One thing we do not discuss much in Jewish life is belief. We have encouraged ourselves to focus on action, mitzvot, and making the world a better place. These are good things. But we miss out on important things when we push aside the conversation about belief.
Not belief in facts. While important, it is redundant.
I am talking about belief in the unknowable, the unmeasurable, the mysterious, unprovable truths we hold dear in our hearts.
I believe in a “personal God” who cares deeply about humans and individuals and pays attention to us. Do I have evidence? Nope. But in my bones, this feels true to me. I don’t understand exactly how it works, but I’m also not trying to rationalize or intellectualize it. It remains in the realm of belief for me.
Believing this makes life a bit more stressful because of all of the mistakes I make. A touch more guilt than might exist if I believed in God working purely through nature. (This is a totally reasonable belief to have as well.) Nonetheless, in my heart, I believe it to be true.
The second to last verse of the Book of Lamentations (Eicha 5:21), repeated in readings on Tisha B’av, is:
הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ ה׳ אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָהֿ חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם׃
Take us back, Lord, to You, and let us return, renew our days of old.
This is an encouraging (almost) ending to a book full of heartbreak and horror. Reb Levi of Berditchev asks and answers, “What does “[days of] old” mean?”
His answer changed everything for me.
In Deuteronomy, the Torah tells us to “revere God, walk in God’s ways, and love and serve God with all of our hearts and souls.” When are we to do this? Now.
“And now, O Israel, what does the ETERNAL your God demand of you?…” (Deut 10:12)
What does “now” mean?” The Midrash explains, “Now is nothing other than Teshuvah.” (Bereshit Rabbah 21:6) Teshuvah, a process of returning to a better life path through reflection and accountability, is how we align ourselves to God to fulfill what is demanded of us. But we can learn something deeper:
…because each person from Israel is obligated to believe with complete faith that at every moment we receive life from the Creator, Blessed Be, as it is explained, “Every [thing that] breathes praises — every single breath praises Yah” (Bereshit Rabbah 11, Psalms 150:6) — that in every moment, the living wants to leave a person, the Holy One Blessed Be, sends to [that person] in every moment, new life.
Using the metaphor of breath, we imagine each time we breathe out, life is attempting to escape our bodies. This is a bit terrifying, to be entirely honest, but the message is not: God sends breath back into our bodies, giving us hiyyut hadash, new life. And each new breath is gratitude and praise to God.
This is a powerful image of one of the most miraculously mundane things within us. Literally, our body’s autonomic nervous system, the part of ourselves that runs itself, is praying to the Divine at every moment. Our very being is full of spiritual potential.
Reb Levi goes on from there:
Because of this, for Teshuvah to be effective for each person, for at the moment that [person] does Teshuvah, that person believes they are created with life anew and with this God, may God be Blessed, with God’s enormous mercy, does not remind them of their earlier sins.
But, if, God forbid, they do not believe this, God forbid, the Teshvuah is not effective. This is the explanation of the Midrash, “Now is nothing other than Teshuvah,” since that [person] believes they are made with life anew, the Teshuvah is effective for them.
This is the key here.
If you believe change is possible, you’re right.
If you believe change is impossible, you’re right.
For Teshuvah to be possible, for us to grow, change, make amends, and become a better person, you have to believe it’s possible for a person to do that. You have to believe in your own capacity to be better!
In Atomic Habits, James Clear discusses how shifting one’s identity is one of the major ways to enact change in one’s life. The tiny yet huge adjustment from “I don’t run” to “I am a runner” has a tremendous impact.
Reb Levi is saying something similar here. For Teshuvah to be possible, you have to believe it. It is the recognition that once you’ve done the work, you are a different person. You have a new life on a new trajectory.
He concludes his exploration by quoting a story from Sanhedrin 98a in which Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi encountered the Messiah and asked, “When will the Master [Messiah] come?” The Messiah responds, “Today,” but never arrives. Having encountered Elijah already, he says, “[The Messiah] lied to me. He said he would come today but did not.” Elijah responds, “Today if you will listen to His voice” (Psalms 95:7).
The final line from Reb Levi is: “When you [act] according to this quality, each day [a person] will be made with life anew.”
Rashi explains: Elijah reminds us of what God wants from us, and Reb Levi connects that to our task from Deuteronomy. We are to walk in God’s ways right now, and “now is nothing other than Teshuvah.”
Every moment is an opportunity to make ourselves anew into the person we could be. If we believe it is possible to become better, then we can be better than we were yesterday.
This optimistic view of humanity, of change and growth, is what “days of old” might mean in the verse. In Eicha, we are lamenting the destruction of our world, embodied by Jerusalem. For us, we lament the wholeness we felt before we needed to do Teshuvah.
By doing the work and believing it possible, we can return ourselves back to “the days of old,” to our sense of wholeness, to the new life God breathes back into us, to a state of praise and gratitude, to being our best selves.
If we believe, then it is possible.
Download the source sheet with the full translation of Reb Levi’s discussion from Kedushat Levi.