THE DYNAMICS OF TESHUVAH PART 3!!!!!

Song of Solomon chapter 2

Psalm chapter 27




Today we look to the word- RETURN- H7725 shuv--to turn back, return, to bring back, to be returned, be restored, be brought back






The Torah testifies...............




Genesis 3:19

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return H7725 unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. H7725






The prophets proclaim..................




Hosea 5:15

I will go and return H7725 to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.







The writings bear witness...........................





2 Chronicles 30:9

For if ye turn again H7725 unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again H7725 into this land: for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return H7725 unto him.




The Disposition of the Ba'al Teshuvah
Teshuvah is essentially in the heart, in the mind. It is related to the faculty of binah, understanding.
There cannot be teshuvah without a consciousness of reality: understanding what is required. Recognition of one's status. Introspection. Searing soul-searching. Honest self-evaluation that opens the eyes of the mind and causes a profound sense of embarrassment: How could I have acted so foolishly? How could I have been so blind and dumb in the face of the Most High, the Omnipresent "Who in His goodness renews each day, continuously, the work of Creation?" How could I forsake the Ultimate, the Absolute, for some transient illusion? As the prophet laments: "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of Living Waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water!"
Teshuvah is directly related to bushah-shame, embarrassment.
The Hebrew word teshuvah contains the letters of boshet; transposing the letters of shuvah (return), offers the word busha (shame). For bushah is an indication of teshuva.
Bushah, a sense of shame, flows from an illuminating grasp of reality. It is the proof of true regret over, and of a break with, the past. It is identical with teshuvah. To achieve that level is assurance of forgiveness: He who commits a sin and is ashamed of it, all his sins are forgiven him!
It takes understanding to do teshuvah:
"His heart shall understand, and he will return, and it shall be healed for him." That is why first we pray: "...bestow upon us wisdom, understanding and knowledge," and only then: "bring us back to You in complete teshuvah."
Wisdom, understanding, knowledge, are prerequisites for teshuvah.
It takes knowledge to separate right from wrong. Only the wise know to distinguish between holy and profane, between pure and impure. Thus teshuvah is identical with binah.
The ba'al teshuvah becomes aware that sin is a partition between The Most High and man. Sin disturbs the balance of the universe, sundering its unity. "He who transgresses the precepts of the Torah causes a defect, as it were, above; a defect below; a defect in himself; a defect to all worlds."
The word teshuvah can be read as tashuv-hey - returning, restoring the hey.....for when man sins he causes the letter hey to be removed from the Divine Name.
The Divine Name, the manifestation of The Most High-likeness, is no longer whole. The hey has been severed, leaving the other three letters to spell hoy, the Biblical exclamation for woe.
(The word teshuvah is divisible into these two components: tashuv-hey. Note that the letter hey represents the physical world: this world was created with the hey, because it is like an exedra (closed on three sides and open on the fourth), and whosoever wishes to go astray may do so (has the choice to let himself fall through the open bottom of the hey).
And why is the `leg' of the hey suspended (leaving an opening at the side, from above)? To indicate that whosoever repents is permitted to re-enter.)
"Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil.... woe to them that they are wise in their own eyes....." In turn, "he who does teshuvah causes the hey to be restored...and the redemption depends on this."
Teshuvah restores the hey, which to makes complete again the Holy Name, re-establishes unity, frees the soul.
"Teshuvah corrects everything - it rectifies above, rectifies below, rectifies the penitent, rectifies the whole universe."
The bushah of teshuvah relates only initially to the past. It develops further into an awareness of personal insignificance in the presence of Divine Majesty. On this higher level it signifies bitul ha-yesh (total self-negation). It diverts one's sights from concern with self to concern with the Ultimate. Thus it ignites a consuming desire to be restored to and absorbed in the Divine Presence: "My soul thirsts for The Most High, for the living The Most High - when shall I come and be seen in the Presence of The Most High...."
"Oh The Most High, You are The Most High, I seek You earnestly. My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You, in a dry and weary land without water.... or Your loving-kindness is better than life......"
This longing of the ba'al teshuvah is more intense than that of the tzaddik, the saint who never sinned. Having been removed from The Most High-likeliness, the ba'al teshuvah wants to make up for lost time, for lost opportunities.
The energy and passion once expended on nonsense and improprieties are now directed, in ever-increasing measure, towards good. He reaches out with all strength, and thus prompted, leaps to levels unattainable by the tzaddik.
His former transgressions, now responsible for his efforts and achievements, are thus sublimated. His descent, in effect, generated his ascent. The former sins are thus converted into veritable merits.
The status requiring teshuvah is coupled with grief, heart-breaking remorse. The possibility of teshuvah generates hope, faith, confidence: "The heart being firm and certain in The Most High that He desires to show kindness, and is gracious and compassionate, generously forgiving the instant one pleads for His forgiveness and atonement. Not the faintest vestige of doubt dilutes this absolute conviction." Teshuvah is thus marked by great joy as well.
Joy is not only a motivating force for the act of teshuvah, but also a necessary result of it.
For every step away from sin is a step closer to virtue.
Every move away from the darkness of evil is a move closer to the light of goodness, coming ever closer to The Most High.
This fact must fill the heart with joy, a true and encompassing joy and happiness, even as the lost child rejoices in having found the way home.
Indeed, this deep sense of joy, filling one's whole being, is the very test and proof of sincere teshuvah.


