... ונתנה תוקף קדושת היום כי הוא נורא ואיום... א טאג פון פחד און מורא, פון יראת שמים. יר"ש שאפט דעם אינהאלט פאר די ימים נוראים. געדענקט: אידן פלעגן זאגן: אפילו פיש אין וואסער ציטערן די טעג. דער פחד...ניט נאר ווייל דער איד באזארגט פארן פסק דין... אדם נידון בכל נאר מורא פאר דעם מלך הקדוש מלך המשפט... דערציטערט ווייל איבערגעלעבט

מסרתי מספר 1 ומספר 2 על ערב יום הכיפורים ועל תוספת יום הכיפורים, והראיתי שמשניהם מוכח דכפרה ועינוי צריך הכירא, קבלה - הכנה רוחנית מיוחדת, שבלתי כוונה גדולה זו אין כאן לא תשובה ולא כפרה. ואח"כ: בעל העיקרים (מאמר י' פכ"ז) חקר איך מועילה חרטה עכשו (בתור תשובה) על מה שנעשה לפני זמן - אלא דחרטה מוכיחה דמה שנעשה לפני כן, העבירה, לא היתה בדעת שלמה ובלב שלם. [ועי' בנדרים ט: דמי שזוכר בדעת שלם אין מתחרט עליו, בהך דשמעון הצדיק.]

The central theme of this entire season and especially of this day is Teshuvah, Repentance, Return. The idea that man can change and that he is commanded to change for the better lies at the very heart of the religious experience, and particularly in Judaism. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, to note the opinion of one of the great Talmudic scholars of the nineteenth century, the author of Minchat Chinukh, who maintains that Teshuvah is not to be considered one of the 613 commandments. Eating Matzoh on Passover is a Mitzvah, praying is a Mitzvah, putting on the Tefillin and Talis is a Mitzvah, making Kiddush is a Mitzvah – and yet Teshuvah, the most penetrating, personal, and consequential religious act known to Jews, is not regarded as a Mitzvah! Surely there must be some rational explanation for this considered opinion of a profound and comprehensive scholar who knew Jewish law as few others did and whose intuitive grasp of the whole Jewish spirit – its whole Weltanschauung – was second to none. May I suggest a solution to this problem which I believe explains the opinion of the Minchat Chinukh and allows us some insight into the act and experience of Teshuvah. The counting of a religious act as a Mitzvah, as the fulfillment of a commandment applies only to some voluntary action which I can choose to do or not to do. But if there is something which is beyond my free will, the act into which I am coerced and forced cannot be considered a Mitzvah. I may choose to pray or not to pray; if I do, it is regarded as a virtue, a Mitzvah. I can choose to observe the Sabbath or I can choose not to observe it; therefore, my observance is regarded as meritorious and my lack of observance as wrong.Teshuvah, however, in its deepest and most essential sense, is not a voluntary act. We must return. The act of return or Teshuvah is a universal phenomenon, an absolute need of the spirit, a necessity of man as much as eating or breathing. Man has no choice but to return. He …

Teshuvah – or repentance – is a psychological and spiritual phenomenon which, according to Jewish teaching, must be expressed verbally as the vidui or confession. Maimonides, in his Code of Jewish Law, tells us that the major part of the vidui, which we recite all through this season of teshuvah, consists of the words aval anachnu chatanu “but we sinned.” These three words, which acknowledge moral error and failure, constitute the essence of the vidui.Three words are not much, and one should perhaps not quibble with Maimonides. And yet, Maimonides was a man of highly exacting standards and extremely economical with his words. We may then ask: should it not be sufficient, to express the essential intention of the confession or vidui, that we say merely the one word chatanu, “we sinned?” As a matter of fact, the author of “Tanya” indeed maintains that in order to fulfil the requirement of confession it is sufficient to recite that one solitary Hebrew word, chatanu.The answer, I believe, is that Maimonides had a specific intention in including the word aval. And we, who incorporate the same words in our introduction to the longer form of the vidui, comprehend the same idea, though without articulating it. And that is, that the word aval, “but,” is indeed crucial. As a matter of fact, our major sin consists of that one word aval, “but.”Very few people are downright mean and malevolent. Most human beings are well-intentioned people who rarely sin maliciously. Rather, we recognize the truth, we adore and admire virtue and righteousness, and we acknowledge that we in all our ways ought to live this kind of life. However, we rationalize and find alibis and excuses for our misbehavior. We look high and low to justify our departure from the way of virtue and decency. We know the truth and yet we do not follow it – because, “but…” The word “aval” or “but” represents the exception we take to the life that is good and right and decent, by justifying, rationalizing, and apologiz…

