To What Are We Returning?
The Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shuvah, is named for the Haftarah portion from the Prophet Hosea, which begins: “Return, O Israel, to Adonai your God, For you have fallen because of your sin.” Clearly, it is seemingly tailor-made for this season and this Sabbath between.
But as with the broader concept of “teshuvah/repentance,” what is intended and encouraged? Certainly the physicality inherent in “turning” is far more concrete and direct than the more high falutin abstractions of “repentance.” But despite the tangibility of such a “turn,” the concept leaves much latitude for our embrace. Are we returning to our better selves? Are we returning to some consensual and communal “right path?” Or to even more deeply deconstruct the word, are we morally and spiritually doubling back somehow through rendering “turn” as “re-turn?”
There is no one answer. Yet in the confrontation and in the questioning lies the core challenge of this season.
Rabbi Daniel Weiner