What a great question!
Rav Chaim Feuer provides a great answer in the excerpt below.
As Rav Chaim Feuer explains beautifully, each day should bring a new and deeper level of understanding of our old sins and of our relationship to Hashem. Therefore, teshuva is always necessary, even for our old sins for which we have already done teshuva. When we view our old sins from a fresh perspective, we have an opportunity to do a different kind of teshuva for them, one that is directed at another aspect of the sin we may not have noticed before.
Therefore, even though we are involved in the teshuva process for the entire duration of Yom Kippur, and are hopefully granted forgiveness for all of our sins, it is still necessary to say "v'hashivenu avinu l'toratecha" and "slach lanu avinu ki chatanu" immediately thereafter, so that we can continue the teshuva process while viewing our old sins from a new perspective.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
What Did We Do Now?
Tzipporah Rossman asked the following question:
During maariv on motzei Yom Kipur we say "slach lanu avenu ki chatanu." Why do we say this if Hashem just forgave us for everything, and we don't have anything yet to ask for teshuvah?
What a great question!
Rav Chaim Feuer provides a great answer in the excerpt below.
As Rav Chaim Feuer explains beautifully, each day should bring a new and deeper level of understanding of our old sins and of our relationship to Hashem. Therefore, teshuva is always necessary, even for our old sins for which we have already done teshuva. When we view our old sins from a fresh perspective, we have an opportunity to do a different kind of teshuva for them, one that is directed at another aspect of the sin we may not have noticed before.
Therefore, even though we are involved in the teshuva process for the entire duration of Yom Kippur, and are hopefully granted forgiveness for all of our sins, it is still necessary to say "v'hashivenu avinu l'toratecha" and "slach lanu avinu ki chatanu" immediately thereafter, so that we can continue the teshuva process while viewing our old sins from a new perspective.
What a great question!
Rav Chaim Feuer provides a great answer in the excerpt below.
As Rav Chaim Feuer explains beautifully, each day should bring a new and deeper level of understanding of our old sins and of our relationship to Hashem. Therefore, teshuva is always necessary, even for our old sins for which we have already done teshuva. When we view our old sins from a fresh perspective, we have an opportunity to do a different kind of teshuva for them, one that is directed at another aspect of the sin we may not have noticed before.
Therefore, even though we are involved in the teshuva process for the entire duration of Yom Kippur, and are hopefully granted forgiveness for all of our sins, it is still necessary to say "v'hashivenu avinu l'toratecha" and "slach lanu avinu ki chatanu" immediately thereafter, so that we can continue the teshuva process while viewing our old sins from a new perspective.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
A Plan
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Happiness
Sorry, that was a little bit of a downer for a welcome back post. I'll try to make it up to you with this fascinating article in the Times about psychological studies about happiness. It's not that long, read it.
Also on this subject, here was one of my book recommendations from the blog's opening:
Also on this subject, here was one of my book recommendations from the blog's opening:The Geography of Bliss (Eric Weiner) - I read it on Ms. Socken's advice, and though it took me a bit to get in to, I ended up enjoying it a lot. A reporter for NPR travels to the happiest and least happy countries on Earth to see what lessons about happiness he can learn. The chapters that spoke most to me (though I doubt many of you will choose the same ones) were Iceland (which contains what I consider to be the single most important line of the book - I won't give it away) & Thailand.(Note to those of you who have been through 11th grade Gemara, remember Rav Dessler's approach to love and compare it to this article.)
We're back!
I was talking with a friend who left teaching after many years in the field. He old me, that even though he worked all summer, he felt bad for me having to go back to school. I like the first day of school; seeing friends and students I haven't seen all summer; seeing how much so many people have grown and matured while they were away. Still, I think I know what he means. No matter how much I worked and prepared over the summer, I always feel like if I just had another day or two, then I could truly be ready. What wouldn't I give now to have one of those mid-July summer lazy summer days that wasn't quite as productive as it could have been. Just one more day.
It's a similar feeling to the one I get on Yom Kippur. The day didn't sneak up on anyone. If we didn't notice it ourselves, the call of the shofar each morning reminds us that we have work to do. Still, somehow when standing on the yemei hadin, I'm often wishing for just a little more time for preparation to finally get this teshuva process right - time that was readily available to me just hours before. You may have once felt this way about a big test or project that you kind of left for the last minute.
Well, it's too late for the first day of school, but Elul is still very much here. Now are those minutes whose stock is going to skyrocket in a couple of short weeks. These are the days we will be wishing we had another shot at come Rosh Hashana. Why do we need to go through this charade. Maybe this can be the year that we get it right the first time. This is what chazal mean when they say
"יפה שעה אחת בתשובה ומעשים טובים בעולם הזה, מכל חיי העולם הבא. ויפה שעה אחת של קורת רוח בעולם הבא, מכל חיי העולם הזה".
"One hour of repentance and good deeds in this world is better than the entire life of the World to Come."
Let's try to avoid that feeling this year. Yom Hadin is coming soon, but now is the time to do something about it.
It's a similar feeling to the one I get on Yom Kippur. The day didn't sneak up on anyone. If we didn't notice it ourselves, the call of the shofar each morning reminds us that we have work to do. Still, somehow when standing on the yemei hadin, I'm often wishing for just a little more time for preparation to finally get this teshuva process right - time that was readily available to me just hours before. You may have once felt this way about a big test or project that you kind of left for the last minute.
Well, it's too late for the first day of school, but Elul is still very much here. Now are those minutes whose stock is going to skyrocket in a couple of short weeks. These are the days we will be wishing we had another shot at come Rosh Hashana. Why do we need to go through this charade. Maybe this can be the year that we get it right the first time. This is what chazal mean when they say
"יפה שעה אחת בתשובה ומעשים טובים בעולם הזה, מכל חיי העולם הבא. ויפה שעה אחת של קורת רוח בעולם הבא, מכל חיי העולם הזה".
"One hour of repentance and good deeds in this world is better than the entire life of the World to Come."
Let's try to avoid that feeling this year. Yom Hadin is coming soon, but now is the time to do something about it.
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