Teshuva Means Answer but Who is Asking the Question?

2:43 So he goes to the bank and he says, "I can't pay you back." So if the bank says to him You have to pay the money back. You took the money, you have to pay it back. So he walks out of the bank, and it's a joke. He has no shaychus to pay back. But if the bank manager calls him in and says, "We're going to put you on a 40-year payment plan" And you'll pay back X amount every month. And we'll knock off some of the interest and we'll knock off some of the Karen So he's working with you. There's a certain pachad. They're working with me. I have to make it happen. And the Rebbeinu Shlom is coming down kiim chaslicha, and he's ready to work with us. So leman tivari, we got to get serious. But because the Rebbeinu Shlom is coming to us. So it's two very different approaches. A couple of weeks ago, I was in the Merkaz.

3:34 One of the rabbanim from the community was telling me about an organization that has a sister school and a brother school—brother yeshiva, sister seminary—and the yeshiva In the classic Lithuanian yeshiva tradition Slichos, serious business, emes adin. The seminary BeGadol has taken a very different approach. Singing and there's dancing, and it's a thousand people come on a Tuesday night to this seminary. A thousand women come at midnight on a Tuesday, not on the first slichos, to participate in it. But the brother institution, the yeshiva, is holding strong. So which way is true? Which one is it? We are stuck in this dialectical tension. We live in a funny age. On the one hand Maybe this is just for me. Maybe I shouldn't say it like this. It's probably not nice to say it like this. But on the one hand, there's that Litvish training I had when I was a kid—serious business.

4:42 Get down to business. Emas Adin. And then there's the more recent Last 18 years of my life—definitely more Hasidically inclined. Now El sort of has a different feeling. The Rebbeinu Shem is more of a friendly personality, if you could say such a thing. But even to say that, the Litvak in me is a little bothered. How could you say that? Which way do you go? It's Din VeCheshbon. On the other hand, the judge is my father. Which way do you go? We know in the Torah we always go back to the beginning. Whatever happened first That's the semal for everything to come. So we look at the first chait Chait d'Avadmarishon, That started this whole business. And after Avadmarishon does the first chait So we know famously the Rebbeinu Shlom calls out Ayeka. Where are we holding? Didn't have a room. Where are we holding?

5:52 But in a deeper way It tells us something that gives us an insight into the nature of tshuva. Everybody knows that tshuva means to return to the Rebbeinu Sholom. Repentance we know is probably a funny lashon for us as yidden But to return to the Rebbeinu Sholom. The simplest shot in tshuva is that tshuva is an answer. And if tshuva is an answer, who's asking the question? The question is being asked by the Rebbeinu Sholom. The question really. Is Ayeka? Here we are in El again. Where are we holding? Where are we holding? The Rebbeinu Shlomo said, "Oh, new!" Another year has gone by. Every year When I was in America on Tishavav, I used to go to hear Reb Weingraber speak. And every year, the Tishavav Joshua starts with the same words: 'Nach Tishavav.' I always feel that about El also. Nach El. I'm here again.

6:51 I have to do this again. Even though I know what's going to be in a year from now. So ayeka. How was this past year? So the Rebbeinu Shlom's kasher. So the Rebbeinu Shlom, in a certain way, is looking for us much more than we're looking for him. I once heard a mashal And unfortunately, this is more and more common. As I get older, I hear these stories more and more about the child who goes on a class trip. And the kid gets lost. You know the story. They went on a class trip in the forest. The kid gets lost. All the Eden get together. We have to look for this child. And as it gets later and later at night, it becomes dangerous. It's not so easy to look for things at night. I entice us in the beginning of Hakiness. It's not so easy to look for things at night.

7:39 So slowly but surely Everyone packs it out. We'll find her in the morning. But who doesn't stop searching? The father doesn't stop searching. And he's searching and he's calling out her name, Rivka. And finally, he sees his daughter. And she's hugging a tree. And he wakes her up, Rivka. And she opens her eyes, and what does she say? Tati I found you. You found me. I found you. I've been looking for you the whole night. This little girl's been holding onto the tree for dear life. She's holding onto the tree, but she thinks she found him. We're the same way. We're sitting here a whole level. We did tshuva. The Rebbeinu Sholm's looking for us much more than we're looking for him. Why is it this way? Why didn't the Rebbeinu Sholm create a perfect world? Why didn't the Rebbeinu Sholm create Olim Aba? It would have been very nice.

