| Dvar Torah for Elul
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Based on Likutey MoHaran I, #6 This Sunday is the first day of the month of Elul, the month immediately preceding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The 40-day period beginning with 1 Elul is the 40-day period Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher) spent receiving the second Luchot (Tablets) containing the Ten Commandments. As you recall, Moshe Rabbeinu broke the the first Luchot when he returned to the Israelite camp and found many of them celebrating their worship of the golden calf (Exodus 32). Rebbe Nachman teaches that in this 40-day period, which culminates with Yom Kippur, Moshe Rabbeinu opened up the path of tshuvah (repentance). God willing we will write in the coming weeks about various points of tshuvah, based on Likutey MoHaran I, #6, which the Rebbe himself said was the lesson to be lived in Elul. In Lesson #35 Rebbe Nachman writes, “Know! Repentance entails returning the thing to the place from which it was taken.” In our lesson the Rebbe says that the essential ingredient of tshuvah is being silent when being put to shame. A result of that silence, he writes, is the slaughter of the yetzer hara (evil urge). We can understand that a person may need to suffer embarrassment as punishment for having sinned, but how does “suffering in silence” help to slaughter the yetzer hara? God says that He created the universe and everything it contains for His honor (Isaiah 43:7). When we overstep the bounds of halakha, or even when we remain within the halakhah, but act in a manner that we know is not befitting our level of growth, it is often an expression of our desire for kavod. Kavod is usually translated as “honor,” and it refers to the desire to make oneself the center of the universe. By acting in such a manner one is abrogating God’s honor for one’s own. Not a good idea. But God loves us and created tshuvah even before He created the world (Bereishis Rabbah 1:5). He knew we were going to make mistakes and prepared a way back. So we have to “return the thing to the place from which it was taken.” We have to return the honor we mis-took and give it to its rightful Owner. In order for our silence to effect this return it must be two-fold. It must be external, that is, we must overcome the urge to retort and not insult the one insulting us. It must also be internal, namely, an admission to ourselves that we deserve to be insulted. (Insults need not come from other people. When things “just don’t work” or somehow or other don’t go the way we want, that too is an insult, direct from the Creator.) The ability to be silent, outside and in, requires the ability to admit one’s mistakes and shortcomings (admittedly, one of the most difficult things in the world to do). If one can do that, one can admit that s/he is guilty of sin and begin again. And again and again and again (more about this next week, God willing). With every bit of repentance we prepare ourselves to come to life. Rebbe Nachman says that a person who doesn’t too tshuvah is better off not having been born (cf. Eiruvin 13b) because if one does not behave the way God wants, he is little better than an animal. So without repentance we really don’t exist the way we should. And mankind was created specifically to talk real talk, words that praise God and words that instruct and encourage others (and oneself!) to do a better job at fulfilling our respective missions. Our silence is therefore also an admission of our pre-human status. We can use it to renew our commitment to live the way we are meant to, the way we know and feel, deep down, that we should. agutn Shabbos!
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