Parshas Ha’azinu

This week’s Torah portion, Parshas Haazinu, is Moshe’s final song to the Jewish people, a reminder to stay the course, to remain true to Hashem and His Torah no matter what the future holds. With Yom Kippur just days away, this is the perfect moment to ask what staying true to that course actually requires of us.

On Rosh Hashana we crowned Hashem as our King, choosing Him through our own free will. Yom Kippur is the next step in that same relationship. It is the opportunity Hashem gives us to clean ourselves off and rebuild the connection that frayed over the course of the year. We tend to think teshuva means spending the day beating ourselves up, replaying every mistake, drowning in guilt. And while this warped perspective of spite and guilt is common, it is it complete contradiction to the love and compassion Hashem is showing us by giving us this yearly opportunity to cleans ourselves and return to Him.

Rabbi Gettinger shared a story with me this week that drives this point home. A man who was no longer religious came to the great Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman. The Rabbi asked him, did you ever think about doing teshuva? The man thought for a moment and admitted that yes, once, for maybe a minute, the thought had crossed his mind. Rabbi Shteinman’s face lit up. Wow, he said. Then you must give me a blessing! To Rabbi Shteinman, a single fleeting thought of return was something to celebrate, something powerful enough that the tzaddik wanted the man’s bracha. If one passing thought carries that kind of weight, how much more so do our genuine efforts on Yom Kippur itself.

The Gemara in Kiddushin discusses the laws of marriage,  allowing a man to betroth a woman with a ring, and he can make that betrothal conditional on something. The Gemara raises a strange case. What if a man, known to be wicked, gives a woman a ring and says this is conditional on my being a tzaddik? Astonishingly, the Gemara concludes the marriage may well be valid. Why? Because even a wicked person may have had a fleeting thought of genuine teshuva at the very moment he handed over the ring, and that thought alone could be enough to transform him.

Think about what that means. Hashem built the mechanics of teshuva so deeply into the fabric of reality that even a single unspoken, unconfirmed thought of return can shift a person’s entire spiritual status. That is not a technicality. That is love. Hashem wants us back so badly that He built the door wide open, needing only the smallest step from our side to come rushing toward us the rest of the way, like a father who cannot wait for his wayward child to simply turn around.

May Hashem help us take even the smallest steps back to Him this Yom Kippur, and in that merit may He run toward us with the fullness of His love, sealing us and all of Klal Yisrael for a year of life, connection, and closeness to Him.