Teshuvah Before Torah: When Every Hour Counts

1“Hashem spoke to Moshe in the Wilderness of Sinai …”¹ Rashi explains: “Out of His love for them, He counts them every hour.”² Why does Rashi say “every hour,” kol sha'ah? He could simply have said, “He counts them constantly.”

2The Midrash teaches: “R' Chiya taught: ‘Seven complete weeks shall there be.’ When are they temimos, complete? When Israel does the will of the Omnipresent.”³ But what does completeness have to do with doing the will of the Omnipresent?

3The Midrash also says: “The Torah was given through three things: through fire, through water and through the wilderness.”⁴ What do these three things have to do with the Torah?

4Let us first cite the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, based on a well-known teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, zt"l. Teshuvah applies even to great people who have not sinned. When they reach a higher level and a loftier grasp of Hashem's greatness, they do teshuvah for yesterday's avodah, which, measured by what they grasp now, was not as it should have been. With this my holy father explained the verse “So shall you say to the House of Yaakov and tell Bnei Yisrael.”⁵ Rashi comments: “‘To the House of Yaakov you shall say’ in gentle language; ‘and tell Bnei Yisrael’ things as hard as sinews.”⁶ The word koh, “so,” points to standing in one place, on a single level of avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. The Holy One, blessed be He, told Moshe, “So shall you say to the House of Yaakov”: for the simple people, who are on the level of “Yaakov,”⁷ koh, standing on one level, counts as something good, as “gentle language.” But for “Bnei Yisrael,” the tzaddikim, the same thing counts as “hard as sinews.” They are called to account: why do they stay at the level of koh, instead of rising from level to level and doing teshuvah for what they grasped the day before? Those are his holy words.

5To understand all this, we can explain it as follows. As is well known, a person must do teshuvah before Torah study and prayer. This has been handed down from the Chozeh of Lublin, zt"l, who said that otherwise the verse applies to him: “But to the wicked God said: What have you to do with recounting My statutes?”⁸ So Bnei Yisrael certainly did teshuvah before the giving of the Torah. When a person does teshuvah, he rectifies all the bad times that have passed: they all become good and set right, in the spirit of “deliberate sins become merits for him.”⁹ This lets us explain the verse “And now, if you will truly listen to My voice …”¹⁰ Rashi comments: “‘And now’: if you accept it upon yourselves now, it will be pleasant for you from here on, for all beginnings are hard.”¹¹ And the Midrash says, “‘And now’ means nothing other than teshuvah.”¹² So the words hint: “and now,” if you do teshuvah before receiving the Torah, then “it will be pleasant for you from here on.” All beginnings are indeed hard, but through teshuvah even the hard times are counted as good.

6On this basis we can explain Rashi's words here by way of hint. “Out of His love for them” alludes to teshuvah. We know that teshuvah works for Israel and not for the nations because we are children of the Omnipresent, and “a father who forgoes his honor, his honor is forgone,”¹³ while the nations are like servants of Hashem, and “a king who forgoes his honor, his honor is not forgone.”¹⁴ So “Out of His love for them” means that we are children of the Omnipresent. Then the Holy One, blessed be He, “counts them every hour.” For when we regard ourselves as children of the Omnipresent and engage in teshuvah, even the hours we blemished are counted as good, and Hashem counts every hour into a great total. This answers our question about the words “every hour.”

7This is the meaning of the Midrash “When are they complete? When Israel does the will of the Omnipresent.” When people do not do the will of the Omnipresent, their time falls short and is lost, and it does not count as complete. But when they do His will and do teshuvah, all their times are counted and turned to the good, becoming mikshah achas, “one beaten piece,” a single seamless whole.¹⁵

8This is what the Midrash hints at in saying that the Torah was given through three things: the Torah was given through teshuvah, and these three things allude to it. “Through fire” alludes to holy fervor and vitality, which is teshuvah in the realm of “do good.”¹⁶ “Through water” also hints at teshuvah, for those who return to Hashem, ba'alei teshuvah, are humble of spirit, like water, which flows to a low place.¹⁷ And “through the wilderness” hints that a person makes himself ownerless like a wilderness:¹⁸ the ba'al teshuvah must give up his own wishes and desires and do everything only for the honor of Hashem's Name. In the merit of these three things Bnei Yisrael were privileged to receive the Torah.

9Parshas Bamidbar is always read before Shavuos to hint that now, before receiving the Torah, is a time of teshuvah. Shabbos, too, is a time of teshuvah: as is well known, the letters of Shabbos (שבת) spell tashev (תשב), “return,” and they are also the first letters of Shabbos bo tashuv, “on Shabbos you shall return.”

10May Hashem help us be privileged to do true teshuvah and to receive the Torah. And, as in the blessing of my holy great-grandfather of Biala, zt"l, may we be privileged to receive the Torah with both hands: “Length of days is in its right hand; in its left hand are wealth and honor.”¹⁹ And may we bring near the keitz hayamin, the end of days.²⁰ Amen, may it be His will.