Be Healed!
By Rabbi Hillel Brody
Executive Director
Each year as I go through Elul, usually without conscious choice, I find myself focusing on a particular theme with which I then approach the Yamim Noraim. Ultimately my goal is the same as any thinking Jew: I want to come out of Yom Kippur having taken a step which will lead to permanent improvement. I’m not often obviously successful at that goal, but every little bit, no matter how subtle, adds up over time, and thus is absolutely a tremendous and worthwhile accomplishment.
This year I learned the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva, the classic work on Teshuva by Rabbeinu Yonah, one of the most important medieval Talmudists and thinkers. Rabbeinu Yonah starts the sefer by pointing out what a great kindness Hashem has done for us by giving us the gift of Teshuva, through which we can literally rewrite history. With Teshuva, we are given the power not merely to erase our wrongdoings, but, like the mythical alchemist, to turn those leaden spiritual weights into the gold of merits which can lift us to the highest heights of the Divine.
It is noteworthy that R’ Mattisyahu Solomon, Shlit”a, contends that developing the awareness that Teshuva is not a burden, but a gift, is itself a crucial element of Teshuva. Although there are parts of Teshuva which are by necessity painful, we must approach them like a critically ill patient who has been given a life-saving but excruciating regimen of surgery and therapy. That is, we must try to be joyful while swallowing the often bitter pill of reflection and self-improvement. If we don’t appreciate the value of what we are doing, we won’t be able to do it to its fullest.
Rabbeinu Yonah goes on say:
ואם הרבו לפשוע ולמרוד ובגד בוגדים בגדו לא סגר בעדם דלתי תשובה שנאמר (ישעיהו ל״א:ו׳) שובו לאשר העמיקו סרה. ונאמר (ירמיהו ג׳:כ״ב) שובו בנים שובבים ארפא משובותיכם.
[Even] if they greatly sin and rebel and act like treacherous betrayers - He does not close the doors of repentance to them, as it is stated (Isaiah 31:6), "Return to Him, those who have been so shamefully false." It is [also] stated (Jeremiah 3:22), "Turn back, O rebellious children, I will heal your waywardness."
Even on the most superficial level, this statement must give us hope. Hashem does not close the door to us, no matter how far we’ve strayed. Repeat that to yourself a few times, tell me you don’t feel a little better.
However, let’s look a little deeper. In the second pasuk, Hashem, Himself. says to people He refers to as rebellious, “I will heal you.” An anonymous student of Rabbeinu Yonah wrote that a rebellious sinner is one who has gotten themself into a place where they are essentially ill. They have sinned so often and so deeply that it has become second nature. They literally no longer have the ability to extract themselves from the pit of their own mistakes. To those people, Hashem cries out like a loving Father, “I know you can’t go the whole way on your own. Don’t worry, if you take just a step towards me, I will heal your self-afflicted illness.”
In this generation, so, so many of us have known the pain of a child who strays far from us, who has dug themselves a very deep hole. As a parent, the pain is… indescribable. In the depths of that agony, any parent would surely, desperately, say to their child, “I know you are impossibly far gone. But if you just take a step towards us, we will make everything better!” Alas, we are only human beings. Too often don’t have the power to perform that healing. But Hashem! When He says it, He means it with the fullest sense of absolute Divine truth! Even though you did this to yourself, even though you’ve gotten yourself into real trouble, I love you so much that if you just take a step, I can, and I will do the rest!
I have found this idea to be not only soothing but empowering. Year in and year out, we try to change but often we do not see the results we wish for. I don’t think I am alone when I say that I have often felt hopeless. My faults are too deeply ingrained to be removed. Like a tumor which has wrapped itself around a vital organ, I just don’t see a way to excise my most deep seated flaws. But Hashem is talking to me. He is saying, “You are indeed very sick. Your illness is indeed inoperable if you are left to your own abilities. But you are not left to your own abilities! The Doctor of all doctors can, and will, heal our deepest spiritual and emotional flaws just as He can heal the most deadly cancer. As Dovid Hamelech said in Tehillim, לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי. I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
Our job is to remember that, to be joyfully motivated to keep doing the hard work and to never stop trying to be a little better today than I was yesterday. For every step we take, Hashem can lift us ever closer to who we truly want to be. May all of our hard work stand up for us to be granted a גמר חתימה טובה.
