making teshuvah possible
sholem aleichem,
My chevrusa and I have been learning a sefer from the Piaseczno Rebbe called B’nei Machshava Tova (“Children of Good Thought”). The Piaseczno, also known as the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote the sefer as a handbook for forming a spiritual community.
In a section detailing the kind of person who can become a member of the community, the Piaseczno writes:
A person [who wants to join this community] must not be a liar and deceiver, immersed in their lies.
There is a type of person who brings to the lips a false word, g-d forbid. This alone is very evil, may the Compassionate One have mercy on us, but in any such case they are still able to do teshuvah and so also to be accepted in our community.
But there is also a person who is in essence a deceiver and liar, who deceives others and also themself.
The Piaseczno then quotes his father-in-law in the name of an anonymous tzaddik:
Teshuvah is not possible for a person like this, because their teshuvah is also false. As mentioned above, because they [are able to] deceive themself, it is possible for them to think that in one moment they have been made righteous… But in truth, [they are] not righteous, they have not achieved anything, they have not done anything.
While the Piaseczno may be talking only about extreme cases of persistent self-deception — one who is “immersed” in their lies — I suspect that we all deceive ourselves sometimes. Is teshuvah truly impossible, then?
So I recently finished facilitating a chaburah on Rebbe Nachman’s Elul Torah (and any insight in what follows arises from those discussions).
In Rebbe Nachman’s teaching, teshuvah is intimately tied to existing. It is an aspect, he says, of the divine name eh’yeh: I am becoming.
Before a person comes to do teshuvah, he teaches, they don’t really exist in the world.
This may seem extreme, but I think this really is the case for a person who deceives themself, especially one who is immersed in habitual self-deception. They don’t really exist in this world, they exist in the false world they’ve constructed. So how could they do teshuvah? How could they possibly make repair in this world, a world in which they don’t truly exist?
Existence, Rebbe Nachman teaches, is hidden from such a person. And they need to repair their connection to existence in order to begin teshuvah.
Rebbe Nachman suggests three practices for this repair: (1) being still and silent, (2) becoming a person who can listen to reproach without response, and (3) not being particular about disgrace to one’s honor.
All three, I think, apply to a person immersed in self-deception. By being still and silent, they stop actively expressing their self-deception. By listening, and not automatically arguing back, their self-deception can begin to be challenged. By letting go of defending their honor, they prepare to accept the reality that they may have done something disgraceful.
Through these practices, Rebbe Nachman claims (as I understand it), a person can repair their connection to existence. They can truly say “I am ready to become”. And then, teshuvah is possible.
It’s important to emphasize that this process does not on its own repair any harm a person has caused to others. It doesn’t even (fully) repair harm a person has caused to themself, or to haShem. It only restores a person to the path of becoming, to a place where they can begin teshuvah in earnest.
Now, all of this has been about individuals. But I think it is also true of communities and peoples.
Can Israel and the broader Jewish community do teshuvah for what we have done in Palestine? What has been done in our name?
Perhaps. Our tradition certainly insists that the gates of teshuvah are always open, and forbids us from believing we are too far gone to return.
But we have to start by leaving behind self-deception. We have to learn how to listen to reproach and not respond. We have to live in the world as it is, and stop defending our honor at all costs. Only then can we start the process — however impossible it may seem — of repair.
There are, of course, communities who have started this work already. There are some that are just now beginning. But there is so much more to do. I know there is more for me to do.
I don’t know if we’ll be able to do teshuvah. But we have to start by making teshuvah possible.
Please g-d, may it be this year.
ada