Teshuvah: The Turning

Part 2 of 4 teachings on Teshuvah from Rabbi Victor Gross

Teshuvah invites us to turn to past behaviors—good and not so good, and to confront the darker places in the interiority of our being. Teshuvah is about ourselves and our karma; AND it is about our being in the world. 

Our tradition teaches that the work of teshuvah includes our relationships with other people. Our present awareness and sensibility has expanded this to include all of Creation.

I previously wrote of the freedom to choose that teshuvah allows for. Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira said that teshuvah is also a kind of creativity. More than a simple return to what has been, it is a process of remaking ourselves. The potential to be a new person—in relationship with self, others and the world— can be very exciting, even joyous. It’s not a drag to do this work during the month of Elul. Every Rosh Hashanah is the advent of a new time in our lives. 

If being a fully integrated person is one of our goals in life, then teshuvah is taking a look at what still is not integrated, acknowledging it, and beginning the hard and joyous work of dealing with it. 

Sometimes I think of the teshuvah process as the biggest and most productive Q and A sessions in my life. I start with the biggest questions: Who am I, What am I, Where am I (in this universe), and Why am I me or not?

Finally, I mentioned in the previous posting about the relationship of teshuvah and time. As we look back in time during this process, and address those things that require teshuvah, we find that we actually alter the past as we open up to the present reality and construct a future of possibilities and change. 

Reb Zalman teaches us that when we look back, we actually go back beyond the past moments to the original time of our creation—to our intended self, the authentic self.  It really then becomes a NEW YEAR.

Many blessings for the Work,
Rabbi Victor