The Gates of Tears Are Never Closed

For the refua shlaima of Ita Riva Bat Leah (Iris Block)

“On the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and we also cried as we remembered Zion”

.( Tehillim 137:1 )

….As we remembered Gilad ben Aviva, Eldad ben Tova, Ehud ben Malka….As we remembered the soldiers, the wounded, the dead, the maimed.

When war broke out on the 17^th of Tamuz, we looked at each other in surety. We knew that this was the time of punishment for us, of sorrow. We expected the worse – after all these were the three weeks, a time destined for sorrow.

Missiles rained upon Israel. Families were dislocated, refugees in our own country. The lives of innocent Jews were once again cut off. Cities were held hostage. Soldiers went off to war, and we held our collective breath  – will they return? Will they return whole?

We were sure that this was a message from Hashem. A tochacha. A warning.  As we read the newspapers, or heard the radio, we also read and heard the subtext: These are the three weeks, a time set aside of suffering.

We have experienced losses, unbearable losses: boys at the front, citizens working, riding a car, sitting in their homes. Mothers have been bereaved of sons; children have lost fathers.

Now it is Tisha B’Av.

Our Rabbis teach us that from the time of the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, all the gates of Tefilla are closed except for the gates of tears. The gates of tears are never locked. And whereas it is true that any time we are in pain and sorrow and fear, we can cry out to Hashem with our tears; there is a time set aside in the Jewish calendar that is specifically for tears – that time is Tisha B’Av.

Just like the High Holy Days are a time for Teshuva , and on those Days of Awe, Hashem determines our year, so too on Tisha b’Av is a time for our tears and our crying affects the rest of the year.

Tisha B’Av is a time to contemplate and evaluate the status of the Jewish people, to feel our failures and our spiritual lowliness. It is the time to remember that whatever generation did not merit to rebuild the Beit HaMikdash is guilty as if they destroyed it. Tisha B’av is a time to cry because we continue to destroy the Beit HaMikdash.

If we don’t cry, how will our year be determined? What will happen to us if, on 9 Av, we do not open the Gates of Tears? The tears of 9 Av affect the rest of the year. The tears of Tisha B’av can break through the barriers.

I am speaking not only about wet tears that flow down your eyes, but internal tears, crying inside. .

9 Av is called a moed, just as Shabbos and Pesach are called moadim. A moed is a time that has a particular focus and purpose. Tisha b‘av is a moed for crying.

Noach

Yeshayahu 54:9 called the flood in the time of Noach, “Noach’s Waters” and our Rabbi explain the reason that the flood is called by his name is that Noach was responsible for the flood. The people of Noach’s generation sinned greatly. They were corrupt and guilty of every form of sexual immorality, yet the flood is not called by their name,, but by the name of the only Tzaddik who lived at that time!

It must be because Noach should have prayed on their behalf, beseeching the Heavens, yet he did not.  It must be because, although Noach was a tzaddik, he did not feel the pain of seeing the others in their gross immorality.

He did not cry for them. He was not sorrowful, pained and sad. He did not feel sorry for them, or worry about their fate.

Still, after almost a year in the Ark, when he emerged from the Ark, he saw the devastation. He saw that all was lost, there was no one left, the world was destroyed. Then he cried. He cried and he brought sacrifices and he prayed. Because of those tears, and because of those sacrifices and because of those prayers, Hashem swore never to destroy the world again with a flood.

This is why Noach was blamed for the flood. His tears after the flood were so powerful that the strength of them convinced Hashem to swear never to bring another flood. The tears flowing from Noach’s eyes before the flood, might have prevented the destruction! Perhaps Noachs’ tears would have moved his generation to change. Perhaps Noach’s tears would have moved Hashem to desist from bringing a flood at all.

Rashi teaches that Noach was among those of “little faith” and therefore, he did not enter the ark until the rain became strong. That is hard to understand – after all, Noach spent 120 years building the ark. He built it despite the fact that many in his generation sought to kill him for his endeavors. He gathered the animals to enter the ark. He heard the voice of God with his own ears. How could one say he was of “little faith”

Rav Pinkus answered this question. Noach knew that Hashem had decreed a death sentence on his generation. However, he thought that Hashem would be merciful and that at the last moment, His Midas HaRachamim (mercy) would take charge. He never believed that the Midas HaDin (justice, punishment/reward) would carry out the flood.

