Harav Hagaon Yosef Elefant Shlita
The month of Elul, of אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְדוֹדִי לִי, is upon us. As we know, the Rambam says (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:4): אף על פי שתקיעת שופר בראש השנה גזירת הכתוב, רמז יש בו, כלומר עורו ישינים משנתכם ונרדמים הקיצו מתרדמתכם וחפשו במעשיכם וחזרו בתשובה וזכרו בוראכם. Even though blowing shofar is a gezeiras hakasuv, it contains a message: Wake up! Get out of your slumber, and remember that there’s an Eibishter.
When the Rambam tells us that there’s something about tekiyas shofar that wakes a person up, he certainly isn’t referring just to the noise of the shofar. He is alluding to something much deeper.
The Torah says, in Parashas Nitzavim:
כִּי הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם לֹא נִפְלֵאת הִוא מִמְּךָ וְלֹא רְחֹקָה הִוא. לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִוא לֵאמֹר מִי יַעֲלֶה לָּנוּ הַשָּׁמַיְמָה וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה. וְלֹא מֵעֵבֶר לַיָּם הִוא לֵאמֹר מִי יַעֲבָר לָנוּ אֶל עֵבֶר הַיָּם וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה. כִּי קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ.
These pesukim describe a mitzvah that one might think is too far away, and the Ramban says that this is referring to the mitzvah of teshuvah. This raises many questions, however. First, regarding no other mitzvah does the Torah address the issue of it being far away. What is so special about the mitzvah of teshuvah that the Torah goes out of its way to dispel the notion that it might be in the sky or across the sea? Second, what does the geographical concept of near or far mean in relation to a mitzvah? How can a mitzvah be close? How can a mitzvah be far?
In Alei Shur, Rav Wolbe cites a Midrash that expounds these pesukim in a context other than teshuvah, interpreting them as a message to a lazy person. When this person is told that his rav is in his city, he says it’s too dangerous to go to him. When he’s told that his rav is on the next street, he says it’s raining. When he’s told that his rav is next door, he says he can’t go. When he’s told that the rav is in the same house but on a different floor, he finds another excuse. Finally, he is told that the rav, the source of chochmah, is in his own mouth — just take it out!
Rav Wolbe explains that the rav in this mashal represents chochmah and ruchniyus. The lazy person is not suffering from biological tiredness, but is totally dominated by the yesod of earth, which is gashmiyus. He views himself as an entirely physical being, and he sees chochmah as something external to him.
As long as a person views chochmah as existing on the outside, not as something that is part of his own being, then he finds all sorts of excuses why he can’t access it, whether it’s in his city, on his street, or in his house. A person who sees ruchniyus and chochmah as detached from himself looks at himself as nothing more than earth — which, the Mesilas Yesharim teaches, is very heavy. Laziness is rooted in the yesod of earth. When a person looks at himself as nothing more than gashmiyus, and he views chochmah as being on the outside, he’s going to be dominated by laziness. That’s the real root of laziness: the domination of the guf.
Alei Shur calls laziness “the fortress of tumah.” We typically don’t view laziness that way; we think of it as a pretty kosher bad middah. But he describes laziness as the fortress of tumah because laziness represents the domination of the body — not in terms of physical or biological domination, but in terms of how a person sees himself. When a person views the “rav” — the chochmah — as outside of himself, he’s in a state of laziness, because he sees himself as a clod of earth. This attitude, Chazal are telling us, is what Moshe Rabbeinu came to refute. “It’s not across the sea and it’s not in the heavens — it’s very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart! “Chochmah is inside of you!”
The Midrash sees in this passuk a remedy for atzlus. Moshe Rabbeinu is telling us that if a person would understand that he himself is fundamentally spiritual and holy — כִּי קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד — then his laziness would be cured.
Although Chazal did not expound these pesukim in relation to teshuvah, we can apply their teaching to teshuvah as well.
Chazal are addressing a fundamental question: What is a human being? Is a human nothing more than a blob of flesh and blood — עָפָר אַתָּה וְאֶל עָפָר תָּשׁוּב? Or is a human fundamentally spiritual?
The Torah is teaching us that the obstacle to doing teshuvah is the attitude that spirituality is far away, across the sea. When a person feels that he’s distant from ruchniyus, that he’s disconnected from the Eibishter, that he himself is not inherently spiritual, it’s very hard to do teshuvah. He is being asked to repent and return — but return to where?
It is specifically the mitzvah of teshuvah that is rendered challenging by geographic distance. Where can I find kedushah? If it’s outside of me, how can I go back to it? Where can I access it? So, it is regarding this mitzvah of teshuvah that the Torah presents a dialogue regarding its proximity. It is not far away. It is not across the sea. “You are holy,” Moshe Rabbeinu was telling us. “You are intrinsically connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.”
If you understand that you are fundamentally holy, then you can access that point of spirituality within yourself and reignite it. When you do teshuvah, then, you are not creating something from nothing, but merely expanding the holiness within you.
The obstacle to teshuvah, then, is the failure to recognize that even after we sin, some part of the neshamah inside you is pure, and always remains untarnished and unpolluted. It is that untouched part of the neshamah that enables the person to do teshuvah. The Sfas Emes says that this pinteleh within a person maintains a constant connection with Hakadosh Baruch Hu — כִּי קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד. You’re not expected to reach for something that you don’t have or create something new; you’re merely retrieving the kochos that are there inside you. It’s who you are.
We can now understand why the Rambam considers the sounds of the shofar a wake-up call. He’s not referring to a person who’s physically asleep, but to a person who’s in a spiritual slumber. Sleep represents the total domination of the guf. When a person sleeps, his intellectual faculties are shut down.
The Pachad Yitzchak notes that one of the reasons we blow shofar is because people used to blow the shofar when they crowned a king, so when we coronate Hashem on Rosh Hashanah, we blow the shofar as well. But why, he asks, was there a custom to blow the shofar when crowning a king?
He explains that Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s malchus was revealed in this world through the creation of Man — and Adam Harishon was fashioned through an act of blowing: וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים. Hakadosh Baruch Hu blew from Himself into Adam — מאן דנפח מדיליה נפח — imbuing him with a holy neshamah, the chelek Eloka mimaal that exists within a person.
When we blow the shofar, we activate the voice of the neshamah, as we draw upon our pnimiyus, the essence of who we really are. A person might be fast asleep, completely sunk into his guf, but the shofar comes and awakens the neshamah within him. It wakes us up because its sound is the voice of the neshamah, the kol kol Yaakov, which Hashem blew into us. The shofar reminds us that our fundamental essence is בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ. We carry this chelek Eloka mimaal, which always remains unsullied, and that spark can always be reignited.
This is the avodah and opportunity of Elul. The obstacle to teshuvah is that a person forgets this, thinking that ruchniyus is across the sea, but Elul reminds us that we have it inside ourselves, and we just need to access that spark and expand it. We may be fast asleep, dominated by the guf, but the neshamah that Hashem blew into us is always alive and awake: אֲנִי יְשֵׁנָה וְלִבִּי עֵר. The sound of the shofar wakes us up, reminding us who we really are, and that the ruchniyus we seek is already inside of us: כִּי קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד.
