#teshuva

This piece, called “Tashlich,” speaks to what weighs heavy on my heart right now. It’s by the wonderful artist Liora Ostroff and based off of these excerpts by Abraham Joshua Heschel:

“An eye for an eye” (עין תחת עין) is one of the most misunderstood phrases in the Torah. Judaism never took it literally. The Talmud (Bava Kama 83b–84a) makes clear: it’s about financial compensation, not physical retaliation.

Maimonides explained that the dramatic language emphasizes the severity of the harm; the perpetrator must recognize the gravity of their actions and do teshuva (repentance). Justice in Judaism is about accountability, not vengeance. It's about repairing harm with dignity, not perpetuating pain.

The Two Children

A parent has two children. One of whom is responsible, humble, and desires connection with their parent, and one of whom is egotistical, irresponsible, and primarily pursues their own benefit and enjoyment. Early in their childhood, the parent gives both children the same responsibilities. Easy, simple chores that they expect both children to do, and if they don’t, there will be no major loss. The responsible child does their chores with respect, knowing that whether or not they enjoy their chores, they look forward to the time they’ll be able to spend with their parent after they are finished. The irresponsible child rarely does their chores, instead choosing to lounge around, draw on the walls in crayon, complain, and roll their eyes at anything their parent asks.

As they get older, the parent recognizes that they can trust the responsible child with more meaningful tasks, and that they can rely on them to be completed. In return, the responsible child acquires a deeper relationship, and cultivates their emotional connection with their parent. The irresponsible child continues to receive basic tasks, and continues to present emotional resistance to their parent, refusing to do the simple tasks, respecting only themselves and even going directly against their parents’ wishes, doing things that present danger to themselves, and maybe even the entire family.

When they are teenagers, the responsible child is trusted to stay out late, to come home when expected. The parent trusts them to start to take some responsibilities in organizing and planning in the household, and they get a job. The irresponsible child continues to misbehave, perhaps joining a gang, or getting into drugs. They still refuse to contribute to the household via any basic tasks, and occasionally even try to work against the responsible child in their own actions.

When they are full-grown adults, the contrast is stark. The responsible child has developed a deep and meaningful dialogue with the parent, and has a reciprocal relationship, where they provide the parent with some of the support they once received as a child. They have learned to do things for the parent on their own initiative… not because they are told what to do, but because they’ve developed a feeling for what makes their parent happy. The irresponsible child has finally noticed that their own actions have shredded their relationship with their parent, leaving them estranged. Rather than reflecting on how they should behave in the future and trying to repair the bridges they burned, they begin to resent and even hate the responsible child for their rich, intimate, and personal relationship with the Parent, a relationship cultivated…. Over thousands of years.

Such is the relationship between Hashem, Jews… and antisemites. In the days of Noah, G-d gave all of humanity 7 commandments; Not to murder, not to steal, not to commit acts of sexual immorality, not to blaspheme His name, to believe in Him, to establish courts of law, and not to eat meat taken from a live animal (Rambam, Hilchos Malachim). By and large, the nations of the world paid little heed to these laws, and invented new forms of idolatry, undermining any relationship they had with the Master of the World. When they did keep the laws, they often did so with complaint, or with perversion and malice. For instance, the “courts of law” of the city of Sodom were used to accuse, try, and execute those who hosted guests or gave charity….

… And then there was Avraham and his family. They kept the 7 Noahide Laws with awe and respect, and cultivated a relationship with G-d. G-d gave Avraham tasks, tests to his dedication and he passed them all. In response, he was given a new mitzvah. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe says in the final Ma’amer he left us with, the term mitzvah (מצוה ־ commandment) is related to the term tzavsa (צװתא) meaning “connection”. This mitzvah - the mitzvah of milah - represented the first vote of confidence between him and his Father in Heaven, “I understand, you want to connect to me, and I know you want to do more, but let’s start with this. This isn’t a one-off, this is the first step between you and I.” As the years, decades, and centuries passed Avraham’s children deepened their relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One Blessed be He), and he took care of them intimately, as with Yitzchak during the famine. When Yaakov dedicated himself to raising a people who would all follow G-d’s word, he was even given a name which showed his relationship with G-d… a name which foreshadowed an even deeper relationship in the future - one where his hundreds of thousands of descendents receive a Torah containing a spiritual letter for each and every one of them, as it says in the Zohar Hakodesh - that Yisrael stands for “There are 600,000 letters in the Torah” (י־ש ש־ישים ר־יבוי א־ותיות ל־תורה). After the people’s teenage years - 210 years of suffering in Egypt (Who’s to say that Hashem doesn’t understand the suffering of a teenager!), they were ready to deepen their relationship again.