This was his lack of faith. He did not believe that Hashem would destroy the world. This is why he didn’t pray and he didn’t cry. He relied on the mercy of Hashem. The world was destroyed.

Mordechai

In contrast, when Haman vowed to exterminate the Jews, Mordechai knew that this was a decree from Heaven. Although the words, “to destroy, kill and exterminate all of the Jews” were spoken by Haman, the decree was from Hashem. Mordechai believed that the Midas Hadin would prevail.

Therefore he cried to Hashem.  “When Mordechai perceived all that was done, Mordechai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth and ashes and went out into the midst of the city and cried with a loud and a bitter cry” ( Esther 4;1)

The threat was real to him, the anger of Hashem was tangible. He didn’t rationalize, and convince others that it would not happen, because of Hashem’s great mercy. Instead, he told them it would happen! But that they should plead, beg, cry before the Only One who could save them.

“In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decrees came, there was a great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping and wailing:  and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.” ( Esther 4: 3)

Mordechai gathered all the children to fast and pray. He did this because he knew that the destruction would happen. He knew they deserved it and that Hashem runs the world on Din (justice). He cried, and he prayed that Hashem should have mercy and nullify the terrible decree. He begged Hashem to turn aside Din, to act with Rachamim and to spare His people.

If  Mordechai had thought: Hashem is merciful and He would never allow His people to be destroyed, then he wouldn’t have prayed. The destruction of Jews in Persia would have taken place.

A Time to Cry

9 Av is a time for us to cry. It is a time to remember that all the threats promised in the tochacha (rebuke) are true and that all of the troubles can descend upon us as they have in other generations. We should not be “little of faith” to think they could never come! We should feel the flood of fire in this world, feel the spiritual emptiness of the vast majority of Jewry, we should tremble and be fearful for our future. We should know the danger we are in: ayt tzara leYakov, a time of trouble for Yakov.

Perhaps this is the biggest chesed of the war we have faced for the last three weeks. There have been many kindnesses Hashem has shown us during this time, but perhaps the biggest chesed is that the war has forced us to cry.

If not for the war today, we would have gone through the three weeks, we would have fasted as we are supposed to. We would have refrained from music, as we are supposed to. We would not have bought or worn new clothes. That is the halacha and we keep the halacha.

But if it were not for the war, we wouldn’t have cried. We wouldn’t have cried in our hearts, in our thoughts, in our prayers. We wouldn’t have mourned for what should be and isn’t.  We would not have engaged in the introspection, asking ourselves the questions; What did we do wrong? What do we need to fix? How should we entreat the Holy One blessed be He?

The chesed of HKB is that He gave us this opportunity to fear, to feel and to cry out in sincerity for His salvation. We should cry for those displaced families, for the bereaved families, for our missing soldiers. We should and do feel their sorrow, their bewilderment, their loss and their fear.

But we should not only cry for those displaced families, for the bereaved families, for our missing soldiers. We should cry for the lost spiritual state of this country and of world Jewry. 9 Av is a time to cry for what isn’t and what could be.

There so many things to cry for. We should cry because of the high percentage of intermarriage in the Jewish world and for the lost children of those families who don’t even know the verse, Shma Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad. We should cry for the lost Jewish souls who may never find their way back to their spiritual center.

We should cry that even here in Israel, there are so many marriages of Jews and non-Jews. We should cry because we are losing track of who is Jewish because of the flow of non-Jewish immigrants into the country. We should cry because perhaps a time is coming that our children will not be allowed to marry their children because we won’t know if they are Jews.

We should cry that while we, the religious public, read the subtext of the headlines, the vast majority of Jews in the world do not see the hand of Hashem in our victories, even more so in our losses.

We should cry because we didn’t cry over the unholy parade that was to take place in Jerusalem. Because we didn’t adequately feel the pain of the Shechina in seeing His holy city defiled.

We should cry because over 300 religious girls do not have a place in high school in the coming year. Is this not cruel and unjust? Are we not a community that who commits to educate every Bat Yisroel as is her due?

We should cry because the pull of the street has become so big that we sometimes don’t even realize how much it pulls us in the wrong direction. We should cry because we have let it into our home, thinking that it is harmless, when in fact it eats away at our foundations.

This is the short list. I am sure that you can add many, many items to is.

