D’var Torah – September 26

I hope this finds you all well.

It’s always sad, nay, heartbreaking when talking to someone who can’t seem to straighten out their life and keeps making the same bad decisions and pattern of harmful choices, spiraling ever downward. When asked why they can’t get their act together, they often say things like “I’m too old to learn new tricks,” “I’m too far gone to change my ways,” and perhaps the most tragic of them all – “I’m just a lost cause.”

As I’ve often said, Hebrew is a very intentional and blunt language. It says what it means and means what it says. For example, potato is patuakh adamah or “ground apple”; a religious holiday is often called a yom tov or “good day;” and a hospital is called beit cholim or “house of the sick.”

We currently find ourselves in Aseret Yamei Teshuva – the days of repentance, that mark the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In this unique time we are obligated and encouraged to seek forgiveness from those whom we have harmed, amend our ways, and promise to live better, more sacred lives in the new year.

This is the interesting part: teshuvah is commonly called repentance but its most accurate translation is actually “return.”

This brings us back to those who believe themselves to be too far gone or a lost cause and therefore can’t be redeemed.

At the end of every Torah service, when we place the Torah back in the ark, we chant the following line from the Eicha, the Book of Lamentations:

“Hashiveniu Adonai, Eylecha v’Nashuvah, Chadesh yamaneinu k’kedem – Take us back, O LORD, to Yourself, And let us come back; Renew our days as of old!” (Lamentations 5:21)

Perhaps the point of teshuvah is no matter how far we’ve fallen, no matter how much we’ve stumbled, and no matter how much we’ve failed our friends and families, God, and ourselves, repentance, renewal, and return to the good times and great days of our lives are always possible.

Teshuvah is teshuvah…in other words, the return to the good is possible through the hard work and service of the heart that is repentance.

In this holy and sacred season, may we all engage in the blessed labor that is teshuvah.

Wishing you a Good Shabbos and a great weekend, and G’mar Chatimah Tovah – may you all be inscribed for good in the Book of Life.

Bivrakha,

Rabbi Aaron Stucker-Rozovsky

Beth El Congregation | 520 Fairmont Ave, Winchester, VA 22601

(540) 667-1889 (office)