Teshuvah (“repentance”) is often described as “turning” back to God, though practically speaking it is an ongoing turning, that is, a turning to God both in moments of ambiguity, pain, and distress, as well as in moments of respite and relative happiness… It is in the midst of the ego’s clamor, before the parade of worldly fears or pressures, in the crucible of “everydayness” that we must “come to ourselves” and (re)find God. In that sense, teshuvah is a sort of focus, a direction, a seeking, and a center of life, the place of constant repair for the inner breach we constantly feel. It’s a long road home to finally understand you belong at your Father’s table… That is the message of the parable of the prodigal’s return (see Luke 15:11-32).
It is written in the Mishnah (Avot:15b), “repent one day before you die,” but who knows the day of one’s death in advance? Therefore “seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him when he is near” (Isa. 55:6). “In eternity you will not be asked how large a fortune you are leaving behind – the survivors ask about that. Nor will you be asked about how many battles you won, about how sagacious you were, how powerful your influence – that, after all, becomes your reputation for posterity. No, eternity will not ask about what worldly goods remain behind you, but about what riches you have gathered in heaven. It will ask you about how often you have conquered your own thought, about what control you have exercised over yourself or whether you have been a slave, about how often you have mastered yourself in self-denial or whether you have never done so” (Kierkegaard).
Just as God humbled Israel with manna in the desert, so He humbles us. “Give us this day our daily bread and deliver us…” The purpose of affliction is ultimately good and healing: God humbles us with manna, the “bread of affliction, so “that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut. 8:3). In other words, God uses tzuris to lead us to do teshuvah and accept the truth. We often pray that our problems be taken away, but God sometimes ordains these very problems so that we will turn and draw near to Him… We are being weaned from this present age to be made ready for heavenly glory, for things unimaginably wonderful, soon to be revealed to you. Chazak – stay the course, friends; the hour is near.
Hebrew Lesson:
