Parshas Shoftim- You Can Do It. He Can Help.
We are now a full week into the month of Elul, and we are all preparing ourselves for the upcoming Days of Judgment. Teshuva, repentance, is the main focus of this month, and everyone is certainly trying to improve and change to the best of their ability. Many of us, however, find the idea of change nearly impossible. Often, we feel that we are too entrenched in our bad habits to be able to effect any significant change. The result is that we may give up entirely, and not make any attempt at all to do Teshuva.
Rabbeinu Yonah in his classic mussar work Shaarei Teshuvah addresses this valid concern. He cites a pasuk from Parshas Nitzavim (Devorim 30:6):
…ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך ואת לבב זרעך לאהבה את ה' אלקיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך
“And Hashem will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your children, so that you will love Hashem with all your heart and all your soul...”
Rabbeinu Yonah explains that “circumcising your heart” means that Hashem helps those trying to do Teshuva. Once we have put in the effort and accomplished as much as we can, Hashem awakens within us a spirit of purity which enables us to go even further and attain lofty spiritual heights beyond our natural capacity.
The Rosh Hayeshiva of Ner Yisroel, Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman ztvk”l, derived a deeper insight into this concept from this week’s Parshas Shoftim. Before a Jewish army would go to battle, a specially ordained Kohen, the משוח מלחמה, would exhort the soldiers not to be afraid. The Torah records his speech as follow (Devarim 20:3,4):
ואמר אלהם שמע ישראל אתם קרבים היום למלחמה על איביכם אל ירך לבבכם אל תיראו ואל תחפזו ואל תערצו מפניהם. כי ה' אלקיכם ההלך עמכם להלחם לכם עם איביכם להושיע אתכם
“He shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel! You are approaching battle with your enemy. Let not your heart be soft, do not be in fear, or in panic, or in dread of them. For it is your G-d Hashem who goes with you to do battle for you against your enemy, to save you.”
Rav Ruderman explained that these two verses are cause and effect, and not two separate and distinct ideas. Because the soldiers embrace trust in Hashem by their lack of fear of the enemy, Hashem responds to trust in Him by giving them what they need. Their bitachon is the reason that they merit the fulfillment of the Divine promise to protect them and give them victory.
In the same way, explained the Rosh Hayeshiva, we can understand what is happening to cause Hashem to give us supernatural spiritual growth. It is the power of our bitachon. When we trust in Hashem; when we recognize that He is the key to even our spiritual success, He responds in kind by giving us what we need: the gift of ever greater levels of closeness to Him.
The aforementioned pasuk in Nitzavim contains the words, את לבבך ואת לבב. The first letters of those words spell אלול. This might be said to hint to us that this month is a particularly auspicious time to gain the divine assistance we need in order to achieve success in our service of Hashem. May we merit the fulfillment of this verse as we capitalize upon this special month.