We should cry like Noach could have cried  - for his generation who deserved destruction. We should cry like Mordechai – because we are facing din and we do not deserve to be saved. We should be begging, crying and pleading for Hashem to spare our generation, from this war, and from the spiritual devastation of our generation.

We should cry because 9Av is a moed – a time set aside for tears, a time when we can break barriers with our tears.

Our Rabbis expound on the verse “By the Waters of Babylon, we sat and we also cried when we remembered Zion.” When the Jews reached Babylonia, and the prophet Yirmiyahu was leaving them to return to Eretz Yisroel, as God had commanded him, they began to cry and scream: Rabbeinu Yirmiyahu, are you leaving us here? He answered them: I testify by the heaven and the earth, that if you had cried one good cry while you were still in Zion, you would never have been exiled. (Midrash Socher Tov 137)

We need to cry a good cry.  The power of a cry can prevent exile. The power of a cry can bring us home to where we need to be. Tisha B’av has the power of tears. And if we cry, we can prevent terrible decrees from befalling us.

Hashem has prepared us for this crying. For three weeks, He has reminded us to cry.  He has spoken through the voice of our enemy.

Bat Kol

Our Rabbis teach: “Every single day a Bat Kol ( heavenly voice) emanates from Mount Horev, proclaiming and saying,  ‘Woe to them, to the people, because of  [their] insult to Torah’” (Pirke Avos Chapter 6)

We understand that there was a time in Israel, when the Jewish people were on a high level, a time when the righteous of that generation were able to hear this bat kol. We also know that even we, who live in a generation that is not on a high level, hear the bat kol in our insides, subconsciously. Deep inside, the bat kol penetrates and we hear the Truth, we hear what is right. Subconsciously, that bat kol strengthens us, guides us.

But today, it is possible to say that the bat kol speaks to us a different way.  Perhaps we are not on a sufficient level to hear the bat kol even inside of ourselves.  Rav Pinkus explains that events of the world and specifically those events that happen to the Jewish people are a bat kol, a Heavenly voice.

There is a Heavenly voice coming to tell us that the Torah is insulted, that we have not honored it. I do not come to tell you what the voice is saying. Our Gedolim have sent out letters, and they have given advice, and even they have said; we do not know.

But it should be clear that what is happening is Divine hashgacha (intervention). It is true   we may not totally understand the message, but we know it is a message.  It is also true that although we don’t understand the message, we have to listen and we have to feel the events.  We need to know that they are the voices that are shouting at us from Heaven.

Hagaon Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Hashem yikom damo) who was murdered by the Nazis (yemach shmam) used to say; Even today when there are no prophets, there is a way that Hashem speaks to us, and that is; through the voices of  the enemies of Israel.   When we are meritorious, we hear the bat kol from Horev,  When we are not meritorious, we hear the voice through our enemies.

Rav Wasserman said this before the Shoah – that whatever Hitler was saying, was the bat kol from Heaven.  When we look at the decrees Hitler made on the Jewish people, we know that Rav Elchanan was correct:

A number of years before the Shoah, there was a law enacted in Germany forbidding mixed marriages, so as not to contaminate the Arian race. Was that not a bat kol from Heaven?

It was forbidden to educate Jewish children in German classrooms. This was also a bat kol. Jewish children need to learn in Jewish classrooms and they need to learn Jewish subjects.

There was a law in Germany that it was forbidden for Jews to gather in public gatherings (at a time when Jews used to participate in “cultural evenings” with Germans).  It was permissible for Jews to gather only in shuls and batei Midrash. Another bat kol.

Law after anti-Semitic law – but in fact, they were each a bat kol through which Hashem was speaking to us.

That is what our Rabbis mean when they say a bat kol comes every day. – Hashem has never left us. He sends us messages that we need to hear.

Also today there is a bat kol.    We must listen to what it is telling us.

What are our enemies saying? They are saying that we don’t have a right to Eretz Yisroel. Is that not true? Do we deserve the land that has been given to us? Have we lived up to the gift that Hashem has given us?

Hashem warned us: “Beware lest our heart be seduced and you turn astray and serve gods of others and bow to them. Then the wrath of Hashem will blaze against you. He will restrain the heavens so there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce and  you will swiftly be banished from the goodly land which Hashem gives you: (Devarim 122)

What else do our enemies say? They are saying that are army is weak, that it has been weak since 1967. And it is true. Though we have dedicated soldiers, brilliant generals, excellent strategists, our strength lies with Hashem, not with our army.

