The rabbis of old fixed the calendar so that we would read the same Torah portion at the end of each year – a Torah portion about hope, about renewing the covenant, about the the earthshaking choice that God has put before us. “Choose life,” the Torah tells us, “so that you may live.”

But perhaps, the most important words are in the middle of the Torah portion. Moses tells the people that long after he is gone, there will be a time when they will need to repent. But he reassures them that teshuvah is always possible.

This commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you and it is not too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who shall go up to heaven and take it for us and make us hear it, so that we do it?” … It is very close to you, in your mouth and in your hearts to do it.

These are the words that we read every year before Rosh Hashanah – a reminder that the time for teshuvah – the time for repentance – will eventually come. But God has built teshuvah into the fabric of the universe. The power to return is already in our hearts. All we have to do is try.

For Nachman of Breslov, these verses describe the essence of the High Holiday season:

The High Holidays are about looking inside ourselves, about change. But they are also about gratitude for a world in which change is possible. Our lives are not like the movie “Groundhogs Day.” We are not forced to make the same mistakes, day after day. With effort, we can grow, and we can change our lives.

The Holy One of Being, the font of all creation, invites us to make small changes, and to forgive ourselves for what we can’t do. “Climb the ladder one rung at a time,” God tells us. “Try to be a little bit better with each passing year. And if you fall, I will pick you up and let you try again.”

The High Holidays invite us to change, and at the same time, they call on us to be more forgiving. We must emulate God, not demanding too much from ourselves and not demanding too much from others.

The true work of teshuvah, one rabbi wrote, is to look inside ourselves and find one small thing that we can change. And then, over the course of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we imagine what it would be like to do half of that, a quarter of that, until we find one small step that we can really take. We admit that we were created from dust and ashes. We are flawed, limited creatures doing our best to repair ourselves and to mend God’s broken world.

How lucky we are, the Chassidic masters taught. The creator of the world, the king, the One of all being, only asks that we try.

“Beneath the solemnity of Yom Kippur,” writes Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, “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.

“Each of us can, by a single act of kindness or generosity of spirit, cause a ray of divine light to shine in the human darkness, allowing God’s presence, at least for a moment, to be at home in our world.

“More than Yom Kippur expresses our faith in God, it is an expression of God’s faith in us.”

May you have a sweet new year. And may you love yourself as much as God loves you.

Shannah Tovah,
Art