Teshuva with the Family

Teshuva with the Family

Rosh Hashana is coming and with it, self reflection on our life direction and a desire to make positive change. This self reflection and desire, is  the seed of teshuva within us. There are two initial challenges when we come to do teshuva:

• First, is the challenge that the inertia of our lives presents in general.
• Second, is the challenge that to do teshuva in the realm of halacha requires a thorough knowledge of halacha.

The challenge of inertia

We often view teshuva as simply continuing our usual Torah obligations with the intent to do them better. However, true teshuva calls for a deeper, more creative approach, where we seek ways to transform our lives. This is not an easy task because life has an inertia to it. The inertia of our lives manifests as a mental block to change and progress because the very reason we are not living any other way is because we feel those ways are “un-liveable.” We must fight this inertia and affirm that we can indeed live in a different way! 

The challenge of halacha

As we just said, the misnomer when it comes to teshuva is that we immediately think of doing teshuva in the realm of our halachic obligations; meaning trying to keep the halacha better. This is a challenging approach to teshuva because the way to improve our halachic observance is to study the halacha from the sources in all of their detail. No husband wants their wife coming to them with a vast knowledge of the detailed halacha and correcting them to “do it right!” So how is “teshuva as a family” going to work?  

Teshuva with the family means “middos”

The answer is that “teshuva as a family” does not mean that the wife is going to learn the sugiya b’iyun with all the lumdus in order to come out with what to do and how to do it, but rather the teshuva is going to be in the realm of middos. The place of the woman is not the shulchan aruch, but rather it is in middos! In general we see how a woman’s forte in the family is relationships and that she has a knack for relating to people, children, neighbors, etc.

When we ask couples how their relationship is, most of the time the husband says “fine, great, I have a good home!” and then the wife says “my husband could be more sensitive!” In general, we find women are more sensitive when it comes to relationships.

How to change middos

Middos is something which the whole family can connect to and when we talk about changing our middos we don’t need a shulchan aruch in front of us. In today’s world, the inertia in middos is so strong, yet we can and need to change.

We need to lay out the procedure: 

First step: I am obligated to change

The first step is to have the basic yiras shomayim which brings us to acknowledge and recognize that we are obligated to do something. This obligation needs to be from the intellect, not simply because of the emotional inspiration of Elul and Rosh Hashana. 

Indeed, when it comes to middos we are surrounded by obligations. For example we have an obligation of chinuch. Parents are sometimes afraid of their children so they avoid confrontation. Deep down these parents know that their children need to hear a strong “No” but they don’t want to admit it. This means they know it intellectually and this obligation which they know, forces them to do teshuva. When a husband and wife sit together they will quickly come to a realization that life would be better if a midda was changed.

Here is a personal example of where my life showed me that a midda change was necessary: I was Mashgiach in a certain yeshiva and I was there early morning to late night for seven years. In the seventh year a thought would hit me each morning on my way to yeshiva that maybe the boys burned the place down. I realized this crazy thought was coming to me from a lack of being in control of what went on in the yeshiva overnight during the hours I was home. This was a problem in middos. 

This is one way to reveal a place in our lives that we are obligated to do teshuva in as we acknowledge an unchecked midda which is pushing us beyond a healthy mental framework. Sharing similar feelings and thoughts with our spouse will have our spouse reflect back to us that we are behaving or thinking irrationally, prompting us to recognize it ourselves and see the need to work on a midda. 

The next step:  I need to make a change for Hashem’s sake

The next step of changing our middos is to have the attitude that we need to make a change not just for our own sake so our life will be less crazy and more workable but rather for Hashem’s sake, meaning for His plan for us and the whole world.

We know the Rambam tells us that when we want to work on our middos we need to go to the other extreme. This is because middos are always extreme. We need to understand the depth of this statement. When I thought the boys burned the yeshiva down it was not because I had been grabbed to some sort of “extreme” side of a particular midda, but rather it was because I was caught up in a midda period. By definition this meant that it was extreme and I was unable to see the situation from another angle!

To give another example, when we have the midda of chanufa and are afraid of our children we cannot see that our children will survive a firm “No” from us. We think they will end up non religious and in jail! This is us living through the extreme of the midda. 

Rav Dessler said that when we are angry at someone “I do not simply want that he goes away, I want him to die and disappear immediately!” A midda is always extreme. 

When we have a six month old baby our Aunt will try to get a rise out of the baby and when the baby doesn’t smile back, our Aunt will go to an extreme to get the baby to smile!(1) Our Aunt feels that even the six month old baby needs to hold of her! If the baby does not smile at her, she feels broken and doesn’t know what to do with herself. This is the expression of the midda of chanufa and it is extreme. Now we can begin to appreciate why it is necessary when working on a midda to go to the other extreme.

Going to the other extreme

Going to the other extreme means that the initial side does not exist. So going back to our example of parenting, the other extreme would be to affirm to ourselves “I can say “No”, and the children will exist. I can say “No” to everything and the children will be OK.” We don’t need to do this in practical application, but we need to respect and agree that there actually is a way of existing which is opposite of how we are living right now. We have to truly affirm within ourselves “Things can be different, and they will be OK.”