Hashem was ready to give them the responsibilities associated with the upkeep of the house. Hashem was ready to begin the partnership that was prepared for from the 6 days of creation, as it says “אשר ברא אלקים לעשות” “Which Hashem created ‘to do’.” It states in Bereishis Rabbah (11:6) - “Everything that was created in the 6 days of creation requires further work”. While the simple understanding of this Midrash is the idea that wheat needs to be ground to make bread, or that mustard must be sweetened before it is eaten, a much deeper explanation is brought in sifrei kabbalah and sifrei chassidus: The Mitzvos that Hashem has commanded us help to spiritually complete the creation he left uncompleted.

As we matured as a people, we came to understand what Hashem wanted of us, and enacted our own decrees, including Rabbinic Mitzvos and fences or additional obligations in addition to the scriptural ones, as it says in the Talmud (Berachos 20b):

דרש רב עוירא, זמנין אמר לה משמיה דרבי אמי וזמנין אמר לה משמיה דרבי אסי: אמרו מלאכי השרת לפני הקדוש ברוך הוא: רבונו של עולם, כתוב בתורתך ״אשר לא ישא פנים ולא יקח שחד״, והלא אתה נושא פנים לישראל, דכתיב: ״ישא ה׳ פניו אליך״?! אמר להם: וכי לא אשא פנים לישראל, שכתבתי להם בתורה ״ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את ה׳ אלהיך״, והם מדקדקים [על] עצמם עד כזית ועד כביצה.

”Rav Avira taught, sometimes in the name of Rebbi Ami, and sometimes in the name of Rebbi Asi: The ministering angels said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, in Your Torah it is written: ”who favors no one and takes no bribe” (Devarim 10:17), yet You, show favor to Israel, as it is written: “The Lord shall show favor to you…” etc (Bamidbar 6:26).

He replied to them: And how can I not show favor to Israel, as I wrote for them in the Torah: “And you shall eat and be satisfied, and bless the Lord your God” (Devarim 8:10), yet they are exacting with themselves [to recite birkas hamazon] on [bread] the size of an olive or an egg.

The irresponsible child began to truly notice his lack of relationship with his Father in Heaven when the Torah was given, and began to resent the Jewish People even then, as it says in Tractate Shabbos in the Talmud (89a);

“מאי ״הר סיני״? הר שירדה שנאה לאמות העולם עליו.

”What is the meaning of ‘Mount Sinai’? The mountain which drew hate (sina) from among the nations”.

As time went on his hate turned to anger, and anger to rage. He did not look inward to see why he wasn’t being given more responsibilities. He didn’t examine his own behavior to realize that the true cause of his resentment was the guilt of a missed opportunity - or many of them. Instead, the rage of the Irresponsible child has manifested in every generation, causing violent actions towards individual jews and genocide attempts against the entire Jewish people. With the entire history of the world as precedent, his behavior in our generation is neither unusual nor surprising.

Next time you see an antisemite spouting vicious vitriol - or if you are an antisemite and you’re feeling angry while reading this, remember that those feelings are nothing more than the invalid insecurities of a petulant child who squandered every chance to form a meaningful relationship with his Father, and instead of reflecting on his own shortcomings, he has chosen to blame his sibling for all of his problems.

The solution in my eyes is twofold: Antisemites must recognize where those feelings come from. Blaming a people that makes up 0.2% of the world’s population for 99.8% of the world’s problems is neither logical nor realistic. Learn about us. Get invited to a shabbos meal, or a passover seder. Trust me, you WILL find a jew (for better or worse) who will invite you. You’ll be well fed, and it won’t be poisoned. Don’t just take my word for it either: Educate yourself about Judaism from Jewish websites, like Chabad.org or Aish, not from Wikipedia - and certainly not from random users on Tumblr or Facebook.

