פרשת נצבים – וילך וענייני תשובה

There is a verse in this week’s Parsha which many of the commentaries go to great lengths to try to understand. The verse says concerning the Mitzvah of repentance, “It is not far from you, or difficult to achieve, rather it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to be performed”. However, this statement of the Torah is very difficult to understand. We know that R’ Yisroel Salanter used to say that to change one character trait is more difficult than to complete all of the Talmud. We all know how difficult it is to complete even one tractate, let alone the entire Shas. How then can the Torah make a statement that repentance, and altering one’s entire disposition is a simple endeavor?

My illustrious grand uncle, R’ Meir Simcha from D’vinsk attempts to deal with this difficulty. He begins by pointing out that we find in this world an exquisite harmonic balance between the forces of nature, and the inhabitants of this planet. For example, let us begin with air. Oxygen is the most necessary component for survival on earth, and it is found in the greatest abundance. Water is next in terms of demand, and miraculously, water is next to air in terms of the quantities available here. And solid food is third on the list in terms of basic necessities, and once again, “coincidentally”, food is provided for each and every member of the planet, in the exact quantities necessary to sustain each species with relative ease. There is only one organism on this earth who has the ability to disrupt this delicate equilibrium and that is the human being. No animal in the world can choose to seek and produce any other type of sustenance but that which is available in its natural habitat. We don’t find an opossum trying to produce tobacco and smoke a cigarette. Man, on the other hand, can choose to upset this process by increasing the sophistication of his desires so that he no longer sustains himself in the way that Hashem intended through nature. When he does this, he demands a tremendous amount of resources to be satisfied, and the time and energy needed to fulfill those demands can be exceedingly great. When this happens, man loses touch with the natural forces and begins to see things in a skewed way, because he no longer has the natural ability to see the world for what it is due to his perversion of nature.

With this understanding, R’ Meir Simcha deals with the above mentioned difficulty. It is readily apparent to any healthy individual the existence of a creator. Imagine a person walking into a neatly organized house, with paintings on the wall, food in the fridge, and tidily made beds with freshly washed linens. Imagine such a person suggesting to his friend how amazing it is that this structure was formed by accident, with no owner or master being involved with its inception whatsoever! Entertaining such a possibility would seem preposterous to any sane human being. Yet when a person attempts to deny God, that is exactly what he is suggesting. This world contains scenery whose beauty is beyond our comprehension, resources available in exact measures as we described, comfortable living conditions for each life form, and after all that, how could we even consider the possibility that all of it is random? Only a madman would think that way. R’ Meir Simcha explains beautifully that when we distort our natural order by pursuing unnecessary desires, and deviate from the way Hashem intended us to live, we become that madman. And when the Torah teaches us in this week’s Parsha how repentance is not far from our hearts, but rather is very close, we can now gain far greater insight as to what is being referred to. By choosing to come close to Hashem, and recalibrating our way of thinking in a detoxification process, we will naturally return to the most innate understanding of the existence of a creator, and our privilege to serve Him.

R’ Meir Simcha concludes this masterpiece by saying that the Jewish people have a unique relationship with their creator. Everything we said up until now, is equally true by Jews and non-Jews alike. But the Jewish people have a far different status. When Hashem chose us as a nation, and brought us out of Egypt, and gave us the Torah, he forged with us bonds of steel which can never be broken. The way we reciprocate this love is by our performance of the Mitzvos. For example, we put Tefilin on our arms in order to “tether” Hashem to us on a daily basis. We put Tzitizis on our bodies like a tattoo of Hashem on our clothes to show that we are constantly thinking of him. We learn Torah on a daily basis to show that His ideas are important to us and that we wish to constantly be discussing and understanding anything that is significant to him. We discuss the exodus from Egypt twice daily in order to regularly tell the world what our beloved one did for us, and how good he has always been to us. We keep the Shabbos and the holy days in order to dedicate special time for our beloved, and to imbue in our families and the world the strong belief in our beloved and convey to them how strongly we feel about this point. R’ Meir Simcha says that from all these beautiful points, it is clear that a Jew has an even greater natural ability to love his Creator that the rest of earth’s inhabitants, and when he is able to remove all the external factors which inhibit him from seeing this truth, and nurture his natural love toward Hashem, he will certainly return to Mitzvah observance with great zeal and relative ease!

The holy Mashgiach of the Ponevich Yeshiva, R’ Chazkal Levinstein used to offer an alternative understanding of the above quoted verse. He would focus on the part of the verse which says that the Mitzvah of Teshuva is close to you, in your mouth and in your heart. R’ Chazkal would say that by a person constantly repeating to himself the importance of performing the Mitzvos, and admitting when he has faltered, he will find it much easier to return to Hashem. By verbally accepting upon himself to desist from any future negative activities, and choosing to cling to all positive paths which lead him toward proper Torah observance, this process is extremely therapeutic for Teshuva. R’ Chazkal explains that this verse is teaching us that by constantly repeating these messages to himself verbally, he will inevitably imbue in his heart a sincere desire to follow them, even if at first, it only seems like an insincere exercise in futility.

R’ Chazkal continues by pointing out that Teshuva is unique in that it has a particular guarantee from the Torah for success if it is done sincerely. He cites the Nefesh Hachaim, (1:12) who says that when a person only considers the idea of performing a good deed, that mere reflection has a tremendous effect on many worlds that exist in the Heavens, and those worlds will in turn be instrumental in aiding him to complete his meritorious intentions. But this concept is even more potent when it comes to the Mitzvah of Teshuva. When it comes to repentance, there is an assurance from Hashem that a person will succeed. The Rabenu Yona goes so far as to say that even if a person cannot attain the level that he is striving for on a practical level, if he repents sincerely, he will be aided supernaturally and will be given herculean strength to achieve levels that he was previously incapable of reaching.

May we all merit to return to our natural state, and serve Hashem with great love!