Were We Meant to Fall? - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

because when it comes to repentance the stakes are high the spiritual power of chuva has overwhelming and transformative powers there are countless books and volumes and laws and teachings on the subject of how to repent correctly because think about it just on the most basic level we are revisiting or even reliving some of our lowest points of the year and if not done correctly it can get us down rather than lifting us up it can make us feel dirty rather than cleansing us we really need to go into it with proper intentions and faith that this reflection and this confession that the whole process is one of the greatest divine gifts imaginable that we're not incriminating ourselves but we're cleansing ourselves in the deepest way possible anyways here's what the rambam maimonides says about how to go about shiva he says that with regard to all the precepts of the torah positives and negatives if a person transgressed any of them either willfully or in error and repents and turns away from his sin he's under a duty to confess before god before hashem as it is said in numbers chapter 5 verses 6 through 7 when a man or a woman shall commit any sin that men commit to do a trespass against the lord and that person be guilty then they shall confess their sin which they have done this means to confess in words maimonides explains and this confession is a positive command and how does one confess the penitent says i beseech you or lord i have sinned i have acted perversely i have transgressed before you and i have done such and such you say it right then what it is and i repent and i'm ashamed of my deeds and i'll never do this again so the rambam says that this constitutes the essence of confession and the further uh you one goes into the details and they can further the detail that confession is the more praiseworthy he is so it's really that simple if you need to apologize to another person of course you do it in very much the same way but to them first and then ultimately we turn to hashem and lay it all out before him and rabbi foreign pointed out actually that the very act of repentance transcends time in the deepest way we start by looking at the past and enumerating our sins and then we arrive at the present and allow ourselves to feel sincere regret and shame in our hearts for having let ourselves veer so far from hashem and then we look towards the future and we commit to not continuing on this path to not committing the sin again and for that moment for that moment of sincere chuva we are becoming a different person in all the dimensions in the past and the present and in the future i remember realizing this truth when it came to working on the attribute of anger as bad tempers are a feature of my family intergenerationally my father and his father i know for sure and his father and beyond that all the way back to who knows who the most angry person in biblical times was but i probably was descended from him and i remember learning this cutting edge discovery of neurophysiology and how our thinking and behavior can actually change who we are physically i'm telling you it was such a breakthrough for me so the study that opened my eyes uh explained that our brains are neurologically wired in a certain way based on our thinking and behavior and the more we act in any given way the stronger that neural connection becomes and the more powerfully the behavior is reinforced but if through the shear force of our desire and our will we act in a different way we react to the same stimulus but through the power and commitment and faith in hashem we react differently well then new neural pathways are forged and the more we travel those new pathways the stronger they become and they become more and more who we are meaning that through working on ourselves and refining our attributes we're becoming new people not only spiritually but physiologically that's when i realized that it wouldn't even be fair to be judged as the person who sinned and aired in those ways because we're a new person not only spiritually but physically as well and this was important for me to keep in mind as i was reading through this past torah portion because if the thematic connection is so strong to repentance to return because when i originally initially read one of the last verses of the torah portion it's actually the shortest tour portion of the year i it got me down and uh here in this verse moshe proclaims as his death is drawing close he calls out to the elders of the tribes and the officers to gather to him and here's what he says deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 29 he says for i know that after my death you will surely act corruptly and you will stray from the path that i've commanded you and evil will befall you at the end of days that you will do what is evil in the eyes of hashem to anger him through the work of your hands through your handiwork so the reason this made me sad is because it wasn't the often repeated warning of if you do bad and commit evil and stray from hashem's ways then bad things will happen it wasn't an if then this was saying you are going to sin and bad things will happen but upon the very first verses of the haf torah the portion of the prophets i was immediately comforted you go from the torah portion to the torah and what does the prophet hoshaya say in chapter 14 verse 2 he says return o israel to hashem your god for you have stumbled through your iniquity take words with you and return to hashem and say to him may you forgive every in iniquity and accept what is good and let our lips substitute for bulls i'm still working out a 100 why this comforted me so deeply but i think it has something to do with the realization that we were made to fall that was built into the story of mankind that we were destined to fall and that something more beautiful results from falling and getting back up than if we were never to have fallen at all and i believe this is a universal truth i remember seeing a type of sculpture i think it was japanese in which the sculpture was made and then it was intentionally broken just to be put back together with gold to become more beautiful after the shattering than it was before so if everybody falls what differentiates a true servant of hashem from everyone else and i think the answer is that a true servant of hashem never stops getting up again we never stop rising from the dust and seeking to return with more zeal and more determination and that we seek to use our fall to come even closer than we were before we don't need to continue persecuting ourselves for every mistake and every sin for hosha tells us in the name of hashem exactly what we need to do we don't need to wait for the temple we don't need to wait for anything we can do it right now we take our words we pull them from the depths of our hearts that's the most important part and we pour them out before our father in heaven that's waiting for us eagerly longingly with his arms wide open with his heart wide open all right friends i think i've gone over time but may we all have an uplifting and meaningful yom kippur in which our sincere repentance is accepted and we're born again we're born again before hashem with the new clean slate that we can fill with light and love and holiness and redemption and salvation may we all be sealed in the book of life true life shalom shalom my friends love you all so much as the masks are coming off and much of the world is turning not only against israel but yes against the jewish people if you feel different if your love for israel is growing deeper and stronger if you're thirsting to cleave to the nation of israel and to the god of israel if you're thirsting to learn authentic torah from jews in judea then the land of israel fellowship is for you hundreds of individuals and families from around the world come together on zoom every week in what can only be described as a fellowship of love friendship of learning and praying and belonging a fellowship really unlike any other it's more than just a movement it's a family to learn more about the land of israel fellowship click on www www.thelandofisreal.com backslash fellowship or send an email to fellowship at the land of israel.com love and blessings from judea you