I totally agree that one of our primary purposes in life is to do teshuvah. Especially in this month of Elul - something I've barely kept in mind over the past several weeks, much to my chagrin - is that teshuvah is the way. Not in a way of -- well, not all in a way of -- repentance, regret, promises to do better, and shame, but in the full meaning of the word - to return.
I wasn't actually quite sure until today whether teshuvah had any origins in Torah or whether it was not an invention but a concept given more name and life by the rabbis and especially the chasidim. But here we are, just a few weeks from the end of Torah, and Devarim 30:8 comes to tell us that after the endless and bottomless curses seemingly never to stop befalling us, there is an end, if we choose there to be one.
And what is that end? Tashuv v'shamata b'kol H' v'aseeta et col mitzvotav asher Anochi mitzavcha ha'yom.
(1) Return; (2) listen to G-d's voice; and (3) do all the commandments.
I think to only limit it to teshuvah - of course, it's wonderful, in that it encourages any transformation at all, but how much is lacking in also excluding the second part - listen to G-d's voice. (And I think the third path, the mitzvot, no one will challenge.) In other words, we have a pretty solid grasp of the "return" and the "do all the commandments," but the listening to G-d's voice, here is such a mystical step, out in plain sight, and not really ever talked about.
One of my fundamental meditative beliefs is that G-d is, of course, directly speaking to me all the time - all the time, in every moment - but my, well, my ego or my selfhood or my distraction or my shame or my whatever - is making me too dense to hear it. And I've promised myself so often - to remember to take a breath, because that breath is the original life-giving mechanism in Torah, and that breath is what will allow me to hear the Voice of G-d, directly - and yet how often do I remember to do that (rarely). It makes one wonder why something so easy, so free, so accessible, and so memorable is also so difficult and forgettable (or at least seemingly easy to forget). It almost makes one realize - surely, no one intentionally sinned to bring upon themselves the curses of the land - so how much harder it might be to intentionally bring someone like myself out of that.
Put in context, perhaps it's because it's not the listening that comes first. It's return. Then listen. Then do. Return first. Return from where? From the ego and distraction, to the Presence, a Presence which may seem to be hidden at some times and less hidden in others, but is beyond a doubt always there. Return to that place, that state of mind, that makom. Then listen. Then do.
But first, return.
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