It is true - our army is weak - without Hashem. We have no victories without Hashem.

Yet we rely on our army totally. Yes we daven, but at the same time, we follow the newspapers like it all depends on strategy, and smart bombs, and the best air force in the world.

“And you say in your heart,  My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this strength. But you shall remember the Lord your God: for it is He who gives power to get strength …. If you walk after other gods, and serve them and worship them, I will testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroyed before your face, so shall you perish; because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God” (Devarim 8:17-20)

Our enemies are saying; God is great. That is a message from Hashem, as well. Hashem is great – He can punish us with a strong arm, or save us with the blink of an eye.

We are not winning this war. After 5000 sortees over Lebanon, after bombing major centers of terrorism, we are not winning this war. Yesterday 250 missiles were launched into Israel reaching as far as Beit Shean.

But it is not too late. Hashem is great.  With His help, we can still win. Hashem is great.

Conclusion

We should not be of little faith, like Noach, thinking that Hashem would never execute judgments and that we can always count on His mercy. We need to beg Hashem to show His mercy, not to assume it will be ok. To plead like Mordechai that our enemies who seek to destroy us should not succeed.

We need to cry.

 Repentence from Love and Awe

excerpt from Water from the Well

Teshuva from Love, Teshuva from Awe

The Teshuva season begins on Rosh Chodesh Elul and continues through the last day of Sukkos. The link between the month of Elul, Yom Kippor and Sukkos is reflected in our history and in halacha.

Rosh Chodesh Elul was the day Moshe Rabbeinu ascended the mount of Sinai for a second time. It was a fresh start for the Jewish people, after having sinned with the Golden Calf. Moshe ascended in purity and prayer to bring down the second set of luchos, tablets and affirm the eternal relationship between God and His people.

For forty days and nights, Moshe received the Torah anew. The people waited anxiously at the foot of the mountain, eager to receive the Torah. They knew that this was a second chance, different than the last chance, but nevertheless, an opportunity to connect with God and to be His chosen people. Having sinned, they waited in trepidation and awe for a sign of total forgiveness

Moshe returned on Yom Kippor with the Ten Commandments. Not only does this gift represent our relationship with God, but the forgiveness He afforded us after our sin. Kapara means atonement, the erasing of the negative effect of our sin in this world. Yom Kippor is a day of reparation.

A new mitzvah was given as a sign of complete reconciliation – the mitzvah to build a Mishkan, a sanctuary for the Divine Presence. It is as if God had not only forgiven His people, but had agreed to dwell among them. Not only did He forgive the negative, but joyously affirmed the positive. The building of this Mishkan began on the first day of Sukkos.

The mitzvah to dwell in sukkos for seven days reminds us of the Divine Presence that was with us in the desert and remains with us today. It is a symbol of God’s protection and Divine guidance.

This historical connection is reflected in halacha, as well. Starting on Rosh Chodesh Elul through the last day of Sukkos, we recite L’Dovid Ori, a psalm that expresses our desire to dwell in the house of God.

The history teaches us something about Teshuva. It starts with reflection, repentance and prayer. We examine our actions and ask God for a second chance. If we are sincere, He acquiesces not only to forgiveness for our sin but to dwelling in our midst and, being a presence in our lives.

The process of moving from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Sukkos teaches us not only to do Teshuva, but how to do Teshuva.

Repentance

Resh Lakish said: Great is repentance, for because of it premeditated sins are accounted as errors, as it says, “Return, Israel, unto the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity (avonos)” (Hoshea 14:2). “Iniquity” [connotes] premeditation, and yet he [the prophet] calls it “stumbling.” Resh Lakish said that repentance is so great that premeditated sins are accounted as though they were merits, as it says, “When the wicked turns from his wickedness, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby” (Yechezkel 33:19). That is no contradiction: one refers to a case [of repentance] from love, the other to [repentance] from awe. (Yoma 86b)

The Talmud tells us two contradictory things and then tries to resolve them. The first thing we are told is that repentance changes the status of a sin. A person who sins in an intentional manner, conscious of what he does and even rebellious against God, can repent. In so doing, he downgrades the sin to the level of an accidental sin, one that was not pre-meditated, but the result of error (or “stumbling”). In this case, he will, of course, be judged and punished

much less severely than he would have been.

