Teshuvah Before Rosh Hashanah

Teshuvah Before Rosh Hashanah

It is written in Tehillim (69:2): - “Hoshi'eini Elokim ki va'u mayim ad nafesh” (Save me, O G-d, for the waters have reached my soul). Rabbi Michael Menachem Gitik once related how, while watching a Hollywood film about a hostage takeover on a long flight from Israel to America, he developed a beautiful Torah insight, comparing the actions of Shimon and Levi in Shechem to the operation to free the hostages in Entebbe: first, negotiations—to buy time; then preparation for the operation, followed by the operation itself to free the hostages. Since then, I have been learning to see the Torah in everything around me. Recently, I came across an interview with Khakamada in which she expressed the idea that it is profoundly self-destructive to look for someone to blame for one's troubles and problems. When you are in over your head in water—whatever that water may be—you cannot flail your arms and legs while searching for who helped you end up there. You must descend all the way down (obviously, beneath the water), reach the bottom (that is, search every corner of your soul—how did I sink so low?), and after such a thorough cleansing, push off with both feet and break back to the surface, gulping down a new, deep breath of air (of life). Only then is there a chance to go on living; otherwise, it is a slow death. You are not the chief director of your destiny (you cannot blame the other actors in the play for a bad performance)—you are its lead actor. And how does this accord with the Torah—or, more precisely, with Tehillim, and even more precisely, with Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, through whose merit so many people have done teshuvah, myself included? Rabbi Nachman explains the words of Tehillim (69:2) as follows: “Save me, O G-d, for the waters have reached my soul.” “Save me, O G-d” means: soften the decree; “for the waters have reached” means: the waters of the mikveh; “my soul” means: until you are running out of air to breathe. “If you fear that judgments—problems, illnesses, and the like—hang over your household or over you, go to the mikveh, immerse your head, and remain under the water for as long as you can hold your breath—and pray, cry, and ask forgiveness from the Holy One, blessed be He. Then the decrees and judgments are softened. The softening of the decree means salvation.” (Based on Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s book Likutei Moharan)