Yiscah Smith
“Return, O Yisrael, to the Eternal, your God, for you have fallen because of your sin” (Hosea 14:2).
R. Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, the Piaseczner Rebbe, asks:
What kind of teshuvah is required of us? For, when a person has remorse only for the sin that they stumbled on, they still find themselves back in the state they occupied before they committed the sin. In this case, the person has not yet become among those people more spiritually elevated and sensitive. Rather, they are now only relieved of their particular sin.
The fundamental component of teshuvah, however, is “Return, O Yisrael, to the Eternal your God.” Therefore, it is necessary to say this to you: “…for you have fallen because of your sin,” and lest you think that contrition for your sins alone is enough; therefore, the prophet cautions that the teshuvah must continue all the way, “until you reach the Eternal, your God.” Only then will you be completely elevated in holiness, purity, and being in service with the Divine.[1]
Might we conclude that the Piaseczner Rebbe’s radical teaching introduces a novel approach to “doing teshuvah”? This new mystical dimension of teshuvah includes the potential for the individual to connect to the Creator in a never-yet-experienced way—a way where the integrity of our connection with the Divine is not only healed but even strengthened, bringing joy and cause for celebration.
In fact, we may understand that doing teshuvah only to be relieved of our particular sin robs us of the infinite potential embedded in the spiritual practice of teshuvah. The process begins when we realize that our mistakes (i.e., sins) distance us from the Divine Presence dwelling within each of us, as if we become alienated from a deeper part of ourselves, feeling less connected to our inner being, our soul. The spiritual practice of teshuvah becomes our accepting of the Eternal’s invitation to move the needle—from sensing distance to cultivating closeness.
Our deep internal yearning to sense closeness with the Divine appears and reappears as a common theme threading together all seven of the Piaseczner’s books. He introduces his volume dedicated to teaching spiritual practices with a select group of disciples, Benei Mahshavah Tovah, by addressing this innate need:
Our goal is neither new nor different from the goal and aspiration of every person of Israel. For our desire and goal is to serve the Eternal, our God, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzhak, and the God of Yaakov. We seek a wholehearted service, a complete service, that utilizes all the limbs of our bodies and souls, so that neither one fiber of our bodies nor one spark of our souls will venture beyond the holiness of the Eternal, which hovers upon us and encompasses us.
[And therefore, we pray:] “Our Father, Compassionate Father, have compassion on us, and awaken within our hearts a spark of desire and awareness, so that we will know that it is not enough for us to be like a mere servant, the son of a maidservant. It is true that he, too, serves the King, but his work is to grind away at the millstones, far from the King. He does not hear the King’s words, nor does he enjoy or take pleasure from the King’s radiance. Rather, this is a service with a closed mind and a dulled heart.”
Instead, our desire and longing is to be among those described in the Torah: “You are children of the Eternal your God” (Deuteronomy 14:1). Whenever we serve God, whether in learning Torah and prayer, or in observing any of the mitzvot, we sense our approach to the Divine.[2]
Through this lens, if we contemplate and reflect on our mistakes and learn from them, our teshuvah contains the potential to ascend to a higher and keener awareness of the Divine. This strengthens our connection and causes us to experience increased closeness to the Divine—more than our previous status quo afforded us. This deeper encounter expresses a type of teshuvah beyond a cleansing of an individual’s wrongdoings. We do not return to where we began but, rather, we ascend to an even higher moment of spiritual intimacy.
