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Orot Hateshuva 1 · Rabbi Benjy's Shiur

• 0:01
  Are Rott Hattruva, sheer #1, repentance to Shuva, Guilt,
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  introspection, Ross's son and Yom Kippur not feeling good
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  about ourselves, worrying about the future?
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  I don't change. You can add your own word
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  associations to the term shiver, repentance, thinking about
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  another day of judgment, and all that's included in that term.
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  Very often these topics are laden with heavy feelings, dark
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  feelings, miserable feelings, feelings of I've tried before
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  and didn't work or I'm never going to change.
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  Who am I kidding? I'm happy to be me.
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  Along came Ralph Cook, and his teachings were so full of light,
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  so full of positivity, that even his work on toshiva, on
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  repentance, he called a rot hattashiva, the light of
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  repentance. Just on a simple etymological
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  level, the word, the word toshiva, which we translate as
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  repentance, really means returning, returning to a state
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  of being that was always perfect before choices were made that
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  took us away. We're not putting ourselves
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  anywhere that's foreign or strange or unusual.
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  We're simply going back to where we needed to be, where we came
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  from. It's also important to just
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  introduce a few words, a few bits of terminology.
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  In Judaism, we have different words that we have in every
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  language for doing something wrong.
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  You can deliberately do something wrong, and that's with
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  full intent to rebel, to to stand at a different place to
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  the whatever. There's a rule, and I don't care
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  that there's a rule. I am going to rebel against the
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  authority of the king, God, Hashem, whoever it is that is
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  giving us a certain rule. Now on the other side of the
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  spectrum, there is a hat the cat.
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  In English we translated the sin and because we brought up in a
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  Christian society, most of us still isn't connected with the
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  word guilt. And guilt makes you feel not
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  very good about yourself and nobody wants to feel bad about
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  themselves. And therefore we tend to avoid
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  these conversations because it doesn't do too much for our self
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  esteem. That's not very good either.
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  And as so many teachers today explain, the word cat simply
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  means to miss the target so that if you were aiming for something
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  for the bull's eye and you got it wrong, you did a cat.
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  It doesn't mean that you've wasted your life or you've lost
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  opportunities and you're no good or good for nothing and your
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  life has no value and no meaning.
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  And how can you possibly try and look me in the eye?
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  You're someone that's done a het.
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  Not at all. It went wrong and say you try
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  again. Now this very concept of
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  starting again is so beyond most people's understanding.
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  And the rabbis even say that Shiva, the whole idea that you
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  can delete the past and start again is a gift from Hashem.
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  And that's on a simple level. On a higher level, not only it's
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  not, it's not just about deleting the past, it's using
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  the past. It's using that that moment in
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  time where you got something wrong.
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  And now that moment doesn't become the defining detail in
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  your life that meant that you're not worthy, but that wrong
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  action now becomes the catalyst, the springboard for your future
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  growth. So rather than saying that act
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  that was once defined negatively or embarrassingly as something
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  that makes you less perfect than you think you are, that you're a
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  failure as a human being, you can actually transform the past
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  so that that negativity now becomes a positive because now
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  you're great, and it's because of that wrong date.
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  So what does Ralph Cook do with this very concept?
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  He takes it in in directions that are so, so deep, so
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  beautiful, so, so different to what we're used to.
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  Rav Cook says. ETS hat Chuva, anu, Notzian,
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  Bishalosh. Matterhot to Shuva exists on 3
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  levels. I love #1 to Shuva, Tiv It
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  natural to Shuva, bet, #2 to Shuva and Monet faith-based to
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  Shuva and gimble, #3 to shuva cyclit.
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  It's intellectual to Shuva, natural to shuva is where we're
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  going to start. Simple, simple sentence, just to
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  get you going. A person sees very when it's
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  natural, you see it very clearly in nature, the results of your
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  actions. For example, you eat something
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  that's not very good, that's bad.
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  You have a bad stomach. It's not, it's not something
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  that's complicated to understand.
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  You have to fix the mistake. I had something I shouldn't have
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  eaten. Now I'm going to stop doing
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  that. But we're going to develop this
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  concept. It's so much deeper, so much
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  more beautiful. But you're going to have to
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  return tomorrow for Part 2. Have a very nice day.