Shabbat Shuva — the Shabbat between Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur — gets its name from the opening words of the haftarah: שׁוּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵל, “Return, O Israel to the Lord your G-d (Hosea 14:2).” The rabbis of the Talmud developed this Biblical idea into the value concept t’shuvah, repentance.
Although in recent years this value concept has been co-opted by the khazarah b’tshuvah Orthodox outreach movements, it remains one of the essential concepts for any Jew. I illustrate its centrality from a story that my Rabbi and teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel liked to tell.
After a synagogue address, one of the congregants approached Heschel and said, “I don’t feel any need to observe the commandments; it’s sufficient that I am a good person.” Heschel replied, “I can’t make that statement about myself.” Heschel did not see being a good person as a status, but rather as a process, a process guided by t’shuvah.
May we all engage in t’shuvah during the “Ten Days of Repentance” and throughout the upcoming year.
