Tag Archives: cheshbon hanefesh

The fourteenth day of Elul

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From the very days of your ancestors you have turned away from My laws and have not observed them. Turn back to Me, and I will turn back to you—said GOD of Hosts. But you ask, “How shall we turn back?” Malachi 3:7

לְמִימֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם סַרְתֶּם מֵחֻקַּי וְלֹא שְׁמַרְתֶּם שׁוּבוּ אֵלַי וְאָשׁוּבָה אֲלֵיכֶם אָמַר יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת וַאֲמַרְתֶּם בַּמֶּה נָשׁוּב׃

Teshuvah – Returning to the ways that God expects of us, is the theme of these Days of Awe, and again and again our liturgy exhorts us to return to God, and that should we do so, God will return to us. But as the prophet Malachi records – sometimes our response to that exhortation is – I would like to – but how do I do it?

Tradition tells us that teshuvah is not an event, but a process. Maimonides codifies the laws of Repentance in his Mishneh Torah, which begins

(1) All commandments of the Torah, whether they be mandatory or prohibitive, if a person violates any one of them, either presumptuously or erroneously, when they will repent and turn away from their sinful way, they are obliged to confess before God, blessed is God! even as it is said: “When a man or woman shall commit any sin..… Then they shall confess their sin which they have done (Num. 5.6–7), which is a confession of words. Such confession is a mandatory commandment.”

So the very beginning of the process is that a person must have in some way sinned, either deliberately or by mistake, and that they will recognise that they have done so. The recognition then leads to an acknowledgement, in the form of a confession before God.

How do we recognise and acknowledge what we have done / failed to do? The process is called cheshbon hanefesh – literally the accounting of the soul. The metaphor of a cheshbon is deliberate – the word is used in hebrew to describe a calculation, a reckoning, an account, and is the word in modern hebrew for the bill at a point of sale.

So we begin by looking in detail at our past selves, and look at each action – was it something that gave my life more meaning and brought me closer to my best self? Was it something I did carelessly that maybe impacted negatively? Was it something that brought me selfish gain or pleasure but did not reflect well on my values?

It is the first step in a process of return to our best selves, but cheshbon nefesh does not only have to be done retroactively as we reflect on our lives at this time. Cheshbon nefesh can be a useful metric for us to make choices going forward – we can ask ourselves how a particular choice will sit in the accounts book – will it take me closer to who I want to be or will it take me further away?

26th Ellul- learning to forgive ourselves as God forgives

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In the Talmud (Ta’anit 25b) we have the origin of the great confessional prayer of the Yamim Noraim, the Avinu Malkeinu.  “Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanos, the great teacher and pious scholar descended before the Ark in order to serve as prayer leader on a fast day because of a terrible and prolonged drought.  He recited 24 blessings but was not answered. Then his student, Rabbi Akiva descended before the Ark and simply said “Avinu Malkeinu, Ein lanu melech ele atah, Avinu Malkeinu lema’an’cha rachem Aleinu: (Our Father, our Ruler, we have no sovereign other than You. Our Father, our Ruler, for Your sake, have mercy on us.”

Immediately the rains fell. The Sages began whispering among themselves that Rabbi Akiva was answered while his teacher, Rabbi Eliezer, was not. A Divine Voice emerged and said: It is not because this Sage, Rabbi Akiva, is greater than that one, Rabbi Eliezer, but that this one is forgiving, and that one is not forgiving. God responded to Rabbi Akiva’s forgiving nature in kind by sending rain.”

Rabbi Eliezer was known for his fierce temper, and indeed was excommunicated when his colleagues could no longer deal with his domineering and strict viewpoints – though interestingly both he and his learning were always held in great respect and he is one of the most quoted rabbis in Talmud. But he was not a person who found forgiveness easy to do, nor did he find it easy to let go of his anger – indeed the story of his wife Ima Shalom who supervised his prayers after the excommunication in order to prevent his anger overtaking the world is a powerful end to the story of the oven of Achnai, and a reminder that when someone is so certain of the rightness of their view that there is danger for us all.

But Akiva, the one who could forgive others, had a simple prayer answered;  a prayer that did not even mention the desperate need for rain, but asked God for mercy for God’s own sake.

This is the origin of Avinu Malkeinu – and also of the extraordinary – and powerfully resonant – last lines of the prayer.

Over the year many additions have been made to this prayer. Sephardi machzorim generally have 32 petitions, the Ashkenazi ones can go up to 44. Some requests are particular and some are universal, some ask directly for favours, others remind God of the vulnerability of the people. But the last lines are different, they special and are specially loved – so much so that we have changed the longstanding tradition of saying them quietly but instead lustily and happily remind God to be merciful as is God’s nature, because we have no good deeds to bring. All this to a joyful tune, quite different from the solemn and rather serious tune of the rest of the prayer.

The Dubner Maggid tells the story of the person who goes shopping, excitedly adding more and more items to their “buy” list. All the petitions are in effect  us saying “I’ll take that, and that, and give me that too please”  And then when we get to the till, we find we cannot pay for everything we have taken, and in embarrassment have to say to the cashier – can you help me? Can you give me some credit and I will try to pay you in the coming year.  As long as I have a good year – please add a good year to my basket…

The embarrassment referred to in the story of the Dubner Maggid is all but disappeared today. Instead we proudly and clearly stand before an open Ark and list our requests to God. The Avinu Malkeinu is in each of the services; it is one of the last prayers in Neilah, the evening of Yom Kippur. We have spent the day reflecting, we have spent the month before on Heshbon Nefesh, considering our previous behaviour. And on Yom Kippur we may fast and afflict our souls, but we also know that if we are more like Rabbi Akiva, able to forgive others, God will forgive us. Yom Kippur is the white fast for a reason – the colour is both the colour of mourning and the colour of joy. We can have both serious reflection and happy anticipation in our lives – and both are deserved.