According to the Rambam, the mitzvah of Teshuva is one of growth, and accordingly in EmunahSpeak: A Real Deal Teshuva we laid out Teshuva as a growth process in very broad strokes. But the devil’s in the details.
Only a small portion of Teshuva is about crying and being sorry. It is more of “I would like to be this” as opposed to “I’m sorry I was that,” not that you shouldn’t be. You certainly should, but the emphasis should be positive rather than negative, looking forward instead of glancing backwards. It’s about you and your future, not your past.
And when you consider that the reason we’re in this world to begin with is to grow, then Teshuva, accurately viewed, becomes a reset button for life’s purpose.
Real growth is a function of time and effort with its tempo set to slow and easy in the context of both Elul and Teshuva. If you build a roof in Elul in lieu of a foundation, instead of growth you’ll end up with a levitation act which will predictably succumb to the laws of spiritual gravity.
And the Teshuva driven growth of Elul speaks of substance, as in a lot of substance as opposed to very little form. Like the Chofetz Chaim said: “It’s the person whose heart hits him a little bit who will get a good kvittel, not the one who hits his heart.”
The growth inherent in Teshuva applies across the board because there are no growth-free zones in life. You have a sweet tooth induced poor diet? That’s prime time grist for the Teshuva mill, as are your deleterious choices in music, reading matter, and anything else that you would be embarrassed to stand by when you eventually have to give a din v’cheshbon after a hundred and twenty years of playing hide and seek with your purpose here.
And as we also said in EmunahSpeak: A Real Deal Teshuva: “it’s not enough to do Teshuva for the sins we have done. We also have to do Teshuva for who we are if we’re not who we should be, because a lot of life’s challenges reside within, in the form of bad character traits, which also require Teshuva,” and to this we’ll even add attitudes.
“You got angry,” asks Rabbi Yitzchak Berkovits, “but controlled yourself? Mazel tov! You’re a tzaddik, but you still have to do Teshuva for the fact that your adrenalin was pumped.”
And how exactly does one with gaiva problem grow out of it?
Rabbi Avraham Brussel says that you work to see the value of other human beings, and there is no such thing as a human being without value. He derives this from a kal v’chomer as follows: If it’s not only assur for a Jewish king to even think that he’s more valuable than an ordinary Jew, but in addition he is actually obligated to say that they are equal, so how can one Jew even entertain a passing thought that he is better than yenem?
To become great in the spirit of a Teshuva saturated Elul, adds Rabbi Brussel, you have to grow tall and your ability to see below you has to match your height lest you look down on another Jew as having less value, which is a severe crime and destroys the soul of a human being.
So who are you, growth wise, anyway?
In Elul you are what you want to be. You are the sum total of all the aspirations and kavanas you have for growth in the ensuing year. During the rest of the year, however, you are what you do on a daily basis, with the reality check of what you aspired to in Elul being what you do on a daily basis in Shevat. If your growth was real enough to take root then it will still be around to blossom in Shevat.
If it was stunted, it won’t.
