Dvar Torah for Yom Kippur

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Hilkhot Nedarim 4:25-27; Hilkhot Shavuot 2:17

Teshuvah was Made for You!

We know that Rosh Hashanah, mankind's birthday, is the beginning of Creation. But teshuvah (repentance) is older. Teshuvah is from precreation (Pesachim 54a). Even before God set up this planet and the rest of the universe, He knew that His favorite piece of work, the human being, was going to be subject to failure. We mess up, we drop the ball, we shirk responsibilities and obligations that God has told us are in our best interest, namely the mitzvot and right living laid out in the Torah.

God knew that and went ahead and created us anyway, after teshuvah was in place. Because the purpose of teshuvah is not only to give us a clean slate, to allow us to try again. Teshuvah has to change us deep within, so it can bring us and the world around us to a precreation state, wherein every thing and every event has a tikun. Reb Noson writes that he asked Rebbe Nachman how one is worthy of such a high degree of teshuvah. The Rebbe answered:

"One must never of despair of howling to God, of praying, of beseeching Him. One must never tire of entreating Him till he achieves such a level."

Now, you might be thinking, "That's good advice for somebody who's been observant most of his life, or someone who was uneducated about Judaism and may have done some pedestrian sins. But, I have done some really horrendous stuff, against God and against humanity. I make Milosevic look like a Boy Scout!" Your faith in yourself is mistakenly placed. It's being used to lead you further down the wrong road. Reb Noson writes:

"One has to have faith in himself. I heard in the Rebbe's name that one never knows where he is holding [i.e., a person does not know what level of success he has achieved in Judaism]. This is one of the main tests in life. If one were to know what she would gain by even the slightest motion made to come closer to God, she would run with every bit of her strength to serve God by means of His Torah and she would become a perfect saint. But if that were the case, there would be no free will. So this is kept hidden from us.

"Since we are not allowed to know what we would gain and what we would fix if we lived by the Torah, we must always believe that no good deed, and even no good desire, is ever lost (2 Zohar 150b)."

Have faith in yourself, have faith in your cries and in your tears. You can change the whole world with your teshuvah.

A happy, healthy and successful year to you and yours.

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!