29 Aug The Symphony of Tshuvah

Inspired by the teachings of Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh and Rabbi Moshe Genuth

The Symphony of Tshuvah –

There are  3 occasions when a Jew is intensely and completely ‘enclothed’ by G-d’s kedusha, His Holy spiritual energy;  when we are immersed in a mikvah, when we are inside a sukkah, and when we are envelopment or enclothed by Shabbos and Yom Tov. The experience of the arousing sounding the shofar is an added elevation of enclothement of the Holiness of the day.

Tshuvah –
Tshuvah is the process of  revealing and igniting the concealed or buried sparks of holiness (holy light) that lay within the darkness of our personal and collective transgressions.  These are the most powerful sparks of holiness and when ignited  can create powerful change in rectifying ourselves and the world (tikun olam).

Elul-
The month of Elul is an intense time of tshuva, the returning to a pristine spiritual state of being.  It is a time  that we engage in deep introspection, a cheshbon hanefesh… a personal inventory. It is a time to tune-up our character and address our transgressions in preparation of  standing before Hashem on the High Holidays. We should take note that we should be doing this throughout the year, however the spiritual energy  for doing tshuva is most abundant during the month of Elul.

The Symphony –
Before the symphony is played,  each musician must tune their personal instrument  in order that the collective sound can be unified and pleasing .

Every musician is working from the same blueprint, the musical score of the  symphony, toward the goal of  the beauty and harmony of a perfect or rectified performance.

Every musician and his instrument can be likened to  every Jew and the Torah. The symphony, like the Torah, is the blueprint or guideline that holds within it, and can bring about from within, the beauty and harmony of the ‘pages’ within.

The symphony orchestra is made up of the tuned instrument that are an extension of the musician. The process of tshuva is the spiritual ‘tuning up’ process of each individual Jew and Jew’s communally. Or personal and collective tshuva is to then be delivered to Hashem by the Baal Tokiah by the sounding of the shofar, much like a symphony conductor, as a conduit of the sounds of tshuvah.

Like the conductor of a symphony, the Baal Tokiah sounding the shofar is the point at which the culmination of all the beautiful and harmonious sounds of our individual and communal tshuva is gathered together and ascends heavenward.

To be a master of our  tshuvah (ba’al tshuvah) one must be like a great symphonic musician. Elul is a powerful time to tune-up ourselves spiritually, and take inventory of our transgressions (sins)  and our midos (character). It is a time for each of us to write , play and perform our own holy symphony and re create ourselves anew.

May your tshuvah be sweet.
Shana Tova

(refer also ‘They Saw The Sounds’ – http://www.auraoftorah.com/rosh-hashanah-shofar-5768/  )

Leib Getzel (Lawrence) Lax
Addictions and Counseling (Honors)
www.lawrencelax.com