8:36 Come into this world, Olim Aba would have been perfect. So I heard a cute answer to this question. It's a good answer. I don't mean to say it's cute, but it's a cute way he phrased it. So Rebbe said, he goes, "What's the difference?" Between something that's a good answer, it's correct And the truth. So the difference between truth and an answer is the question. Truth is just true. That's what it is. But an answer is to a question. Question is from a lashon of quest. There's a journey that a person took to arrive at a particular place. To the rebanish alolim Truth is pashat. To create a world of truth That's a simple thing for the Rebbeinu Sholom. But to create a world of quest Where we journey back to the Rebbeinu Sholom, and the Rebbeinu Sholom is journeying towards us, kavvayotu—that's something unbelievable. That's the world that we live in.

9:35 So the Rebbeinu Sholom is in this world. A Talmud said something unbelievable this past week in Yeshiva—an 18-year-old boy. I couldn't believe these words could come out of the mouth of an 18-year-old boy. In the context of the shiur that was going on, he said, "Rabbi, does that mean that the Rebbeinu Sholom is waiting in perpetual anticipation for our return to him?" What an unbelievable lasha! It's true. Whatever that means, whatever way we can understand that, the Rebbeinu Sholom is waiting in perpetually anticipation for us to return to him. He's looking for us. Kav Yachal, like Chazal say, he's coming down to the mountain. Dear, but Tahtayinim, he's coming down. So this is why the Rebbeinu Sholom didn't create a perfect world. But what's the Nachkamina? We're loomedim over here. It's not just story time. What's the Nachkamina that the Rebbeinu Sholom is looking for us more than we're looking for him?

10:29 So I think there's two Nachkaminas. The first Nachkamina is that it frames our response. That if we understand that Tshuva is an answer to the question that the Rebbeinu Sholom is asking, that he is seeking us. Then our response has to be in a particular eifan, as we'll discuss. And the second is that it tells us something about the rebbeinu shalom's attitude. What happens when we answer his question? What happens if we don't answer his question? What happens if we partially answer his question? Because we know that when a rebbe asks a question Even if the Talmud says something that's not a hundred percent correct, we know that the rebbe gets excited. One of my rebbeim was Rabbi Yehuda Shmulevitz. So it was a known thing in She'er. No matter what you said in She'er, because you never got it 100% right. He always used to say, "You're right and you're wrong."

11:23 And guys would ask Guys would answer questions. Mamish, the dumbest answers. But no matter what you said, you're right and you're wrong. Because the Rebbe is excited when the Talmud answers that question. He's participating in the She'er. Let's go to the first one first. Tell him Eisah about a particular mashpia. That walked into a chassidish shechader, and he saw that the boys were learning about elul and tshuva. So he started going around to the boys and he said New chevra How do you do tshuva?" Said, "You know You start listing all of your chatoim. And then you're mamish working on yourself all of elul to remember every single chait And then finally Rosh Hashanah comes, and you're mamlek hakolish baruchu. You're mamlish. I'm mamlish. Look at me. I have all these chatoim. But still, somehow you manage to be mamlish Hashem. And then the aseret yomai tshuva gets really serious.

12:21 And then finally, you dress up with a white yarmulke and a kittel on Yom Kippur. And you list more of your chatoim and more of your chatoim. And he quoted the line from the Katsgar Rebbe, the famous line from the Katsgar Rebbe: If you roll around in mud You're going to get dirty. If your whole Elul, if your whole aseret yom tshuvah, if your whole Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur is about rolling around in the mud and saying, "Look at all these chayim that I've done," that's not being mamlechut kadosh baruch hu. And in a certain way, even though that is tshuvah. Even though there is, as we'll see There is a bechiner of tshuvah over there But that's not really what tshuvah is about. That's not the inner essence of tshuvah. What's the inner essence of tshuvah? So he said, "The inner essence of tshuva is that a person should ask himself" How did I get here?

13:16 The Rebbeinu Sholom has done so much for me. The Rebbeinu Sholom woke me up this morning. He's woken me up every morning. We're blessed with so much in our lives. How could I have been peigeya in my kesha with Hashem? How could I have done that? And he explained that when a person does tshuva from a place of listing their chatoim. And they say, "I've done X and Y and Z" He said to the boys You're not really serving Hashem. You're really serving yourself. Kaviochel, you're like the husband who's mistreating his wife And he says, "I'm going to be a good husband whether you like it or not." She's no shy to what the wife wants. We see this very often. Maybe I should say I see this for myself. I don't know if you guys see this. I'm just assuming that everyone is more or less in the same boat as I am.

