First Vaad Elul – incline your ears and go to me

Elul Vaad 1 – Opposition to Change

In Hilchos Teshuvah, the Rambam states that teshuvah should change the baal teshuvah into a different person.

This presents a problem for us. It goes against the basic creation. Every living organism is created in a way that opposes change. While every living organism experiences external changes such as weather, day and night, and seasonal variations, the actual body of the organism is internally created to resist any opposition that attempts to alter it. An example of this in a human being is that when a significant change happens in the person, they fight back against the change. This is the immune system fighting to undo the change.

If so, the change that teshuvah demands does not naturally fit with us. This makes us reluctant to truly do teshuvah. In addition, most people realise that they are not perfect, but they think that they are basically good people; they learn and daven, etc. They believe that all they need to do is add a bit to what they already are. They think that they don’t need to do anything more than this. The need to change themselves through teshuvah seems unnecessary to them.

I tell people that they can change. I see that even people over the age of 50 change. I see Rabbonim in my kolel who are marrying off children, changing. Only that this change is like a nes since nature is for everything to stay the same.

Don’t try and change the core of your personality

The best scenario we can hope for is to do teshuvah in our chitzoniyus because this is not the true core of our existence. We can tolerate bringing the change of teshuvah into here. However, we cannot tolerate bringing the change of teshuvah into our penimius, the core of our existence, as this change carries with it too much opposition.

The problem is that to be chozer beteshuvah we need to do the teshuvah with our core, penimius.

If so, how do we approach doing a successful teshuvah?

There is a possuk from the haftorah to parshas re’eh,(55,3) -‘hatu oznechem ulechu elai shimu usechi nafshechem veechresa lochem bris olam chasdei Dovid haneemonim’-incline your ear and go to me. Listen, and you will be alive, and then I will make bris olam. Chasdei Dovid Neemonim means Mashiach. After this, the world will change, and that will be techiyas hamesim.

The possuk says that after inclining the ear, you need to go. Usually, after inclining your ear, you listen, but the possuk says after inclining your ear, you first need to go before listening. How does this make sense?

Additionally, why does the possuk say ‘go to me ‘- it should say ‘come to me’?

Hatu oznachem means preparation to hear something unexpected.

All of us possess in our penimius what is expected. Our penimius wants what is expected, and we therefore always try to behave accordingly. Consequently, we aim to continue in the same manner as we have been doing until now. This is why we don’t change.

We need to listen in a way that will not address the penimius in the neshamah. Instead, we need to make ourselves ready to listen (to the unexpected ).

If the possuk had said ‘bou elai’, then Hashem would have been telling us that we are not in the correct place and that we need to change our place and come to Hashem, which means that our whole job would have been just to overcome and fix the distance between us and Hashem.

However, Hashem said ‘lechu’, ‘go’. This means that He gives us reshus to choose our own path to come close to Him, and we are not just limited to specifically overcoming the gap and distance between us and Hashem.

This emerges as a very practical idea for teshuvah. When we prepare ourselves for teshuvah, we prepare ourselves to listen to the unexpected. It is important to note that when we stand prepared to do teshuvah, it doesn’t mean that we need to make major changes.

We think that in order to do teshuvah we first need to recognise ourselves. Secondly, we need to identify our major kochos. Thirdly, we need to make a kabbalah ketanah in the place where our major kochos are.

The problem is that these three points are tough for people to work out. Despite this, we still want to be sincere and consequently accept upon ourselves to change, even if we are not going to do it in the optimal or correct way. Such an approach will compel us to do teshuvah in a way that opposes who we are. This is not good.

A certain Rov used to give the same shmooze every Erev Yom Kippur, speaking about how the year before, we had wanted to do teshuvah but failed. He said that the reason for the failure was that we hadn’t made a genuine decision to change. I think that the problem with this approach is that even with a decision, all creatures are opposed to change, and therefore, they will naturally oppose the decision.

The readiness to hear something that you are not used to hearing doesn’t mean that now you need to do something new. Rather, you need to start being ready to listen.

After ‘lechu’, we need to ‘shimu’. This means to be affected by the action of ‘lechu elai’. The effect that happens in the ‘shimu’ comes after the action of ‘lechu elai’. This is contrary to public opinion. Most people think that they need to adopt a kabbalah that will affect them at their core and in the essence of their personality. Consequently, they work backwards, thinking about what this core change needs to be. Then, they find the commensurate kabbalah.

The correct way to make a kabbalah is from the other direction. First, choose something that is in a place where you want to walk. Choose something small to change in your kiyum hatorah and mitzvos, and then take on this thing that requires minimal effort and listen to it. The ‘shimu’ needs to happen only after the ‘elai’. Then you will have ‘techi nafshechem’. You will then reveal life in a place that was dead beforehand.

The subsequent listening reveals something about ourselves that we didn’t know existed beforehand. This is the experience of techiyas hamesim in a place that we didn’t know existed.  

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Written by Rabbi Rapport