The second thing the Talmud teaches is that when a person repents, his intentional sins actually become merits! No longer is there any minus in the account, but rather a plus. The sinner lives by his former iniquity. The Talmud resolves the seeming contradiction by that there are two different kinds of repentance. The first kind is repentance done out of fear of

God. The second kind emanates from love of God. Repentance from fear enables a person to downgrade his sins, but repentance from love overturns the sin completely, transforming them to actual merits.

Why the difference?

Awe of God expresses itself in introspection and self-control. It is as if a person is sayinig to himself: “I do not want to do anything to hurt my Master, so I will refrain from any action that might offend Him.” In this relationship, God is King, and we are His servants. By definition, there is distance in the relationship.

The Ramban teaches that the source of all negative precepts is awe of God. All the mitzvos that tell us what not to do are rooted in our desire to refrain from displeasing God.

Rav Goldvicht explains how this awe manifests itself in the baal teshuvah, the one who repents of his sin. The repentant says to himself, “I failed. I do not want to repeat this failure, and so I must hold back, stay away from my own lusts that caused me to offend my Creator.” Sin activates within him dormant forces and powers that come alive at the moment of the sin. Therefore, the goal of the baal teshuvah is to control these forces by withdrawing from the

physical world that brought him to sin.

Love of God functions differently. Love is the desire to bestow goodness on the other. In this relationship, we are the children and God is the parent. We say to our God, “What can we do for You? What can we give You?”

The Ramban teaches that all positive mitzvos are expressions of our love of God. These mitzvos tell us what we can give our Creator, how to bestow upon Him that which will please Him.

How does this love manifest itself in the baal teshuvah? Again Rav Goldvicht explains that the repentant says to himself, “I failed. In that failure is a dormant power, a koach, that can bring pleasure to the very One before  Whom I have sinned. I will discard the sin, but keep that power and use it to serve Him.”

Every sin has a koach (power), an energy that motivates it. That energy is a neutral force that can be used positively or negatively. Using it negatively is called sin. Using it positively is called mitzvah.

When we sin, we discover a latent energy that perhaps we were unaware of, and that discovery reveals potential for good. When acting on that potential, we are repenting from love.

For instance, a person who speaks lashon hara, negative speech, sins gravely before God. A baal teshuvah who repents from awe will realize how destructive his words are and will stop speaking them. He may even withdraw from people altogether, knowing that being in their company leads him astray. This is repentance from awe.

On the other hand, the repentant might ask himself: What is the energy behind my sin? Why do I speak these inappropriate words? He may come to realize that it is his love of people and desire for closeness to them that brings him to speak, even words he shouldn’t. Silence does not bring intimacy nor does it express love, so in an effort to bond with his friend, he spoke improperly.

Having discovered the energy of his sin, he might now be able to use it differently. Perhaps he will learn with his friend, or teach, or work with others on a community project. The sin becomes the vehicle for holiness, since it allows him to harness an energy, previously abused, and use it for good.

Now we can understand the different approaches in our Gemara. When a person repents from awe, he downgrades his intentional sin to one that is “stumbling,” error. However, when he repents from love, he discovers and uses the energy of the sin in a positive way. Hence his sin has actually brought merit to him.

Of course, no one would want to sin just to make that discovery. However, sometimes there are things about ourselves we only discover through our mistakes.

Rav Goldvicht compares this to a car accident. No one intentionally has an accident, but if insurance money arrives, sometimes even an accident has happy consequences!

It is a two-step process. First, a person must repent from awe. He must stop the sin. Only then can he repent from love and use the energy of the sin in a holy way.

Depart from evil, and do good. (Tehillim 34:15)

Depart from evil — this is repentance from awe. Do good — this is repentance

from love. Turn the evil into a vessel for good.

Energy

Every koach or quality in a person is, by definition, neutral. There are no bad or good qualities. Rather, how a person uses a quality determines its value. A good metaphor for this principle is water. Water is a tremendous source of energy. We cannot live without water—it is a basis of life. Water is a power source, and provides great pleasure to bathers and swimmers. Yet water can be extremely destructive. It can cause floods, drown people, and bring colossal destruction.