Here is a personal example, I have a problem with leaving dirty dishes out in the evening to be dealt with the next day (2). My wife leaves the dirty dishes out and that occurs to me as extremely inefficient, it is harder to clean them the next day! So I have the opposite midda of my wife. The first step to deal with this frustration is to acknowledge conceptually that the other extreme can exist and my life can exist within that. 

Here is another personal example, I have a tendency towards rage/anger. I cannot imagine living a life in which my will is not followed and actualized. I suffer from this midda of anger. I simply can not imagine a life in which things will not go the way I want and I would survive and it would all be OK. This is a very hard avodah for me of course, and the teshuva starts with the mental attitude we are describing.

The final step

We have so far:

1. Recognizing we are obligated to the change
2. Accepting that the concept of change is liveable

The final step is following R’ Yisroel Salanter who teaches that we need to take a small step. After all, going back to our chinuch example, if we did enact our extreme conceptual acceptance that being always firm is a viable style, it really would destroy our family! 

We need to implement a small step. Back to our chinuch example, if the child asks for ice cream before dinner and we say “No”. This is a firmness which is a small action. Yet this firmness takes us to the other extreme of how we deal with the children. This small action manifests the entire concept of change we are discussing because we really take on the new midda within that action. We really are being firm and we really are completely immovable within this small rule we made about ice cream. We are of course not changing ourselves 24/7, but only in this specific circumstance.

This is a foundational principle by middos which is well worth understanding; middos are different from taking on the obligations of halacha. Middos do not differentiate between large and small actions and therefore when we are working on a small manifestation of the midda, we are already encountering our gadlus. When we activate the opposite midda of what was our midda before, then there is real change going on within us right now! This is distinct from the taking on of more obligations in halacha which takes us on a track of growth in halacha.

Working on ourselves

This is real working on ourselves because we have the concept initially which we are following through on and then bringing it to touch our middos within the small incident. 

If we just have a timer set or feel forced from an external circumstance we set up for ourselves to change, then our small action will not touch our middos.

The way we are doing it is real teshuva. And this also means that when we take this kabbalah ketana on Yom Kippur, it does not stay with us the whole year, it changes based on the midda we are working on and where we are in the avoda process. Teshuva is a living thing, not a dry specific action which we are forcing upon ourselves through the entire year. 

Further clarification on Rav Yisroel “kabbala ketana”

Now we understand that R’ Yisroel is not saying that we need to take on a small action because we cannot do any more than that in our lives (3). Rather, if we follow the method we just outlined, we can appreciate that it is because the small action will touch our middos and change our life!

Further clarification of the Rambam’s instructions to go to the polar extreme

Now we can see that when the Rambam told us that in middos we need to go to the opposite extreme, it is not so that we now live within that polar opposite midda, but rather he is telling us that this is the only way to “be in the middle” because being in the middle means being free to choose between either side of the midda, i.e. either way of living, and therefore the ability to choose throughout our day which expression of the midda is proper given the circumstances.

Marital growth

This can be a foundational opportunity for couples; to discuss safely and candidly the different middos each one presents and how one can and should be able to go either way depending on the situation. 

Finding a midda to work on

What happens when a person simply does not know that they have an issue with a midda?

I will tell you a personal story which perfectly describes this issue. I sat next to two well known personalities on the way to a wedding. It was well known that these two individuals would go out of their way to attend a wedding if they were given an honor at the wedding procedures. They began to discuss the bad midda of kavod (honor). One said to the other “I have no connection to this inclination for kavod.” The other responded, “Indeed, I also have no connection to it, R’ Yisroel Salanter says that those who have an inclination for kavod are not even aware of it, I simply cannot imagine how a person can be so taken by it.” I would have fallen out of the car if the door was not there to hold me back. The whole world knows these two individuals are taken by the midda of kavod…the whole world except them!

If our spouse is very sensitive and insightful then they can often help. Otherwise, we must reflect on our day and notice that certain things upset us by not going the way we wanted. We must reflect on this and suspect that in our interactions with life, work, and family, it is our middos which are driving us and making specific daily interactions so uncomfortable and painful for us. 

Interactions with our children can be a very useful tool to shine a light on our middos.

Rav Shlomo Wolbe took this work even deeper and once declared that he himself suffered from chanufa, i.e. from wanting everyone to hold him in warm regard. He said he was once sitting on a bus next to a crazy person and spoke patiently to him. He said “Everyone was impressed that I had so much patience. I however understood that I was able to speak patiently with him because my yetzer of chanufa carried me through the conversation.”

_________________________

(1) Editor’s Note: This topic of “Chanfei Lev” is explored in depth by Rav Leuchter in the shiur titled “Cheshbon Hanefesh 12 (2008-2009)”.

(2) Editor’s Note: This example is brought by Rav Leuchter and elaborated upon in the shiur titled “how to build a relationship in marriage”

(3) Editor’s note: Rav Leuchter drills down into this common misunderstanding of R’ Yisroel Salanter in the shiur entitled “Third Vaad Elul – Kabbala Ketana within our life routine” and the shiur entitled “Fourth Vaad Elul –Vaad Before Yom Kippur – Conclusion How to Make Teshuvah”