“Rabbi Abahu bar Zeira said, ‘Great is Teshuvah, for it preceded the Creation of the World, as it says, ‘Before the mountains were born,…You gave to human beings the ability to be contrite and to repent. (Psalms 90:2-3)” (Bereishit Rabbah, 1:4)
“Rabbi Levi said, ‘Great is Teshuvah, for it enables a person to reach the throne of God,” as it says ‘Return, O Israel, to the Eternal your God.’ (Hosea 14:2)” (BT Yoma: 86a)
“Rabbi Yochanan said, ‘Great is Teshuvah, for it causes a person’s verdict to be torn up.’ ” (BT Rosh Hashanah 17b)
The root of the word “teshuvah” is “Shuv” –to turn/ to return, but there is complexity in that meaning – to whom or to what are we to turn to, to whom or to what are we to return to?
Teshuvah is said to be one of the things created before the world itself was created. There are different lists – Avot 5:6 lists 10 of the mostly miraculous events in bible that our outside the laws of nature (“Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight, and these are they: [1] the mouth of the earth, [2] the mouth of the well, [3] the mouth of the donkey, [4] the rainbow, [5] the manna, [6] the staff [of Moses], [7] the Shamir, [8] the letters, [9] the writing, [10] and the tablets. And some say: also the demons, the grave of Moses, and the ram of Abraham, our father. And some say: and also tongs, made with tongs.”) But the list in Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 3:5 – the Torah, the Throne of Glory, Gan Eden, Gehinnom,, the Temple, the Name of Messiah, and Teshuvah has a different purpose: not to ensure that the laws of the natural world will remain paramount, but that the laws of the spiritual world all support one thing – increasing closeness to the divine being.
Rabbi Abraham Yitzchak Ha-Cohen Kook wrote – “Teshuvah illuminates the spiritual darkness as a person returns to themselves, to the roots of their own soul, and through this action they are able to return to God, the owner and originator of all souls”
I love that rabbinic tradition has created stories so that all the strange and unnatural events in bible – the talking donkey, the staff that turned into a snake, the manna provided for forty years in the desert – are given an origin story that is rooted before the natural world is created, and so such “miracles” can no longer be expected to upend our worlds. But I love more that one of the things created even before the world was created is, in our tradition, the route back to our own authentic selves and back to relationship with our Creator.
Along with the texts that create the possibility of teshuvah in a formal process during the Yamim Noraim, Rabbinic tradition says always – there is hope. Things can be made better. Whatever we may feel about ourselves, when our mood is low and we can see no way forward, tradition reminds us -it is never too late to start again. And it provides a road map back into life.