The Universality of Teshuvah
The conventional translation for teshuvah is repentance. This, however, is but one aspect, the aspect related to error, to sins of omission or commission.
The literal and real translation is "return." Return implies a two-fold movement. There is a source of origin from which one moved away and to which one wants to return.
The descent of the soul into this world is a move away.
Regardless of the lofty purposes to be achieved, the sublime goals to be attained, the fact remains that it is an exile. For the soul in its pristine state is bound up and absorbed in its source, in the very "bond of life with The Most High."
From this Place of Glory, the manifest Presence of The Most High, the soul is vested in a physical body, related to matter, exposed to and involved with the very converse of spirituality, of holiness.
To retain that original identity, to regain that original bond, that is the ultimate meaning of teshuvah. "And the spirit returns unto The Most High who gave it."
Teshuvah tata'a, the lower level of teshuvah, is rectification, an erasure of the past.
On a higher level, teshuvah is "coming home," a reunion. The child separated and lost, driven to return with a consuming passion, pleads: "It is Your countenance, The Most High, that I seek! Do not conceal Your countenance from me!"
The innermost point of the heart longs for Divinity so intensely that "his soul is bonded to the love of The Most High, continuously enraptured by it like the love-sick whose mind is never free from his passion.... and as Solomon expressed allegorically: `For I am sick with love.'
This higher sense of teshuvah - teshuvah ila'a, supreme teshuvah - relates to the tzaddik, the faultless, as well.
The Torah is given to all of Israel, to every Hebrew. Nothing in Torah is unnecessary. Nothing in Torah is the exclusive heritage of some only. Everything in Torah speaks to every individual, relates to every one. It is only by way of the whole Torah that anyone can become a whole person. Every mitzvah serves its purpose. Every instruction is directly relevant to the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of every man.
Teshuvah is an integral part of Torah.
It manifests itself in numerous precepts and instructions.
"Every one of the prophets charged the people concerning teshuvah." Teshuvah thus must relate to the righteous, to the saint, no less than to the sinner. Alternatively, the righteous would be missing out on a significant part of Torah. Teshuvah ila'a thus relates to the tzaddik as well.
Teshuvah ila'a reaches where a normative ascent, a behavior that is faultless yet gradual and normative, cannot reach. It moves man to jump, to leap, blinding him to everything but his objective, disregarding all and any obstacles in the pursuit and attainment of the ultimate goal. In this context the tzaddik, too, becomes a ba'al teshuvah, "one possessed of teshuvah," a personification of teshuvah.
Teshuvah ila'a does not mean a withdrawal of man from the world.
It reveals The Most High *IN* the world: omnipresence in the most literal sense, an encompassing awareness and a penetrating consciousness of the reality and presence of The Most High.
"To cleave unto Him, for He is your life;" ..."there is nothing else beside Him."
There is a total negation of ego, a total submersion of personal will in the Supreme Will. Not two entities brought together, but absorption and union to the point of unity.
"This mitzvah which I command you this day is not beyond your reach nor is it far off...." Generally, this verse refers to the entire Torah.
In context with the preceding passage it is also interpreted to refer specifically to the principle of teshuvah. "Even if your outcasts be in the outermost parts of Heaven"... and you are under the power of the nations, you can yet return unto The Most High and do "according to all that I command you this day." For teshuvah "is not beyond reach nor is it far off," but "it is exceedingly near to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it."
"One hour of bliss in the World to Come is better than all the life of this world." Yet "one hour of teshuvah and good deeds in *THIS* world is better than all the life in the World to Come!"
"Well," said the Most High says, "do teshuvah, and the rest will follow of itself!"