The core mitzvah of this season—teshuvah, or turning away from our failings toward renewal and
blessing—demands that we learn to free ourselves from the notion that history
is destiny. Our past is an important
part of who we are, but it need not be prelude to our future.
In this week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim, we read: “This mitzvah that I command you today—it is not
hidden or distant from you” (Deuteronomy 30:11). For most of our commentators, the mitzvah at
stake is teshuvah, and the critical
word in the passage is “today.” As Rabbi
Dov Ber Pinson notes, one of the Hebrew terms for sin, aveira, has the same root as the word avar—which means “past.” Sin
is about staying stuck in the past, believing that change is impossible. We free ourselves through teshuvah, through turning—believing that
we can start anew if we live mindfully, in the present.
Rabbi Pinson concludes: “Teshuvah is a radical act of
renewal and recreation. . . Learn to focus on the present. When we are preoccupied with our past or future,
we are stealing a moment from the ‘now’.
The gift of life is the present.
The past is memory and the future is imagination; the only true moment
of life is the formless, eternal now.”
Rosh Hashanah will be here next week. Meanwhile, as our portion reminds us, we have
“today”—the promise of the present moment.
May we choose life and blessing.
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