A storyteller of Dubno taught his disciples that ritual performance alone was insufficient for teshuva, repentance. Specifically, listening to the sound of the shofar is but a means to a higher end. To illustrate this point, he told the following parable:
A man came to a big city for the first time and lodged in an inn overnight. Awakened in the middle of the night by the loud beating of drums, he inquired drowsily, “What is this all about?” Informed that a fire had broken out and that the drum beating was the city’s fire alarm, he turned over and went back to sleep.
He reported the incident to the village authorities on his return home. “They have a wonderful system in the big city. When a fire breaks out, people beat their drums and before long the fire burns out.” Excited, they ordered a supply of drums and distributed them to the population. Several weeks later, when a fire broke out in the village, there was a deafening explosion of beating drums, and while the people waited expectantly for the flames to subside, their homes burned to the ground.
A visitor passing through the village, when told the reason for the ear-splitting din, mocked the simple residents. “Idiots! Do you think that a fire can be put out by beating drums? The drums are no more than an alarm for people to wake up and extinguish the fire themselves.”
The Storyteller continued. “So it is with us. We sound the shofar to extinguish the fires of sin and evil that burn within us. But the shofar is merely an alarm, to rouse us from our moral slumber. Our task is to search our deeds and turn from our accustomed ways to remake our lives ourselves.” This is the path to true repentance. Teshuva---shuv---shin, vav, bet, ----to return.
“Awake, you sleepers, from your sleep! Rouse yourselves, you slumberers, out of your slumber! Examine your deeds, and turn to God to true repentance. Remember Your creator, you who are caught up in the daily round, losing sight of eternal truth; you who are wasting your years in vain pursuits that neither profit nor save. Look at yourselves; improve your ways and your deeds. Abandon your evil ways, your unworthy schemes, every one of you!” Teshuva----turn, return.
The Shin, shvirat ha-kelim—shattering; the breaking of the primeval vessels; the discord and confusion which is the beginning of growing; and then trying to get it all back together again; sound the shofar, the great ram’s horn; bring home from exile all those who have been banished; gather together the broken pieces; put the pieces together or sweep them aside and start anew.
Our world is broken. At times, we feel shattered inside. Our missteps in the past year have made us feel exiled from ourselves and from our community. We can choose to remain in this shattered state, or we can hearken to the sound of the shofar. It calls us, it calls on us, to repent. The pieces we must gather are those people we have wronged with a careless word or a hardened heart. For sins of arrogance, bigotry, and cynicism; of deceit, egotism, flattery and greed, injustice and jealousy. We have kept grudges, were lustful, malicious, narrowminded. We yielded to temptation, and showed zeal for bad causes. It is during this time, we re-commit ourselves to returning to the commandments. The Shofar, this time of year is a call and a warning to return to righteousness,….to take responsibility.
Shuv, return. The vav can only be for vidui, confession. A personal but public confession; telling the truth where before there had only been a lie. Vav means “and”. We confess the truth to ourselves and to the one against whom we sinned. We stand as a community during this time to recognize our sins together.
We have acted wrongly, we have been untrue, and we have gained unlawfully and have defamed. We have harmed others, we have wrought injustice, we have zealously transgressed, and we have hurt and have told lies. We have improperly advised, and were have covered up the truth, and we have laughed in scorn. We have misused responsibility and have neglected others and have stubbornly rebelled. We have offended, we have perverted justice, we have stirred up enmity, and we have kept ourselves from change. We have reached out to evil, we have shamelessly corrupted and have treated others with disdain. Yes, we have thrown ourselves off course, and we have tempted and misled. We must confess, but the meaning of Vav, “And”, tells us we must do more. We must confess and begin anew.
Bet--Bereishit; a new beginning. On Rosh HaShanah, Jews proclaim that God is creator and ruler of the universe. Yes, Rosh HaShanah celebrates cosmic Creation, but its central message is addressed to the individual: You are not fixed by your past. Most people live as if they cannot change. Past habits control us. Each person is trapped by standing obligations or pigeonholed by past career performances. We believe that once we have done wrong, we cannot ever remove that stain of guilt.
The Torah claims otherwise: "See, I place before you today [and every day] life and good and death and evil ... [you can] choose life" (Deut. 30:15, 19). By strict justice, every sinner must be punished. Once done, a wrong can never be wiped out. By the miracle of God's love, however, the past can be erased. Even evil can be left behind.
Repentance goes beyond guilt or sin. As Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has pointed out, the basis of repentance is that human beings are capable of recreating themselves continually. If we stop growing, if we are prisoners of our past behavior, then we are truly dead-in-life.
We are given this opportunity to begin anew, and this is an awesome responsibility. Just like the bet we must be open to what lies ahead, not dwell in what happened before; that is the reason why the first word of the Torah, Bereishit, begins with a bet and not an aleph. If you look a the bet, it is closed on the top, the bottom, and the right side, but opens toward the left—in the direction of the reading. From the outset, our Torah is looking forward, and each year we return and are reminded of that. This is a time to move forward with our lives; breaking old habits, returning from any exile, confessing to ourselves and others where we have gone wrong, what we can do better, and committing to moving forward in a positive direction always trying to achieve something better for ourselves, our families, and our world.
Rabbi Micah Strassfeld writes: At this season, let us be like Moses, heavy of tongue, who had to struggle over every sound. At this season, when we shall say more words than any other time in the year, we strive to find one sentence, phrase, word, or letter that will begin here on earth and reach to the heavens.
And I pray that we may allow these days of holiness and community to guide us in our Teshuvah, and inspire hope for a happy and sweet New Year. Amen.