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Ki Seitzei 5753Volume 16 · Issue 2
Confounding Satan
Our task on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the interim days is more or less clear. These are Ten Days of Repentance and we must repent and do everything. Repentance means returning to the Torah, as we say in the Shemoneh Esrei Prayer, “Return us, our Father, to Your Torah,” and the Torah encompasses everything. We must return to the Torah and reaccept
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Ki Savo 5753Volume 16 · Issue 3
Implosion of Evil
Lord” (Shemos 32:11), and they enabled him to ascend for the third set of forty days where we now find ourselves. For this reason, all our supplications throughout the Days of Fearsomeness and the Ten Days of Repentance revolve around them. Our very existence hinges upon them and our entire focus is to enlighten them anew.
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Yom Kippur 5754Volume 16 · Issue 5
Sealed and Atoned
When the Jewish People had followed the Baal and placed their faith in falsehood, they had abandoned the Event of Mount Sinai. They had forsaken everything that grants the designation of Israel. Their repentance was achieved through their declaration, “God is the Lord.” It returned them after a fashion to the Event of Mount Sinai.
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Vayelech 5756Volume 17 · Issue 5
Interdependent Lots
The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is when the judgment is sealed. “On Rosh Hashanah, it will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur it will be sealed.” It is also a day of repentance. Rabbeinu Yonah and other earlier commentators consider it obligatory to repent on this day, “Before God you shall become purified” (Vayikra 16:30; Gates of Repentance 2:14). And it is the day of forgiveness, pardon, and atonement.
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Ki Sisa 5757Volume 18 · Issue 23
Erased from the Book
The sages there explain (Zohar 2:43b). “The underlying concept is that the Evil Inclination has the capacity to be transformed through repentance and then become the Good Inclination.” Indeed, there is a commandment to love God your Lord with all your heart (Devarim 6:5), and the Talmud explains (Berachos 54a) that it means with both your inclinations. Even the Evil Inclination
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Nitzavim-Vayelech 5757Volume 19 · Issue 4
His Children His Servants
One who prevails in judgment on Rosh Hashanah may continue throughout the Ten Days of Repentance to plea for pardon with the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. The covenant reawakens and he merits existence by undeserved grace.
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Miketz Chanukah 5760Volume 20 · Issue 14
The Horn of the Ox
In the well-known words of Rabbeinu Yonah (Shaarei Teshuvah 2:5), “One who is confident in God should have hope during the weariness of his oppression for the darkness to be the cause of the light.
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Balak 5760Volume 20 · Issue 37
From Devastation to Kingship
This appears to be the underlying concept of an oft-cited passage (Zohar Chadash to Parshas Noach). “By your life, if… one congregation returns with repentance, all exiles will be ingathered in their merit.”
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Terumah-Zachor 5761Volume 21 · Issue 22
Beginning of Choice
Thus, only Esav is a beginning. Adam ruined the image of man, but through his repentance, left behind an image of man that would rectify this. Esav, however, originated a beginning of evil that never was and that never will be rectified.
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Ki Savo 5761Volume 22 · Issue 3
Prayers of Forgiveness
Torah openly states, the entire course of atonement and our meriting the Second Tablets was due to the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. God had revealed Himself with them to Moshe Rabbeinu, and through them, God accepted our repentance, forgave us, and gave to us the Second Tablets.
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Bamidbar 5768Volume 4 · Issue 32
The Counting and the Year
…sinned is unheard of. Every atoner only works from the moment of atonement. By repentance, we find the concept of considering intentional sins as merits (Yoma 86b), which is far greater than considering them as though they never…
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Nitzavim-Vayelech 5767Volume 4 · Issue 4
Amongst My People I Dwell
Rosh Hashanah, and Ha’azinu on the second. Only when there is a single Sabbath are Nitzavim and Vayelech combined. Then, we read both of them together on the Sabbath before Rosh Hashanah, Ha’azinu on the Sabbath of Repentance, and we complete the Torah with VeZos HaBerachah on Shemini Atzeres or Simchas Torah.
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Vayechi 5772Volume 8 · Issue 14
How Beautiful Our Heritage
Essentially, he is the model of repentance in Israel. His entire being is kingship, which is primarily fulfilled through King David, who was the essence of what it says (Bereshis 49:10), “The staff shall not depart from Yehudah and the scepter from between his feet
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Nitzavim-Vayelech 5771Volume 8 · Issue 4
Tilting the Scales
only matter for which we are being judged on Rosh Hashanah. In which direction have we tilted the scales? And if we have not tilted them and we are undecided, we are given time—but not indefinitely (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:3). An undecided existence is only temporary; it cannot last forever. “Until when will you leap upon two ideologies?” There is a limit.
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Ki Seitzei 5773Volume 10 · Issue 2
Transcendent Aspiration
The month of Elul is commonly understood as preparation—preparation for the Ten Days of Repentance, preparation for the Days of Judgment. But in truth, it has its own title and it is significant in and of itself. Even the Torah ascribes a name to it. “And the Land into which you are crossing there to possess is… a land that God your Lord seeks out, always are the eyes of God your Lord upon it—from the beginning
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Bechukosai 5774Volume 10 · Issue 32
Joyous Heart
As the Talmud states (Avodah Zarah 5a), King David is the one who established the yoke of repentance. He is the one who rectifies the sin of Adam and returns the world to its state prior to sin. Indeed, this is why Adam had contributed seventy years of his life to King David. He wanted King David
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Vayakhel-Pekudei-Parah 5775Volume 11 · Issue 19
Accentuated Polarity
The ultimate repentance of the entire Jewish People is guaranteed. The Rambam states this as law (Hilchos Teshuvah 7:5), “The Torah already promised that Israel will ultimately repent at the end of their exile and they will be redeemed immediately.”
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Ki Savo 5774Volume 11 · Issue 3
The Longing of Israel
The Rambam writes (Hilchos Teshuvah 9:1), “It is known that the bestowal of reward for the commandments and the goodness we will merit if we keep the way of God stated in the Torah is the life of the World to Come…, and the revenge exacted
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Vayechi 5747Volume 12 · Issue 14
Heritage in Exile
Yehudah, it says (Shmuel II 23:1), “The words of the man who was established ahl, on high.” The sages read the word ahl as ohl, yoke, and identify King David as the man who established the yoke of repentance (Avodah Zarah 5a).
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Beshalach 5776Volume 12 · Issue 20
Timeline
stands, if he but hopes with all his heart to reach the World to Come, he will reach it. Even forgiveness is with hope. We request forgiveness from the Creator of the World, and to gain His forgiveness requires repentance. Here the sages tell us that it is merited by hope. When we hope that the Creator forgives us, He will indeed forgive us.