The relation of Faith (emunah) and Knowledge (daat) in Judaism is quite a complicated study. But in relation to our Halakhic discourse, let us analyze these two elements and they correspond to two aspects of the Creator Himself. Rabbi Shneour Zalmen, the author of the Tanya, tells us that there are two aspects of God to which faith and knowledge correspond. One of these is called Sovev-kol-Almin, God as he is distant and remote, as he causes the worlds to whirl through space and about each other. This is the aspect of God which is transcendent. The other aspect is that of Memalei-kol-Almin, God who “fills the world,” who is close to man, involved in his destiny and history, who sustains Nature; it is the immanent aspect of God. Now, teaches Rabbi Shneour Zalman, our orientation and relation to God in his aspect of transcendence (Sovev-kol-Almin) is faith, or emunah; our relationship to God in his immanence (Memalei-kol-Almin) is knowledge, or daat. There is a compelling logic to this analysis. God in his transcendence, in His remoteness, in his total otherness, cannot be “known” in any human sense. One can only have faith in God who is beyond all human conception. When, then, can we be said to “know” God? – in His aspect of immanence as He “fills the worlds,” Memalei-kol-Almin. God as He is involved in nature and in history, as He is accessible to human thought and investigation and feeling, can be “known.”Rosh Hashanah, according to Rabbi Schneour Zalmen and his grandson-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, embodies the principle of Sovev-kol-Almin; God is recognized as a King, who sits in judgment upon the world. The Deity is almost completely satim: hidden, obscure, transcendent. It is a day in which the attribute of din, justice, reigns supreme. That is why Rosh Hashanah is known as yom ha-din, the day of justice or judgment.Yom Kippur, however is that day in which is revealed primarily God in His immanence, God as Memalei-kol-Almin. It is the time that the Deity par…

The leitmotif of the entire High Holiday season, and especially this Shabbat Shuvah, was expressed by the prophet Malachi: שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם, “Return to Me, and I will return to you.” The prophet Zechariah said the very same thing in almost identical words. Indeed, the Rabbis taught that all prophets ultimately prophesied about תשובה (repentance), and all of them present us with modifications of the same theme. They seem to teach that תשובה is not a one-way street, that there is a mutuality or a reciprocity of repentance. They imply that man returns to God and God returns to man.How did they envision the mechanics of this divine-human process? What did they mean by these words?Permit me to explain by referring, first, to the concluding verse of the special psalm that is recited during this season. David says: חזק ויאמץ לבך, “Be strong and He will make you strong.” Is this not redundant?What David is saying is that first you, man, must be חזק, strong; only afterwards ויאמץ לבך, will God make you strong.This is based upon a great Jewish idea concerning the relationship between man and God. God was never conceived as a cosmic genie locked up in an infinitely large bottle, and whose powers can be evoked by magical incantations. Man’s religious acts are not theurgical gestures, by which he can manipulate a naive Deity. What Judaism taught, essentially, is that God acts not so much on behalf of man, as through man.“God helps those who help themselves” is a good Jewish principle. The Rabbis put it this way: הבא להטהר מסייעים לו מן השמים if one wants to be pure, and does something about it, then he will be helped from Heaven. Man must begin with חזק, then ויאמץ לבך, God will give him strength. First man must find his own sources of power and consolation and comfort, and then the Lord will build upon it.This teaching has a certain contemporary relevance because of the well-publicized so-called “Humanist Manifesto II,” a newly revised document signed by a number of disti…