Tshuva, T'fila, and Reaching for Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu [Haazinu] [October 4, 2003 - 12 mins R.]
The Shabbat before Yom Kippur is known of as Shabbat Teshuva, the "Shabbat of Repentance." Jewish tradition maintains that the spiritual power of the week stems from the Shabbat that precedes it, and this would indicate that the source of the spiritual potential of the Day of Atonement originates in this Shabbat.
The word Tshuva appears in the Haftarah for the week, Hosea 14:2 "Return, Israel to Hashem your G-d, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. "
Tshuva is translated as "repentance," but of course, "repentance," with its connotations of guilt and shame, doesn't do justice to the subtleties of the Hebrew. By looking at other places "tshuva" appears in the Torah, we can get a better feel for the meaning of the word.
The first instance of tshuva has the sense of "return," or "restore," [Gen 42:28] in Mikeitz, during Josef's somewhat devious process of forgiving his brothers, one of the brothers says "The money has been returned and is in the mouth of my sack!"
The second instance, which uses t'shuva more in the sense of "requite" or "repay," also involves Josef and his brothers, when in Vayachi [Gen 50:15] they worry that Josef would repay their evil deeds with evil deeds of his own.
On Yom Kippur we read the Book of Jonah - and the essence of the story is that God readily accepts the repentance of anyone who sincerely desires to do Teshuva, to return to the Almighty and to the path of Torah.
Now we'll look at the parsha, holding the thought of t'shuva.
Haazinu
Moses sings the moment before death.
When we contemplate the words which Moses uses we are all the more amazed:
Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. Because I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are justice - (Deut 32:1-4)
Of all the ways of describing God, Moses refers to God as a "Rock." The term, of course, signifies the power of God. But when we recall that the downfall of Moses took place when attempting to extract water from a rock it is all the more surprising that he uses this particular name.
This is brought up in the Zohar:
Rabbi Simeon said: "Moses in his Song, first said The rock, perfect is his work, referring to the occasion when water issued from the rock..." (Zohar S'hmot 64b)
In his song, which is sung immediately preceding his death, Moses completely accepts Divine justice by invoking the Rock. Instead of avoiding this painful topic, Moses addresses it head-on, displaying absolute acceptance of God and His will. This is yet another indication of the spiritual level which Moses achieved.
Towards the end of the parsha, [32:52] when G-d tells Moses he will not enter the land and that he will see it from a distance - the words are "mi neged" from "across" - neged is a word many of us are familiar with; in B'reshis we hear of the "ezer c'negdo" the "helpmeet against you," and in the davening, we say "talmud Torah ke neged culam" the "study of Torah is equal to them all" [referring to the other mitzvot] - so Moses' separation is associated with a good kind of holding back, or keeping perspective. Moses' separation from Eretz Israel illustrates the tension of tshuva, of returning, and longing to return.
G-d said to the serpent in the garden, "you will crawl on your belly and eat dust" - so the question arises, what's so bad about that? He always has something to eat! Yes, but, he never has a reason to reach for G-d, and never has any reason to give thanks! Moses' separation keeps him always longing for G-d's Light. So now, let's talk a little about science.
On Rosh ha Shana, Mark talked about ideas emerging from modern physics that described the unfathomable complexity of life on Earth and of an all pervading wisdom, ideas that bring new meaning to the Jewish concept of Oneness." "Physics has exposed the metaphysical basis of existence."
Luzzatto says in Derech Hashem: "Everything in the physical world has roots in the spiritual world," (p79) and he talks about the complex interplay of influences active in the world, and that "when the highest forces are influenced by man's free will, they in turn influence the physical things that are inherently linked to them." (p83)
This holistic interlinking of every component, combined with Luzzatto's statement that "G-d is deterministic" and that "man is indeterministic" is a perfect description of a fractal A fractal is a mathematical construct based on a simple equation repeated infinitely, where the graph of the equation results create a form of infinite complexity and depth, resembling nature itself in its endless variations. In the terms of fractal mathematics, deterministic chaos, or apparent order, balances [neged] entropic chaos [apparent disorder] - or in Luzzatto's words the "Determinism of G-d, interplays with the indeterminism [or entropy] of Man." Luzatto is confirmed by fractal math. Once again, "Physics," said Mark, "has exposed the metaphysical basis of existence."
Now, when we face the bewildering and endless complexity of Creation, we feel like dust, we feel like it says in the davening, that "all of their actions and days are a waste, and all is futile." But after beautifully expressing this existential angst that everyone has felt, the davening immediate presents the remedy to this feeling. It says "aval anachnu" but we, "bnei b'ritecha," the children of your covenent, can say "Shema Israel, Hashem Elokenu, Hashem Echad." We take the terrifying and seemingly impersonal universe, past, present and future, and construe it in our minds and hearts as "One."
We combine this Oneness with our notion of the Creator - and by doing so, we contemplate and commune with the One thing that we know of that is permanent - we resolve our world of constant change and impermance into a single Concept of One.
When we say "Baruch," we locate G-d, so to speak, and we enhance and reiterate our contemplation of the One. In our t'fila, 'baruch' is us reaching for the One, an expression of our longing, our t'shuva.
Luzzatto says: "Prayer is G-ds's gift of love, allowing us to elevate ourselves and draw closer to G-d."
In our haftarah again [Hosea 14:2], it says "unshalma farim s'fatenu" may the offerings of our lips replace bullocks, which refers to prayer. [the lashon appears in the davening - in the prayer just after ana b'coach.]
Prayer is our direct connection to HaShem, our way to get closer to our Roots in Heaven. Luzzatto says: "We are thus able to temporarily elevate ourselves from our lowly natural state to exist in a state of closeness to G-d. This is why we take leave at the end of the
Amidah, by taking three steps backwards. These steps represent our return to our normal state."
To contemplate G-d, we need, like the angels in Jacob's dream, a ladder, or guidelines, edges, and symbols that we can see and follow. A good example of symbols that strongly articulate the edges and forms of Creation is the Hebrew Letters, Torah, and davening.
Marcia Prager:The letters are each a "garment" of the Light. Each one is an atom of Creation Energy, with a unique signature resonating out of the timeless infinite. These elemental sparks of creation energy are clothed in garments for our benefit, so that we can begin to understand them.
Gutman Locks:
"The individual letters of the Torah and their combinations are not subjective, conventional symbols, they are objective. Hebrew letters are the means through which physical reality comes into being and manifestation."
Combined with our contemplation of these letters, we give thanks. When we give thanks, we return blessing for blessing, and this is tshuva in the sense of repaying, of offering our heartfelt thanks for the miraculous blessings we are surrounded with and immersed in physically every moment. Gratitude is a form of surrender. When we surrender, like Hannah, in the Rosh haShana haftarah, who was so surrendered and immersed in prayer that the priest Eli thought she was drunk, we awaken our child mind, and come closer to G-d.
Holding simultaneously in our minds the concept of a transcendant G-d that controls bacteria and world politics in distant galaxies, who at the same time tells us which shoe to put on first, creates cognitive dissonance, or the "oddness" of a symbol that works, because it teases us into thought. Our rational minds are allowed to become child minds again, when we surrender our certitude about "whether it makes sense or not," and then, as it says in Avinu Malkenu,
"Hear our voice, accept with compassion and favor our prayer. Open the Gates of Heaven to our Prayer. Remember that we are but dust. Please do not turn us away empty handed."
And what's in our hand? Not an impermanent material object, but the more intangible reward of reaching across the abyss of logic and rational thought, like Moses, awakening our ingenuous child minds like Hannah, and through t'fila and t'shuva, drinking directly from the Makor Chaim, the Source of Life.