14:10 We try to do something nice for our wife, but in general, it's the proverbial bowling ball. You try to do something nice. It's not to shout we're bad people. We're good people. We tried. And they're so nice about it. But that's how the wives are so nice about it. They look at us and they go I really appreciate it, but it always comes with a but. And it doesn't mean to exclude the first part. It's just I mamish wanted the exact opposite thing. You didn't know. I didn't tell you. It's not your fault. So Kavioshov, this guy is coming to the rabbi Shalom and saying, "I'm going to be a good Jew, whether you like it or not." You're not serving Hashem. You're not serving Hashem. To list your chataim like that, you're not serving Hashem. You're serving yourself. Masha'inek, a person who comes to the rabbi shalom and he said I want something more from this relationship, not for me, but for us.

15:02 I want that the Rebbeinu Shlom's tafkid in this world should be fulfilled And I want the privilege of participating in this entire quest with you. That's real tshuva. I heard from Rav Weinberger a couple of years ago. He said there are three types of Jews that say miyichya umiyamos. There are those that are saying miyichya umiyamos. From a biological perspective We want to live. There are, and it's not bad. It's not a bad thing to say that. Rather, we want to live. We have important things in our life. There are those that say, "Zachreinu lechayim, miyichiyam, miyamos." Even for Eilam Abba, after 120, I want to come up and I want to be able to say that Ravisham, it was good. But even that says Rav Weinberger, it's not really the highest level. The highest level is the one that comes And he said, 'Where is my chayus with Rabbi Nachman? I want my entire day to be invested with chayus. I want to have a kesher with you that's alive.'

16:16 I want to be in a relationship where I can feel the relationship, I can experience the relationship. That a mitzvah is not just another thing that I've done in my day, but it's something that uplifts me. It's something I'm participating in, something real with the Rebbeinu Shlom. The emphasis that this is what we clap al chayt for when we say the simon leivav That we did a chat from a place of confusion, from a place of panic. What does it mean to do a chayt from a place of panic? Imagine you're on a ship The Titanic. The sirens start going off. It's not a drill. The sirens are actually going off. The ship is sinking. If you're a single guy on a pleasure cruise So you run as fast as you can Get on a lifeboat before Chas v'Sholom. Something terrible happens. But if you're a husband If you're a father Despite the fact that there's so much confusion, there's so much panic If your central focus in your life is your wife and your kids, you don't think about yourself.

17:28 You say, "Where's my wife? Where's my kids? We have to get on a lifeboat. I have to save my family." That's the first thing that comes to your mind. If we lost If we lost out on doing a mitzvah If we did avera from a place of confusion, and that's where we all do averas from. We're not doing none of us here in this room. We're here on a Tuesday night at ten o'clock. We're not doing averas on purpose. We're Rishoyim. That's why the lotion of Sadikim Anachnu V'Lo Chatan. We don't have the Azuz Pundim to say that we're Sadikim And we didn't do any Chatayim. The Heineu were Sadikim. Who did Chatayim? We're not bad people. We're not Rishoyim. It's not where any of it came from. It comes from a place of confusion. It comes from a place of panic. But at the same time, we have to ask ourselves if we really had the Kesher Amitz with the Rebbeinu Shlom that we were supposed to have.

18:21 If we had chayus in the relationship, could we run for that lifeboat without thinking about our wife and our kids? Could we run for that? Whatever that narishtai, that ruach shduz, could we run for it? That's the chait of v'simonevah. We're not doing tshuva chebra for the chait. We're doing tshuva for the question. The rebbeinu shalom is looking at us and saying, "What happened to our relationship?" Like the famous story of the raven that sits down with the couple. That they're in a place where they're fighting and they partially can't get together And the husband says to the rav, "I don't know what she wants from me. I do so many things. I make a parnasa, I take out the garbage, I spend time with the kids. I don't know what she wants from me." And the whole time that she's talking, the husband is sitting there, "I'm sorry." The whole time that he's talking, the wife is shaking her head, like it's still not enough.

19:13 And the rav says, "Knew what's bothering you?" And she says, "I didn't marry him to take out the garbage. I didn't marry him to make a parnasa. I married him because of the way that he once looked at me." And when's the last time that he looked at me in that way? Where's the kashya with the Rebbeinu Shlom? That's the Rebbeinu Shlom's question. Ayeka, where are we holding in our relationship? How did we get here? We loved each other so much on that day of the chuppah. We were so excited. And now it's fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty years later, and we're looking at each other, going, "When's the last time we looked at each other like that?" I always remember the first time I put on tefillin. Remember seventh, eighth grade when you put on tefillin for the first time? I thought it was very cool to put on tefillin. That's a cool thing to do. I thought it was a cool thing to do. You put on tefillin for the first time.