This Elul, I would love to see Jewish spaces acknowledge that they have ostracized disabled and chronically ill community members. Teshuva is a vulnerable, often times painful reminder that we do fall short in areas of our lives. No one enjoys being in the wrong, no one wants to admit their actions had consequences that harmed vulnerable people, no one wants to hear that their beliefs are based in bigotry. Yet that’s what teshuva will require of those who want to be better allies to disabled community members.

It begins with a genuine understanding that regardless of how you see yourself, your actions and inactions have directly impacted disabled people around you. It’s acknowledging that accessibility can look completely different from what you expected, and to question biases and frustrations that may come up. It’s holding yourself and those around you accountable for addressing needs, even when you hit roadblocks and want to quit. It’s doing this tzedakah because you know it means the difference between disabled Jews being present and being left behind.

What can Synagogues and organizations do to create community teshuva?

Hold monthly meetings to discuss updates on accessibility and new access needs.

Read books and articles by Disability Justice leaders.

Have periods of time where Tzedakah go towards meeting access needs.

Check-ins on disabled community members who are isolating.

I wrote this awhile ago on twitter, and it’s still very relevant:

So. Teshuvah. Repentance. Literally "returning"

What does this mean? What does it look like? And why am I talking about this on main, not just to my fellow Jews?

There's been a lot of conversation about apologies and about taking accountability for hurting people/making mistakes. This has been especially prevalent in streaming spaces lately (when I wrote this last year), both with creators and game companies/developers.

This means I've been thinking a lot about all of this, as we go into the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, focused on exactly this.

So what does it mean to repent? Why is the word for it "return"? And why do I feel this template is so important?

So to start with, Teshuvah has three main steps:

1) Regret

2) Confession

3) Committing to not repeating the sin

Note: sin in Judaism is complicated, but is not really the same as sin in Christianity.

Short form on sin in Judaism is three terms:

Chet = mistake

Avaira = Transgression, crossing a line, going too far

Avon = Iniquity, more serious than a mistake or line cross, but still not a "you are damned to hell" type of thing

So lets look at the steps to Teshuvah, one by one.

1) Regret

To do Teshuva you need to regret the actions you did and harm you have done. This means understanding what you did, and actively genuinely accepting the fact that you did something wrong.

2) Confession

This means a few things. You need to be able to articulate what you did wrong. Part of this is the apology. I'll get to a good apology later, but a core piece is that you are apologizing with accountability, and that the person you hurt may not forgive you.

Importantly, you can not be apologizing in order to get forgiveness. And your teshuvah must continue whether or not the person forgives you.

3) Committing to not repeating the sin.

This is extremely important, and really the key part of teshuvah, of returning. It is not teshuvah to make the mistake, go through steps 1 and 2, and then repeat the same mistake. This means active work.

Step 3 requires true understanding of what you did (also key to steps 1 and 2) and figuring out how to keep from repeating it. Depending on what it was, it may mean self reflection, reading, talking with people, watching relevant videos, etc. But again, the key part is that work and doing your utmost to grow and move on and not repeat it.

Which can be hard! Teshuvah can be hard!

All of this requires being willing to listen and hear and change.

To me, this is all really important, & a big piece of how I try to live my life. It's also what I look for in others.

We're human, we make mistakes. How you deal with those mistakes is so key. When we're here, in this public space, especially if we have any level of platform. We have to be ready to accept it when we fuck up.

I truly believe the steps of teshuvah are the steps needed. I also believe that these are the pieces of a proper apology.

An apology in this light:

Here's what I did wrong, here's me taking accountability and accepting I hurt people, here's how I commit to fixing my mistake/not making that mistake again.

Again, it also must be an apology because you are acknowledging wrong, not because you are feeling pressed into it, not to get people off your back, not to appease. It must be made with the awareness you may not be forgiven, and committing to continue the work no matter what.

