Parshas Nitzavim and Vayalech

Hi everyone, I hope this helps you go into your Shabbos more prepared and I hope you learn something new! This week is a double Parsha. The two Parshas are called Parshas Nitzavim (NEE-TZ-UH-VIM) and Parshas Vayalech (VAH-YAY-LECH). In the interest of time we will focus on Nitzavim.

Parshas Nitzavim reviews a very important concept called Tishuva. Tishuva means repentance. Moses gathered all B’nai Yisroel (children of Israel), and explained that if a Jew goes off the darech (right path) Hashem will always be willing to welcome him back if he can bring himself to repent for his wrongdoings. We are given specific instructions on how to do proper Tishuva and this not only has the power to wipe our slate clean but to turn our sins into mitzvahs.

Tishuva is a three step process. Let’s use an example for this process and say that Yosef Shmoe (get it?) ate something auser (prohibited to a Jew) like non-kosher meat or a cheeseburger, Chas V’Shalom (G-d forbid). So, what Mr. Shmoe needs to do is go through the Tishuva process. First, he needs to recognize what he did wrong (in this case he ate non-kosher meat or mixed milk with meat) and have a deep sense of regret for what he did. The second step is he must ask Hashem for forgiveness for the avaira (sin) he committed. The final step is he must make a commitment to never do it again and must ask Hashem to help strengthen him to not do again the wrong that he had done.

Now, this is the basic level of Tishuva. When a person strays from the Torah or Yiddishkeit (Judaism) completely Chas V’Shalom, the Tishuva process will obviously be much more complicated because recognizing all that the person had done wrong at that point would involve a great deal of introspection. Interestingly, it is brought down that the most difficult part of the Tishuva process is feeling regret. The reason I find that interesting is because on the surface we might think that because we are generally good people that if we do something wrong “of course, I feel bad about it”!

But check this out. My father shared a moshul he heard from Rabbi A. Charlop that I thought was a good illustration of this point. Imagine our old friend Yosef Shmoe who was basically a very good Jew and he worked in a bank for many years and was the most trusted employee. He closed up every night and was solely responsible for counting the money each night. His boss, the bank’s owner tells him he has to go away for a couple months and leaves Yosef in charge. Now Yosef has never taken a penny that didn’t belong to him and has never cheated in business. Along comes his most trusted friend Chaim Yankel, who is down on his luck and tells Yosef that he has a “sure thing” business opportunity and all he needs is $10,000. He tells Yosef it is impossible to for it to fail and as a measure of good faith he will make him a 10% owner and even if the impossible were to happen 10% of the building he owned was worth more than $10,000. (so it was a no lose situation). Furthermore, Mr. Yankel explained that he would return the full 10 Grand in exactly 30 days. Now Mr. Shmoe had no authority to make the loan but excited about helping his friend and about this great opportunity he tells himself this is a small amount of money in a bank that has millions in it at all times and it will be paid back 30 days before the owner ever returns. Not to mention that he was the only person that ever counted the money.

So, he loaned his friend the money and guess what happened? Wrong! The business goes off like gang busters and makes hundreds of millions of dollars in just a few weeks. As promised his friend paid back every penny quickly and Mr. Shmoe was now a millionaire. He gave tzedaka to every orthodox Shul, all the Yeshivas, set up Kollels and became a true Baal Chessed (master of kindness). But along comes the month of Elul (which we are in now) and Rosh Hashana is coming up. Mr. Shmoe is very aware that he did something wrong. So he brings himself to do Tishuva. We can all imagine that it would be easy for him to recognize that he did something wrong and that he could ask Hashem for forgiveness and to strengthen him to never do it again. But do we really believe he would regret what he did wrong? Not likely! So we see how difficult complete Tishuva can be and that it takes great effort and desire to wipe our slate clean. We learn that the test of whether we did complete Tishuva comes later when we are faced with the same circumstances – do we repeat our avaira (sin) or do we walk away from it. If we walked, we were successful!

Being the month of Elul when each of us will be individually judged by Hashem for all of our deeds on Rosh Hashana we should make time for introspection and do sincere Tishuva before Rosh Hashana so that we all merit a year of good health and prosperity.

HAVE A GREAT SHABBOS AND WEEKEND!

Stay tuned for next week’s Parsha called, Parshas Ha’azinu (HAH-AY-ZEE-NU)!