I am struck once again by the word teshuva, that it does not literally mean repentance or change or self improvement. it means return. To return to God.
It turns out that what God wants most from you is not perfection but relationship, just to be with you as you are.
The Truest Yearning of a Parent
It’s like a child who has been away from home for a long time. Maybe there has been conflict and disapproval over the child’s choices, and maybe there has even been rupture in the relationship. But in the end of the day, what does the parent most want, in the deepest truest place in her heart? To be connected to the child. This is the position of love. More than right or wrong, this way or that way, there is this very basic desire for relationship and connection. We yearn for that more than anything – more than fixing or controlling or needing someone to be a certain way – just to wrap them up in your arms and hold them, as they are. To open the door of your home to that wandering child, to open your arms wide and let them in from their weary journeys, no questions asked, and to love them and be with them in all their bedraggled and deeply beloved selves, to meet them at the door with a smile, no recriminations or agenda for change, just love and acceptance.
Walls Falling
Maybe feeling that loving urge in yourself towards someone in your life, whatever points of disagreement or hurt or worry have been between you, touching deeper than that tension to a place of grace and love and the simple desire for connection. Letting all the words and the busyness of our daily tasks and the large or petty concerns – do it my way, why can’t you be different – letting all that melt away; maybe it’s all a distracting mirage that keeps us distant and disconnected. Letting all that stands in the way of that simple connection be shattered like the walls of Jericho by the shofar blasts. Sensing how we have been maintaining these walls between us and life, between us and ourselves, us and each other, us and God. So many walls, let it all fall now, all those walls crumbling so you can see before you what emerges behind the walls crystal clear now – the entryway to home, the return to connection.
God’s Desire For Us
Remember that parent standing at the front door with a smile? This is how God feels about us. Ok, so you’ve done this or that wrong, but don’t let that stop you from coming home. What I want more than anything, more than your doing the right thing or being perfect – how could you be – what I want more than any of that is simply for you to be with me. Come home now. We’ve argued long enough. The door is open and all is forgiven. It’s not about how you perform or what you achieve or accomplish. I love you in all your quirks and idiosyncrasies and foibles just as you are, your precious kooky self. Come home now. Nothing else matters.
The Field Where We Meet God
As the Sufi poet Rumi writes, “Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” We can only ever truly meet each other in such a field, a field of grace that does not worry about who did what when. I believe this is the same field, the sadeh, where God is this time of year when we say hamelekh basadeh, “the king is in the field. “ The king is in the field to meet us, out beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing, in our ragged farm clothes.
In this field we simply sit together on a picnic blanket. No words, no explanations, no expectation or evaluation, just the non-verbal shofar communication of heart to heart, the deeper language of love between us that surpasses all conception or articulation or judgment, and that insists on being listened to, demanding attention and connection and presence now. Enough self improvement, it says with a touch of impatience. You’re wasting time when we could be together. Just come home to me as you are.
Connection As The Destination of These Holidays
I believe that this whole holiday time of year is aimed at this destination point, at the return to connection, to the simple act of sitting together with God with no goal other than each other To do that, we first have to get beyond the place of rightdoing and wrongdoing and that, in a way, is what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are about. The primary obstacle to our reconnecting to God is not our wrongdoing – God can handle that – but our shame about it. Shame makes us hide and turn away from connection, as the first humans did in the Garden of Eden. Ayeka, God called, “where are you,” I just want to be together, but in our shame we went into hiding and continue in that state.
And so first, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there is the need to clear that up, to clear it out, to bring it all into the light, to acknowledge everything that hides in the shadows, all our mistakes and inadequacies, and to feel God’s grace and forgiveness, to know in our bones that God still wants us. Nonetheless. Yes, it’s all been so hard and we’ve been such a mess. But God’s desire for us never flags. It is still return that is desired. That is the clarion call, the shofar like a lighthouse in a storm blinking steadily to remind us of home. Come home, come home. I still want you. More than anything, what I want is you to be with me. Come as you are, but for God’s sake, come now. We can hear the urgency of the shofar’s calls.
And indeed, returning home to be with God is where we end up on this holiday journey. We move from the High Holidays to Sukkot where we literally dwell in God’s house. Ahat sha’alti – that one desire we had was shivti, to sit, to dwell in God’s house, to be with God (Psalm 27:4). That is the destination for us and for God. That is the return. Our hearts and God’s heart point in the same direction, back to a shared dwelling place, to sit together in that field and know that nothing else matters. And, as if to highlight this goal, we have Shmini Atzeret, that extra day of holiday where God says – don’t leave. I just want to be with you. For no reason. Just to be with you.
Our Confusion About What Matters
We struggle so hard to do the right thing and to fix ourselves and each other. We busy ourselves with accomplishments when all along God is simply waiting for us to pause and be present and connect.
It’s like if you have a child and you drive them all over creation for special lessons in this and that, you busy yourself with parenting books and classes and with buying them the very best educational toys, and they sit on the floor, crying away. You say – what else do you want from me? Oh, that other toy? Will that make you happy? Ok. ’ll run off to this faroff store to find it, running around all day, totally frenetic, and then preoccupied at evening with making a fancy dinner to make sure they stay healthy, and all the while they are sitting on the kitchen floor looking up at you with these big forlorn eyes that say – just stop and pay attention to me. Be with me. That’s all I want. Stop abandoning me with all your care. Sit here on the floor and be with me. Children know what matters.
God, as it were, is like that child. Why are you running around so much in My name when all i really want is for you to connect to Me, for us to be together? Have you missed the point?
Can you feel how God aches for you? Rachmana liba ba’i. The Merciful One or perhaps the One of the Rechem, the womb, the Maternal One, desires, requires, needs the heart. That’s what God most wants from us, our heart, our presence.
Doing It Now
So maybe pausing here and doing just that, offering God our heart of connection in this moment. Feeling your breath as a golden thread that connects you to God at all times, and paying attention to that thread in this moment, letting it bring you back into awareness of that connection, letting your breath do teshuva for you, letting it return you home to a deep attentiveness to the God who is right here with you and inside you.
Sensing that connection like you might sense your beloved lying next to you, holding you, two hearts beating together. Not with words or ideas, not the concept of connection, but the experience of it, the intimacy of it, this moment breathing together, the sensation of the shofar blast in your body, the physical sensation of God’s nearness and of the invisible yet very tangible cord between you.
What Stands In the Way
Noticing if anything comes up to block you from this experience, perhaps a sensation of unworthiness, as if there is some fixing you need to do before you are fit for intimacy with the divine. This is a trick to keep you distant, like the shame that made Adam hide This is not God. God is saying ayeka, seeking connection, looking for you. God desires connection with you above all else, in whatever state you are in. Tehuva is return, not self improvement, not perfection. Return now. in this moment, in all moments. Whatever stands in the way, let it fall like the walls of Jericho. Let it all fall to the side and return to God, again and again. Nothing else matters.
Let Yourself Return
God is like a home with its doors wide open, like a parent with her arms open to embrace you after a long time away. No questions asked. Just return and let yourself be embraced and loved. Let yourself feel how much God desires you, has missed you, wants you in all your quirks and craziness, just as you are, wants most of all to be with you. Don’t deprive God of your company. It’s been long enough.
If it feels right, maybe take one last minute to sit here with God, with no goal other than to be together, kind of like hanging out with someone you love, not speaking, just enjoying the time together, wanting to prolong it a little bit, relishing the company and sensing how God relishes it, too.
Photo by Pixabay at Pexels
Shamati and thank you