Shabbat Shuvah is the first Shabbat of the New Year and always falls on the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It gets its name from the Prophetic selection that is read on Shabbat morning, Hosea 14:2-10, that begins, “Return, O Israel, to the ETERNAL your God, For you have fallen because of your sin.” (Hosea 14:2) and, a few verses later, makes the promise, “Generously will I take them back in love; For My anger has turned away from them.” (Hosea 14:5) Shuva means return and is related to teshuvah, our work during these holy days, which is often mistranslated as repentance, rather than return.
There is a prayer that many Jews recite every morning, “My God, the soul you have given me is pure, You formed it. You shaped it. You breathed it into me. You keep it safe within me.”
This idea, that our essence is pure, that it is holy, that it is a gift, It is what the High Holy Days are about. Our work is to return to our true selves, to that pure soul that God planted within us. Understanding that we have done wrong, accepting it, feeling regret, and making atonement, these are part of teshuva. But the goal is to return to our pure essence. The person God created us to be.
Ha’azinu, Deuteronomy 32:1-32:52; Parashat HaShavua for Shabbat Shuvah, October 5, 2024
October 4, 2024 by tbhrich • Drashot
Shabbat Shuvah is the first Shabbat of the New Year and always falls on the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It gets its name from the Prophetic selection that is read on Shabbat morning, Hosea 14:2-10, that begins, “Return, O Israel, to the ETERNAL your God, For you have fallen because of your sin.” (Hosea 14:2) and, a few verses later, makes the promise, “Generously will I take them back in love; For My anger has turned away from them.” (Hosea 14:5) Shuva means return and is related to teshuvah, our work during these holy days, which is often mistranslated as repentance, rather than return.
There is a prayer that many Jews recite every morning, “My God, the soul you have given me is pure, You formed it. You shaped it. You breathed it into me. You keep it safe within me.”
This idea, that our essence is pure, that it is holy, that it is a gift, It is what the High Holy Days are about. Our work is to return to our true selves, to that pure soul that God planted within us. Understanding that we have done wrong, accepting it, feeling regret, and making atonement, these are part of teshuva. But the goal is to return to our pure essence. The person God created us to be.
May we be inscribed for a good New Year.