The Piaseczner’s suggestion of a teshuvah whereby we experience increased closeness with the Divine echoes a Hasidic Rebbe’s voice from more than a century earlier. In the same vein but nuanced differently, R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi (18th century, Belarus), also referred to as Ba’al Ha-Tanya (after his magnum opus Tanya), relies on the Zoharic mystical tradition to teach what the Piaseczner explains through the lens of his own spiritually infused observations. Ba’al Ha-Tanya refers to this state of increased closeness as teshuvah ila’ah—a higher teshuvah, following the teshuvah tata’ah—the lower teshuvah, like the Piaseczner’s vision of a person merely “being relieved of their particular sin.” While this important first step restores the individual to a cleansed and healed place, “they still find themselves back in the state they occupied before they committed the sin.” Ba’al Ha-Tanya now describes the next step, teshuvah ila’ah—“until you reach the Eternal, your God”:
After the cleansing spirit passes over and purifies them, then their souls are enabled to return unto God Himself, literally, to ascend the greatest heights, to their very source, and cleave to Him with a remarkable unity… This is the perfect teshuvah. This state of unity and return is called teshuvah ila’ah that follows teshuvah tata’ah… As the holy Zohar states in Parashat Hayyei Sarah (I:129b), “They draw upon themselves with a more intense longing of the heart and with greater strength to experience closeness to the King.”[3]
This teshuvah ila’ah, a cleaving of spirit to spirit through the learning of the Torah and performing acts of kindness, is in a mode of a flow from Above—so that the word of God shall actually be in his mouth, “I place My words in your mouth” (Isaiah 51:16) and “His right hand embraces me” (Song of Songs 2:6), because of a person’s acts of kindness, since “kindness is the right arm…” (Tikkunei Zohar, Introduction).[4]
Ba’al Ha-Tanya dives even deeper when he proclaims that the very existence of sin contains within it sacred potential, waiting to be discovered and revealed. He writes, “Every yeridah (descent) is for the sole purpose of a subsequent aliyah (ascent).”[5] We may understand this as the trampoline effect: our sin results in a compromised awareness of the Divine—a descent of consciousness. Our teshuvah, from this lower place, results in our springing up, our awareness (of God ascending) higher than it was prior to our sin—“until you reach the Eternal, your God.”
I would suggest that both Ba’al Ha-Tanya and the Piaseczner believe that, from the place of feeling far and distant from God, we are able to desire and seek closeness in a stronger and even painful way. The pain derives from an inner angst of a gnawing sense of incompleteness and alienation from one’s own internal being. This leads to feeling lonely, an all-too-common emotional and spiritual malady experienced by many people today. Yet, a state like this contains robust potential that urges us to sanctify our descent through a new ascent. Hence, if we appreciate the power of teshuvah through the lens of these Hasidic masters, we can catapult to an awareness of the Divine even more perceptive than the one that existed prior to our sin. If our teshuvah merely brings us back to the spiritual place we experienced prior to committing the sin, we will have missed a remarkable and unique opportunity to realize the full potential inherent in a sin.
In fact, I would argue that as we cultivate our own unique spiritual practice of teshuvah, we consider diminishing the emphasis—that may seem essential to many—on obsessing over our errors and harshly judging ourselves for our mistakes that have distanced us from God. Admitting our wrongdoings is essential to assume responsibility for our part in the relationship with the Divine. But this begins the practice and does not complete it. Rather, might we begin to ask ourselves, “What do I need to do differently to help me ascend to a higher awareness of the Divine that dwells within me so I can feel closer?”
Even further, my vision of the paradigm shift we Jews desperately and currently need includes more compassion and empathy. Let us turn away from excessively and externally focusing on “doing it right” and return to an internal experience of encountering the Divine—in a more visceral and immanent way. To this end, my own sense is that we Jews—and humanity—are beginning to enter a new era of consciousness—a new zeitgeist. It brings with it a radical, redemptive, and refreshing energy—and, to be sure, includes unsurety, confusion, and insecurity.
The concerns and questions that many people ask today that gnaw at us, that we take to bed and wake up to and that influence our conversations with others, are different from those of not that long ago. What I increasingly hear within myself, and from others, is the need for our teshuvah to bring us to an experience where we are connecting and sensing an encounter with the Divine, rather than checking off the boxes of “doing teshuvah right”—which, although it may meet external behavioral and ritually legal expectations of us, more often than not, leaves many of us feeling a bit empty and still far from the Divine—as if something is not right within us. We may have performed the act of teshuvah according to its halakhic requirements, but we may very well remain in the same spiritual place that caused us to sin to begin with.
Might it be that this is the teshuvah that the still, small voice within asks of us? A teshuvah that is valued as a practice to ascend “until you reach the Eternal, your God.”
[1] Eish Kodesh, Shabbat Teshuvah, September 16, 1939 (my translation).
[2] Benei Mahshavah Tovah, Introduction (“The Order of the Purpose of the Society”) (Sefaria translation with my modifications).
[3] Tanya, Iggeret Ha-Teshuvah 8 (Sefaria translation with my modifications).
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