Every year anew, as we approach the avodah of teshuvah, our natural inclination is to focus specifically on those areas in which we fail again and again, out of the perception that the entire purpose of the avodah of teshuvah is the rectification of sin. Accordingly, we mobilize the bulk of our resources toward various kabbalos surrounding the problematic area. Yet from the words of Chazal, who taught (Pesachim 54a) that teshuvah was created even before the creation of the world, it would seem that the avodah of teshuvah pertains even absent any aveirah, and is not merely an avodah of rectification. We must therefore consider: What, then, is its essential nature?
This is also suggested by Rashi’s explanation of the Gemara (Avodah Zarah 19b) regarding the great merit of a person who does teshuvah “be’odo ish” — while still a young man. Rashi writes: “When he is a bachur in his strength, meaning he hastens to recognize his Creator before the days of old age.” It would seem that the doing of teshuvah does not pertain specifically to aveiros and the rectification of one’s deeds, for had that been the intent, Rashi would simply have explained the Gemara as referring to the merit of a person who does teshuvah and rectifies his deeds while still a bachur, precisely when his yetzer is at the height of its power and he battles mightily to repel it. Since Rashi did not explain it this way, we learn that the avodah of teshuvah is a more deeply rooted avodah of life — the avodah of recognizing the Borei Yisborach.
We must now understand what connection exists between recognizing the Borei Yisborach and the avodah of teshuvah, and why we specifically require the strength of youth to attain this recognition.
Two Paths to Recognizing the Borei Yisborach
It would seem that there are two paths to recognizing the Borei Yisborach. In old age, a person comes to recognize his Creator specifically through the absence of strength — through the reality that his powers are no longer with him. At that stage, he sees with his own eyes that from all his undertakings and successes, only the word of Hashem endures forever. But in the years of youth, when a person is at the height of his strength, there is a far greater avodah: to recognize the Borei specifically through the very kochos hanefesh—powers of the soul—that surge within him. He must identify them, and attach them to the avodah of the Borei Yisborach.
Within every person there exist many kochos. Some of them he recognizes, and even makes an effort to work with them. But to others he pays no attention whatsoever, and certainly does not direct them toward the avodah of the Borei. In such a state there is, rachmana litzlan, a severance from the avodas Hashem, for those very special kochos which he was given in order to serve his Creator are left disconnected from their source. The renewed recognition of those kochos — revealed in their full force — and their direction toward avodas Hashem, is precisely the greatness of one who does teshuvah be’odo ish: he attaches and restores his kochos to the avodah of the Borei.
The Deeper Meaning of Kares in the Nefesh HaChaim
This, then, is the reason the Nefesh HaChaim writes (end of Shaar Aleph) that the avodah of teshuvah is fundamentally directed at the chiyuv of kares — a severance from the Borei. At first glance this is puzzling: Why should teshuvah pertain only to so grave a matter? Why should it not pertain equally to other aveiros? But according to what we have explained, we can understand that his intent is not the severe sin of kares in which a person is, rachmana litzlan, entirely cut off from his people, but rather that this is an expression of the severance of a koach among the kochos hanefesh from the avodah of the Borei. This is indeed as he writes at the close of his sefer, see there (Shaar Daled, 24).
Working for Ourselves Versus Working for the Borei
Indeed, we frequently toil with great exertion to rectify some deed or to add some good hanhagah. Yet upon reflection, we notice that we labor in this only to refine ourselves — to become, for example, more diligent or more pleasant to our fellow — without any accompanying thought of what we are doing in this for the sake of the Borei. Whereas the essence of the avodah of teshuvah is the movement of return to Hashem — to restore the kochos hidden within us so that they be directed toward His will.
Indeed, for this lofty avodah, an uplifted feeling of connection in the heart does not suffice. We must deepen our understanding of each person’s individual portion in Malchus Shamayim, as the Nefesh HaChaim writes (Shaar Aleph, 17) that the beginning of teshuvah is an inner will for the establishment of His Malchus. Without such a will, we cannot be bound to Him, and no good middos or intentions will avail us. To this end, we must labor to direct our kochos and our deeds toward His will.
The Unity of Purpose in Malchus Shamayim
We can grasp this from the language of the tefillah: וכולם מקבלים עליהם עול מלכות שמים זה מזה — “and all of them accept upon themselves the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, one from another.” Each malach has its own unique role and portion in Malchus Shamayim, yet all the malachim together are, in the end, not truly distinct from one another — rather, all are directed together toward a single will, and therefore they receive from one another, for the role of each is bound up with that of his fellow, and only in this way is there one complete Malchus.
So, too, must we labor that our avodah be sincere, arising from a genuine will for Malchus Shamayim, and not from other, foreign motivations. This, then, is the essence of the avodah of teshuvah: to restore our kochos and our deeds so that they are directed toward Malchus Shamayim.
And now, when we say, לך ה’ הצדקה ולנו בושת הפנים — “Yours, Hashem, is the righteousness, and ours is the shame of face” — let us note how much pain is contained within these words: Yours, Hashem, is the righteousness that You gave us — the tremendous kochos hanefesh with which to grow in ruchniyus — and ours is the shame of face, that we do not recognize and identify how these kochos belong to us and can raise us. Let us, then, search out our ways and examine them, and strive to reflect upon our kochos, that we may find a way to return them to Hashem.