20:01 What happened to that feeling? I put on tefillin this morning. What happened to the chajus of putting on tefillin? Ayeka. That's the Rebbeinu Shlom's kasha. Now the Emes is that this. The idea of listing our chatoyim or not listing our chatoyim is really a machlokes in the Gemara Numa. Machloekas between Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava and Rabbi Kiva. Rabbi Yehuda ben Melva says you have to list your chatoyim. After all, Moshe Rabbeinu by Chet the Eagle, he was mafaret the Chet. And Rabbi Kiva says no You don't have to be mafaret your chatoyim to do tshuva. And by the way, even in the Piskeim, it's some sort of shiluv of both. Exactly what we do. But Rav Akiva quotes the pasuk and tells him, "Ashrei nashri pesha kisrei chata." Praiseworthy is the one who knows how to hide his sins. That's a geshmat pasuk. That's a pasuk we can get behind. In the world, first of all, what's Lubavitch talking about? What's Rav Akiva talking about?

21:04 And then the Gemara says, "I. What about Moshe Rabbeinu?" It's a good kasha. It's a lamed shakasha. So no, Rav Akiva has a teretz. He says there. Moshe Rabbeinu gave a teretz to Rabbi Shlom. You know why they did Chayta Egel? It was your fault. What would we do without Revi Kiva? Revi Kiva, Rashbi, Rabbi Nachman—that whole movement of everything you do is great. Rabbi Shlom, I did a Chayta. It was your fault. You gave us too much gold and silver coming out of Mitzrayim. It's a Gemara that requires a drush. However, there are two ways of repairing a relationship. Rav Yehuda ben Bava says, "You want to repair a relationship, you have to restore confidence." Which means you have to get vulnerable. You have to come to the one that you love and you have to go, 'Look what I did.' This is on me. Look what I did.

22:00 Have confidence in me that I'm not going to do this again. You know how uncomfortable this is for me to say, and it's true. Rav Yehuda ben Bava, it's for sure true. But the Kiva comes with something. In a certain way, it's deeper. In a certain way, I think it speaks to us a little more. Not to say that we don't have to be mafarachatayim, but to understand that Rivakiva is Rivakiva. Sometimes in a relationship If you've had a falling out with somebody that you care about And maybe you haven't spoken to them for five or ten or fifteen years. But there's somebody that you love very deeply You don't come back to them and say, "Look at all these chatoim that I did." That's not for now. You come back and you say, "Do you remember how much we loved each other? Do you remember what we once had?"

22:48 I'm not talking about the chaturim right now. I'm hiding them. It's not for now because otherwise we're just going to start fighting again. Whose fault it was? Is it my fault? Is it your fault? That's not the miduber right now. We're not talking about whose fault it was. We're talking about how much you loved me. I want to tell you how much I loved you. Do you remember when we were children and how naive we were? Do you remember that spark? Do you remember that flash? And what does Rav Kiva mean when he says that Moshe Rabbeinu said to Hashem, "It was your fault." It's not the pshat that Moshe Rabbeinu was saying, Hashem, it's your fault. Moshe Rabbeinu understood that a person has b'chira But he was saying, Rebbei Shlom Life is complicated. There are so many things in our lives that take us all over the place.

23:34 Life is a complex place. It's not the pshat. I don't love you. Of course, I love you, but you gave us a lot of gold and silver. Of course, it was an amazing thing. But we got messed up from it. I don't want to talk about the Avirah right now, but you know, life is complex. The question is, can we return to each other? That's what Rav Kiva is saying. Rav Kiva is saying don't get stuck in the mud. I'm not saying Rav Kiva is saying that slichos have to be with dancing And I'm not saying that Rabbi Yehuda Ben Baba says that it doesn't need to be with dancing. But the Meiser Rebbe keeps saying there's a tshuva that gets to the very core, which is the restoration of innocence That we feel like we once did. Apikhasidus Want to share one last word that I think is very meaningful. Up until now, we've been speaking about the way that we respond to the Rebbeinu Shlom.

