By Rabbi Paul L. Saal

"I am now one hundred and twenty years old, I can no longer be active." With that surprising realization, Moses begins his final address to the children of Israel. When Moses completes this address he will have accomplished what few others take the opportunity to do. With the completion of Devarim Moses gave Israel its code of law, ethics and ritual practice, but also he successfully managed to record for posterity his own story. But not only did he write his story, Moses managed to right his story.

It has been observed that the life of Moses played out like a three-act play in which each act had a forty year duration. In the first act, Moses thought he was somebody, having found himself through providence a prince in Egypt, removed from the lowly plight of his brethren. In the second act, Moses found out he was nobody, having been sent into exile in the wilderness of Midian and encountering the inscrutable God in a fire retardant bush. Finally, in the last act, Moses learns what God can do with somebody who thinks he is nobody. Though Moses could not control the events of his life, he nonetheless took the opportunity through obedience to write and re-right the conclusion of his own story.

Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) the inventor of dynamite, had the rare opportunity to read his own death notice. When his brother passed away, a local newspaper, believing he had died, ran his obituary. They described him as the man who had made it possible for more people to be killed quickly than any person had had ever lived. It was not how he wanted to be remembered so he began to re-right his own story. He used his accumulated wealth and influence to create the Nobel Prize and his name is now tied indelibly to the peace process, and the advancement of the sciences and the humanities.

Though few will ever reach the level of renown of Moses, or even Alfred Nobel, each of us has the same opportunity to finish our own stories and to not only write them, but also re-right them. The process is called teshuvah, commonly translated repentance. But teshuvah is the process of turning our lives around, and reorienting our stories to the script that our creator envisioned for us. Teshuvah is a good idea anytime throughout the year, but during the yamim noraim, the ten days of introspection between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, our attention is especially drawn toward repentance. But how do we affect teshuvah without merely going through perfunctory motions? When my parents were in school they learned the 3R's - reading, riting, and 'rithmetic. If we want to do a re-righting of our own stories we must go back to school and learn the five R's of repentance, Recognition, Remorse, Restitution, Reorientation, and Restoration.

Recognition

This is the act of separating what we are from what we have done. Shame is a heavy feeling associated with a sense of worthlessness. When we recognize that we are created in the image of a loving God we can separate our mistakes and miscues from the litany of accusations we carry around as scars from living in a debased culture filled with anger and hostility. According to a midrashic saying,

"The moment a man is willing to see himself as he is and make the confession 'I have sinned', from that moment the powers of evil lose their power over him."

It is imperative, then, that we recognize the wrongs that we have done to ourselves, to God and to our fellows, since "each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire" (Yakov 1:14). When we deflect criticism and externalize our difficulties it eliminates our own culpability and short-circuits God's plan to liberate us.

Remorse

Though shame is inappropriate for a child of God, guilt can be altogether proper. Proper guilt is the nagging feeling that we are culpable for having done wrong. One of the reasons we don't really repent, one of the reasons we don't really change from year to year, one of the reasons Yom Kippur becomes for too many people an exercise in really bad play-acting, is that we have lost the capacity or the willingness to feel bad about what we have done. We won't even let God tell us how we are doing. In effect we can become immune to guilt, but are left to the dull aching pain of shame. True repentance requires that we cultivate sensitive spirits that ache when we are in unrepentant sin.

It is human nature to avoid feelings of remorse. Three common ways to dodge these feelings are:

1. Confession to the already corrected. These are exercises in clever subterfuge and false humility, such as recovering alcoholics reveling in old war stories from their drinking days. Past victories cannot protect us from today's spiritual battles.
2. Blame shifting from ourselves to others. To make teshuvah we must focus on our own culpability.
3. Indictment of others, which is a clever smokescreen. By pointing out the deficiencies in others we can avoid critique ourselves. After all, the best defense is a good offense.

Restitution

"For transgressions against God the day of Atonement atones, but for transgressions against a fellow man, the Day of Atonement does not atone, so long as the sinner has not redressed the wrong done and conciliated the man he has sinned against" (Eliezer ben Azariah).

Likewise, the atonement of Yeshua has been accomplished once and for all, but we have a responsibility when we accept God's forgiveness to make amends for the wrongs we have done against others. Yochanan has said, "How can you love God whom you have not seen if you do not love your brother whom you have seen?" (1 Yoch. 4:20.) It is not imperative that the other party forgives you, rather that you are willing to make amends.

Reorientation

This is the firm commitment to do things differently from now on - we can't go back to where we have been; time takes care of that. But somehow opportunities re-present themselves.

"Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." (Isaiah 55:7)

Restoration

There is no feeling like that of Divine pardon, yet it is indescribable. If shame is an unbearable burden, then God's forgiveness is an incredible lightness, an enormous easing of burden.

• Like removing a piece of uncomfortable clothing
• Like a huge burden lifted off your shoulders
• Like a beautiful day after muggy, drizzly weather.
• Like coming home after being away for a long time.
• Like being able to scratch an itch you couldn't reach.
• Like the exuberance that comes with falling in love.

Yeshua knew a thing or two about writing a story. In fact Charles Dickens, a somewhat seasoned writer in his own right, called the parable of the prodigal son the greatest short story ever written. I would call it the greatest sermon on teshuvah ever given. In it we can see the five R's, or stages of teshuvah-recognition, remorse, and restitution, reorientation, and restoration.

A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.' So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined him-self to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself...

Here we see the first phase of Teshuvah, recognition. The son came to himself, or returned to his heart, as our parasha would state it. He woke up and realized that he was standing among the pigs...and longing for their food! And so, when he "came to himself," or recognized his condition...

He said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants."' And he arose and came to his father.

The r's of repentance are not always hermetically sealed categories. As we see in this story the son displays remorse for his sin and is ready to not only confess his wrongdoing to his father, but to make it right by returning to work as a hired servant if necessary. He undergoes a radical reorientation and changes his whole life direction from a journey away from home to a journey back. But the most remarkable element in this story is the response of the father. He reveals a fourth stage in the process of return, restoration. The son comes to his senses, and returns to his father; the father has been ready to receive the son all along.

But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry.

Thus, the father embodies the words of the prophet, "Return to me and I will return to you." But the story doesn't end here. Messiah told the story because, "The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them'" (Luke 15:1-2). Messiah welcomed the younger son-the sinner-and, with equal love, appealed to the older son-the religious-expert to write a new ending to their own story. So the story Messiah tells has an odd twist to it.

Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.' But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, 'Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.' And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.'

Yeshua doesn't tell us the end of the story, because the end is up to us. So, whichever son you are, the invitation from the Father stands to write and re-right our own stories. Let us return continually to Him, and let us also rejoice as others return, and not begrudge the bounties of His forgiveness to anyone, because the opportunity is open to finish well and write a great ending to a life well lived.

The Rabbis of old said,

"The Gates of Repentance are ever open. As the sea is always accessible, so is the Holy One, blessed be He always accessible to the penitent. The person who done wrong things and repents is on a higher spiritual plane than the person has not. Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than the whole life of the world to come"

Much of our stories were written before we were even aware how life had enveloped us. Yet there is much that we can take responsibility for. So, take the time to learn the five R's of repentance, and write and re-right the best part of your story - the part that starts today. May this year be one of genuine teshuvah, and may the rest of your life be ever more abundant.

L'shana Tovah