There's another key part to Yom Kippur that I think is little known but I think is important. Which is acknowledgement of communal mistakes. Over Yom Kippur we have a lot of confessions, and a lot takes the form of "WE have done A, WE have done B.” This is an important conversation and I plan to write a post on this later, but I also think that it's part of what should be on our minds. I think it aligns with understanding privilege and societal complicity.

Famous Last Words: What We Can Learn from Ethical Wills this Elul

with Student Rabbi Heather Shore (she/her)

Suggested Contribution $10

Register Here

Each season as we reach the month of Elul and the weeks leading up to the High Holy Days, we are tasked with taking account of our spiritual and behavioral wellbeing. What are the core values and relationships that  drove our decisions this past year? How do our inherited legacies affect and influence our choices? What is the legacy we are on track to leave behind?

For millennia, Jews have used ethical wills to convey their inner most values, lessons, anxieties, short comings,  and hopes for the future to the next generation. Together, we will explore examples of these documents from biblical times through our present day as we push ourselves to consider what our own living legacies will be.

See below for Image Description, a biography of the Student Rabbi, and more information.

Pesach Sheni 2021 is observed on April 26 (14 Iyar).

Pesach Sheni means "Second Passover [Sacrifice]." It marks the day when someone who was unable to participate in the Passover offering in the proper time would observe the mitzvah exactly one month later.

The day represents the “second chance” achieved by teshuvah, the power of repentance and “return.” In the words of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch, “The Second Passover means that it’s never a ‘lost case.’”

Normally, my “spiritual eureka moment” comes late in the High Holy Days – in the afternoon on Yom Kippur, when my head’s all foggy from fasting, and I’ve said the same prayers over and over enough times to achieve that meditative state where I suddenly discover new meaning in it all. Who knows, I might get it then this year, too. But I’ve already had a eureka moment this year, pretty early in the game!

At the end of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, I sat on my bed and took a pencil to my Mahzor. My synagogue doesn’t allow writing on the holidays, so if something in the text or the commentary strikes me as interesting, I have to trust that I’ll remember it when I get home.

I came home that evening with a phrase in my head – “teshuvah is a kind of creativity” – and I flipped through the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service to find what had inspired that thought.

Then I found it – a quote from Rabbi Kalonymous Kalmish Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto: “The time for repentance is Rosh Hashanah, the anniversary of the creation of the world. This is because repentance… is also a kind of creativity.”

Beneath this quote, Jan Uhrbach added: “The Hebrew word t’shuvah means repentance and return. However, as a creative act, t’shuvah is not a simple return. We return to who we are meant to be, but have not yet become. We return to growth and possibility that has lain dormant within us and not yet flourished, much as a sculpture lies hidden within a brute block of stone. That is why the process of t’shuvah, as painful and even humiliating as it can be, is in fact very joyous and hopeful.”

Dear reader, when I say the lightbulb went off in my head, I mean the cliché came true for me.

Teshuvah is the whole point of the High Holy Days. It’s about making amends, about improving yourself and the world as a whole. But in order to do that, in order to make yourself and the world better, you need to be able to imagine that you and the world can be better. You imagine it, and then you make it happen. That’s creativity!

Thinking about this has made me feel more hopeful than I’ve felt in two years, if not my entire life.

The difficult part of the High Holy Days is the accounting. It’s no fun at all to look at yourself, your community, and the world and find all the shortcomings, all the failings, all the errors and the “work in progress” bits. It’s no fun to think, “You’ve done wrong, you’ve hurt people, you’re not living up to your best self.”

But teshuvah doesn’t just mean “you’re not living up to your best self.” It means, “There’s a best self and you CAN be it.” It means, “There’s a better world and we CAN achieve it.”

At the heart of holding yourself and the world to a higher standard is the belief that that higher standard is achievable! We hold ourselves accountable because we can be accountable! We point out our chayt – the ways we’ve missed the mark – because we can hit the mark!

Suddenly, I’m feeling really good about the year 5782. We’re going to achieve great things this year. We’re going to imagine it, and then we’re going to make it happen. I believe it wholeheartedly.