Parshat Nitzavim-Vayelech: The Return

September 27, 2024

Deuternomy 30:3

וְשָׁ֨ב יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ אֶת־שְׁבוּתְךָ֖ וְרִחֲמֶ֑ךָ וְשָׁ֗ב וְקִבֶּצְךָ֙ מִכל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֧ר הֱפִֽיצְךָ֛ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ שָֽׁמָּה׃

Then the Lord your God will restore your captivity and take you back in love. God will bring you together again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.
 

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With the High Holy Days approaching, the word “Teshuvah” is on our minds. While often translated as “repentance,” Teshuvah really comes from the Hebrew root meaning “return.” In this context, God promises that if we return to God with all our hearts, God will gather the Jewish people from every corner of the globe and return them to the land of Israel. This powerful image of physical return serves as a metaphor for our own journey of teshuvah—a spiritual return to our truest selves.

As we move through our daily lives, we juggle many roles. In a single day, we might be parents, caregivers, friends, coworkers, teachers, accountants, doctors, or mechanics—constantly shifting between different responsibilities. The High Holy Days remind us to pause and reflect on our own teshuvah, our own journey of returning. Using the metaphor of the Jewish people dispersed across the world returning to Israel, we can think of the various parts of ourselves that are scattered across the different roles we play each day.

But what does it mean to bring all these parts of ourselves back to center? It means staying true to our values and principles in every situation—being authentic no matter where we are or who we are with. While different roles may highlight different facets of who we are, our work during these holy days is to ensure we don’t lose sight of our core identity, to gather the scattered parts of our lives and bring them back to the center.