Return
In Western literature, returning home looms large. Return means to come back transformed by one’s adventures with new heroic capacities. When Odyseus or Frodo come back, they have grown and are now more than able to manage the challenges at home that before would have overwhelmed them. The growth is in heroic capacity, the return to a place that is static or that the hero, in returning, can restore to its former glory.
For the Jewish people, return, teshuvah, means something else entirely. We recite each morning that the soul God granted us is pure. We declare that in our deepest self is something true, whole, loving and immensely healing. Some call that the life point while others refer to it as our inner teacher, is all too easily silenced or ignored. Fears, ego, separation all damage our connection with that inner place of love and wholeness.
Teshuvah describes both the practices and the journey that reconnects us to our most whole place. Like the heroes of Western literature, it expands our capacity and enables us to overcome ethical and spiritual challenges that previously seemed overwhelming. Yet unlike those heroes who develop martial or leadership skills, our growth occurs on the inner self and is expressed in its ethical and spiritual capacity.
Teshuvah is more than just changing our behavior. It means restoring a connection of authenticity. Restored, we now can live more aware, more whole, more impactfully. Words that previously were wasted, hurtful, or lacking in deep purpose are set aside in favor of language that is potent and filled with love. Actions that previously had separated us from others and harmed our relationships are discarded in favor of actions that are sustaining and filled with blessing.
Further, Teshuvah reopens the faith experience. Where before faith might have been the world of fantasy, the hope of a larger than life personality looking out for us, now faith is about connecting to a deep force of life that wants the world whole, healed, intact. Faith becomes a recognition of the infinite value of each person with whom I interact, a reminder of my own wholeness, and a goad to action.
That faith experience is really an experience of hope. Hope meaning a knowledge that, in partnership with the Divine, I have the agency to improve the world around me. Hope in knowing that there is a capacity for healing and renewal in the human spirit still to be uncovered. Hope that the darkness around us will be pierced by the light.
Teshuvah encounters kapparah, the cleansing force that emanates from God. As we become more connected to our depth self, as our ego gives way to compassion and our fears to healing, we begin to notice that we are accompanied. Something, some energy or force, is there lifting us, and indeed has already lifted us far beyond what we could have done on our own. And in that revelation comes an even greater hope, a knowing that the light has been there all along.
May we all be sealed for a year of health, goodness, love, and faith.
Rabbi David Booth
