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Return to Who You Are by R’ Yaakov Klein
Return to Who You Are
By R’ Yaakov Klein
Among the various rashei tevos for Chodesh Elul, “Ani l’Dodi v’Dodi li, I am to my Beloved, and my Beloved is to me” (Shir HaShirim 6:3) is undoubtedly the most oft-quoted. On the surface, the message this allusion intends to convey is that, as a time of introspection and repentance in preparation for the Yamim Nora’im, Elul is a time of heightened closeness with Hashem. With Hashem’s help, I would like to present a bit of a deeper perspective.
In attempt to describe the awesome power of teshuva, Chazal declare: “Great is teshuva, for it reaches the Kisei HaKavod.” (Yoma 86a) The tzaddikim teach that this statement reveals a very deep understanding of the inner workings of teshuva. If all Jewish souls are hewn from under the Kisei HaKavod, as the Zohar HaKadosh teaches (Tzav, 29b), this means that in addition to returning to Hashem, teshvua also implies returning to our true selves, to our essential identity rooted in the holiness and purity of Hashem’s throne. This perspective into teshuva aligns with an insight into the word “cheit,” a reference to the sins for which teshuva is necessary. Although “cheit” is colloquially translated as “sin,” in truth, this word means to miss, or to veer off the intended trajectory (See Shoftim 20:16). Indeed, the essence of sin is a momentary lapse in awareness of our unique purpose and mission as soldiers of Hashem, a brief foray away from our essential holiness into the foreign fields of the yetzer hara’s distraction – “a person only sins if a spirit of folly enters him.” (Sotah 3a) Thus, teshuva, the return to our deepest selves and the essential holiness that fills our spiritual core, rectifies the sin by undoing the confusion caused by this experience of existential obscurity.
According to the opinion that the world was created in the month of Tishrei (R’ Eliezer in Rosh HaShana 10b), Elul represents the reality immediately preceding Creation, the realm of “Techilah” – Hashem’s motive for the ensuing Creation. What was this motive, this “techilah”? Chazal fill us in: “Yisrael ala b’machshavah techilah” (Berieshis Rabbah 1:4) – the very first thought in the process of Creation was the thought of the Jewish nation, of you and me. We hadn’t yet done anything to dis-
“sof maaseh” of his despair in the lowly realm of Asiyah is yet bound up with “machshavah techilah,” the unearned (and thus immovable) holiness of his Jewish essence, the pre-Creation vision of Hashem’s infinite and unconditional love. (See Likutei Moharan 33:5)
Fascinatingly, teshuva, the mechanism which enables us to recalibrate and reconnect with our true identity, is enumerated among those things that “kadmah l’olam,” came before the creation of the world (Midrash Mishlei 22b), for it brings us back to that place of the primordial “Chodesh Elul.”
Friends, this is a deeper understanding of “Ani l’Dodi V’Dodi Li.” Elul enables a Jew to attain the transformative understanding that “Ani” – no matter how my “Ani – I” may presently appear or where I am currently found in life, it is always bound “L’Dodi,” to the Master of the world, with an essential, unbreakable bond. Where I am, the choices I have made, do not define who I am. Therefore, “V’Dodi Li,” Hashem is ever accessible to me.
As close as a thought of teshuva. As close as a small step back onto the path of my deepest self. As close as my beating heart that yet whispers, “There is no despair in the world at all.”
tinguish ourselves from any other creation-to-be. We hadn’t earned this connection to the Infinite One. But He was already dreaming of us, cherishing our essence that far transcends our subsequent behavior, individually or communally, in the created world. Because “Sof maaseh b’machshavah techilah,” no matter where a Jew finds himself in the world, no matter how successfully he feels he has been in eradicating every last vestige of hope, this