When David dug the Pits, the Deep rose up and threatened to submerge the world, whereupon David inscribed the [Ineffable] Name upon a [pottery] shard, and cast it into the Deep, and it subsided sixteen thousand cubits. When he saw that it had subsided to such a great extent, he said, “The nearer it is to the earth, the better the earth can be kept watered.” He uttered the fifteen Songs of Ascent and the Deep reascended fifteen thousand cubits and remained one thousand cubits [beneath the surface]. (Sukkah 53b)

Tunneling into the earth to secure the foundation of the Temple, David dug too deeply. Suddenly, water surged upward, threatening to flood the world. David used a pottery shard to tame the waters and make them recede, but the water retreated too far. The world would not survive with so dangerously little water. At that point, David had to do something to return the water to a healthy, sustainable level that would allow the world to endure. Too much water can flood the world. Too little can deprive it of all life. Either state is fatal; only a delicate balance of forces, not too much or too little, will sustain life.

Human appetites, like water, must be kept in balance. They are given to us to sustain us and to help us grow, but too much appetite can lead us astray. Without desire, the world would not progress. Technology would not be developed. Cities would not be built. Progress in society would not be made. On an individual level, we would not marry, work, discover, or learn new things. Yet there is appropriate use of desires, and inappropriate use. One must use

water and appetite for good, for holiness, and not for the opposite.

Yom Kippur and Sukkos

Both aspects of teshuvah, from awe and from love, are required of us in the months of Elul and Tishrei. From Rosh Chodesh Elul through Yom Kippor, we reflect on our actions, admit our sins, and move forward to separate from them. This process culminates on Yom Kippur, when we withdraw from the physical world and refrain from its pleasures, for it was the physical world that tempted us to act in inappropriate ways. Although Judaism is not an ascetic religion, on Yom Kippur, we remove ourselves from the lusts that saturate our lives. We stand before God as angels, as beings who are not tempted by physicality. It is a day to “depart from evil,” to do teshuva from awe.

Yet immediately after Yom Kippur, we go outside to begin building a sukkah. By doing this we assert that we will take the energy of sin and use it for the good. It is the aspect of “do good,” of teshuvah from love, which drives us to take what we learned about ourselves and elevate it for the service of God.

The sechach (organic material that forms the roof of the sukkah) symbolizes this idea. Instead of tossing our tree trimmings away as waste, we use them to complete our holy sukkahs. What seems unusable to others is employed in the service of God, just like the energy of sin when directed to perform a mitzvah. No lust or desire is negative in and of itself. Rather we must learn to take what appears to be useless and work with it to build our lives.

In ancient times, we performed a beautiful ceremony in the Beis HaMikdash called the nisuch hamayim. In this ceremony, water was drawn from the spring of Shiloach and transported to the Sanctuary, where it was poured on the altar. This water libation was a very joyful ritual, and it is said that whoever did not see the Simchas Beis HaSho’eivah, the celebration of the drawing of the waters, never saw true joy in his life.

What was the source of this joy? Rav Goldvicht explained that the happiness of the nisuch hamayim was coupled with the custom of tashlich, which we still do today. On Rosh HaShanah, we go to a body of flowing water, reach into our pockets, pull out crumbs of bread or dust or lint, and throw them into the water. The dust or crumbs we find represent our sins that we want to dispose of, so beginning the year in purity.

In ancient times, the nearest body of water to the Beis HaMikdash was the spring of Shiloach. Jews would descend to the spring from the city of Jerusalem and “discard” their sins there.

Later, however, at the celebration of the Simchas Beis HaSho’eivah, the Jews would descend to the same spring, collect the water, and pour it on the altar. As mentioned earlier, water symbolizes energy, energy that can be used for good or its opposite. On Rosh HaShanah, we discard our sins, but at the Simchas Beis HaSho’eivah, we retrieve the energy of those sins and use it as a “sacrifice” to God.

This is teshuvah from love.

Teshuva from Love, Teshuva from Awe

 We all have the opportunity to repent and to reconnect with our Creator. The very force that led us astray can become the foundation of an even greater avodas Hashem, service of God. As we move from Elul through Sukkos, we must examine not only the sin, but the energy of the sin. When we locate the energy, and utilize it for good, we will be able to build a Mishkan, a dwelling place for God, in our hearts.