24:26 But how does the Rebbeinu Shlom respond to us? And especially because, some of us feel like fakers because we're going to clap alchetz, and if we don't do the avera in the next day, we'll do it two days later. Maybe we'll even do it that night. Rabbi, what's that drasha? Why do we say Baruch Shem Kavod Malchusai on Mitzvah Yom Kippur quietly? Yeah, We already did the avera. We're already running out. Is it real? Is it real? Ashrechem Yisroel Amar Rav Akiva, same Rav Akiva, amar Rav Akiva, ashrechem yisroel, lifnei mi ato metairu mi metaireschem, avicham shemash Shamayim Ma ha mikvah metaires atameiim, efa Kadosh Baruch Hu metaires yisroel. But there's a question. First of all, what's the big Ashrechem Yisroel? Akiva didn't know that there was such a thing called tahara, that the Rebbeinu Shlom was Metairus. What's the big kiddush? And the second question is What else would a mikvah be mitayir if not tmei? It should say ma'mikvah mitayir avakadosh baruch hu mitayir. What does it mean ma'mikvah mitayir asat tmei? Now there's a halach.

25:44 The halacha is that if a person is mekabel tumas meis He's team for seven days. He has to go through the whole process with paraduma. But what if in the middle of those seven days he's mekabel tumas keri? Now he's not allowed to learn. He's not allowed to daven. So Chazal want to know, Mishnah Numa Chazal want to know, what do you do? Do you go to mikvah? And they say, yes, you go to mikvah. You should be able to learn. You should be able to daven. That's called metayeres atzmei. You can go to mikvah. And you could be metayer yourself, but you're still tamei. Dainu, a yid could come to the Rebbeinu Shlom, and he could say, Rebbeinu Shlom, I can't do it. I'm going to be tummy at the end of this process. I know it, and you know it. I know you gave me a whole bunch of things to work on. And if you were a boss If you were a guy who I was working for And he said, 'Listen, you need to clean up your act. You need to fix these five things, otherwise you're getting fired.' You can't come back to your boss and say, 'I got two of them, three of them.' It's a process. You're going to have to work with me. What did your boss say?

26:51 Goodbye. But if your father comes to you, and your father Avicham Shabbashamayim comes to you, and he says, 'Nu, I've got five things for you to work on,' and you say, 'Tati, I can't handle all five' But I can handle two What does the father say? Two, give out. We'll start with two. We'll get to a third. We'll figure it out. Ashreichem Yisrael, what's the big gift? The big gift is that Ma Hakadosh Ma haMikvah Metirias Atmeiham Af Hakadosh Baruch Hu Metirias Yisrael. Since it's the Rebbeinu Sholom that's asking the kasha. So when our teretz is a shvacha teretz The Rebbeinu Sholom loves that teretz too. We're living in a door where there's a whole slew of people that don't know that they could come back That they didn't grow up with our chinuch They didn't know that the Rebbeinu Sholom wants us back. There's a tremendous amount of guilt and shame, depression.

27:50 I've done so much wrong. But I think Even for us who know that the Rebbeinu Sholom wants us back To remember that there is a bechin of avichem shabbash Shamayim. That it's the Rebbeinu Sholom that asks Ayako, and it's not a depressing Ayako. You know why Rivitshel Blazer could sweat through his shirts and not be a depressed person? Because by him it was a davar poshet avichem shabbash Shamayim. By him it was a davar poshet ma mikvah metaris atmeiul, ha'fakod shbaruchu metaris israel. So when he sweat through his shirts, it was healthy. When he said "V'lo nu boishes upon him," he wasn't saying it with a sense of shame that I'm unworthy to stand in front of the Rebbeinu Shlom. He stood in front of the Rebbeinu Shlom and said, "V'lo nu boishes upon him." I know you love me so much. I can come to you and say I'm embarrassed. L'maisa, I'm embarrassed, but I know you want me, and I want to be with you.

28:40 That's the innerot. Which way is right? I don't know. Whatever gets me from one shachers to the next mincha to the next ma'ariv. I don't even know if there's an answer to that question anymore. But it's a good quest. It's a good quest. It's a good quest to be on. It's a good journey. Yiratam. We should all have the ability in these coming weeks as we wind down Elul and we're going to be mamlechah kadosh baruch hu into Tishrei Into Yom Kippur, into Sukkot, so we could feel the hug of the Sukkot coming. Simchas Torah, to be able to dance with the Rebbeinu Sholom, to be able to say Rebbeinu Sholom, I'm hugging you. I've returned to you. This is the only place that I want to be. We should be zeicher to do it together. All of us in Shari Tefila and Gantz Kliyos have to come together to dance with their banishim.