Tomorrow night marks the beginning of Elul, a time for looking into ourselves, for confessing our sins, and for experiencing God’s love. Elul – and the holidays that follow it – are a time for introspection. But they are also a time for celebrating God’s greatest gift to us – the ability to change, the ability to grow.

According to tradition, God knew that we would be imperfect. God knew that we would make mistakes, that we would try and fail, and all too often, we would hurt the people around us. And so God built teshuvah – the ability to change – into the very fabric of the universe. With courage, with honesty, with a willingness to forgive ourselves, we can return to the people we were meant to be.

We can look inside ourselves, and we can remember our mistakes. And ultimately, we can forgive ourselves. We can admit that we are not perfect. And we can realize that, in every point in our lives, we did the best we could with the emotional and spiritual resources we had.

Through honesty, through love, through self-forgiveness, the past takes on a new meaning. The mistakes, the failings, the moments when we slipped and fell – all of them become mere prologues to the kinder, more caring lives that we can live.

Teshuvah means far more than atonement or repentance. Its literal meaning is “to return” – to return to the spark of holiness that God placed within us. It requires looking at our mistakes, but more importantly, it requires self-forgiveness. At times, we may have failed. At times, we may have blotted our the spark of holiness within us. But the spark is still there.

Teshuvah isn’t easy. But we don’t have to do it alone. At every moment of courage, at every moment of insight, the Holy One is with us, helping us to return. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks puts it:

For those who are open to it, Yom Kippur is a life-transforming experience. It tells us that God, who created the universe in love and forgiveness, reaches out to us in love and forgiveness, asking us to love and forgive others. God never asked us not to make mistakes. All He asks is that we acknowledge the mistakes, learn from them, grow through them, and make amends where we can.

So high does Judaism set the bar that it is inevitable that we should fall short again and again. This means that forgiveness was written into the script from the very beginning. God, said the sages, sought to create the world through the attribute of strict justice, but He saw that the world could not stand. So what did he do? He added mercy to justice, forbearance to the strict rule of law. Judaism is a religion, the world’s first, of forgiveness.

Beneath the solemnity of Yom Kippur, one fact shines radiant throughout: that God loves us more than we love ourselves. He believes in us more than we believe in ourselves. He never gives up, no matter how many times we slip and fall.

This year, as we prepare for the High Holidays, may we come to know ourselves better, and may we come to believe in ourselves half as much as God believes in us.

Shabbat Shalom