The Essence of the Days of Awe

This Dvar Torah is taken from a sermon my father delivered in his synagogue.

          The essence of the yamim noraim ("days of awe") is teshuva, repentance. In fact, teshuva is one of the 613 mitzvot. The root word of teshuva is shov, meaning to return. God created man with the potential to achieve perfection. No person enters this world burdened by sin, nor morally handicapped. Any imperfection comes from man himself, when he strays from the path God prescribed for mankind. Man was created good by the Source of Goodness. Teshuva, therefore, is a return to man's ideal roots, a return to the Godly path which is mankind's ideal.

          Rav, one of the great sages of the Talmud, wished for himself that he should "leave as he arrived", that he leave the earthly world as he had entered it, on a pristine spiritual level. Man has within him a Godliness, which endows him with the potential to achieve spiritual greatness. Teshuva is the process of returning to this Godliness.

          Maimonides [Laws of Teshuva 2:2] states that there are two aspects to teshuva: remorse over the past (sins) and acceptance for the future (not to repeat those sins). Both are logical, and perhaps even self-evident components of the process of repentance. One cannot begin to repent without having reached the realization of having erred. But this realization must be translated into practical steps for it to have any meaning. In essence, the first stage, remorse, is the catalyst which brings one to the practical stage of rectifying one's actions.