Teshuvah Through Tears

Last updated on: October 9, 2024 at 9:29 pm by Hebrew College

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Teshuvah Through Tears 2024-10-09T21:29:38-04:00 Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Jessica Spencer ’24

Yom Kippur

The Talmud tells a story of a rabbi who wanted to repent, to make teshuvah. Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya hears that he has sinned so badly that his teshuvah will never be accepted. He asks the mountains and hills to seek mercy for him, but they reply that they are too busy praying for mercy for themselves. Then he asks Heaven and Earth, but they too will only pray for themselves. He asks the sun and the moon, the stars and planets, and each one says no. Finally, realizing that he has only himself, he puts his head between his knees and bursts into tears. He cries until he dies, and a divine voice proclaims that Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya has entered the world to come. With his tears, he finally achieved teshuvah. [Avodah Zarah 17a]

I can imagine many reasons why Rabbi Elazar might cry. Perhaps he feels the loneliness of repair, a burden his shoulders do not feel broad enough to bear. Perhaps he has finally turned from stomach-twisting rumination—was what I did really so bad? Wouldn’t others have done the same?—to suddenly understand that yes, he harmed. The grief of realizing what you have lost, that alternate world where you did nothing wrong that you will never live in, the image of yourself as good that you can no longer see, all these are reasons for tears. And yet, somehow, his heartbreak does lead to redemption.

On Yom Kippur we confess our sins, and in this way, when heartfelt, Yom Kippur can be a time of tears. Nevertheless, Yom Kippur is more than a day of despair: it is a day of renewal, of forgiveness, a day where the Mishnah describes young women and men returning to the fields to dance in joy [Taanit 4:8]. In his work the Pachad Yitzchak, R’ Yitzchak Hutner says that the grief of sin and the joy of atonement are “two sides of the same coin”. Both, for him, come with tears: the tears of grief and tears of joy. What is this joy of atonement?

כשמזדמנת לנו בכיה-של-שמחה, הרי הבכיה הזו מעידה היא על שמחה עמוקה הרבה יותר מאשר שמחה המופיעה בפנים-של-שחוק. סימנה המובהק של שצחה המופיעה בפנים-של-בכיה, כלפי סתם שמחה המופיעה בפנים-של-שחוק, הוא, שהיא באה תמיד לאחר מיתוקו של צער שקדם לה. השמועה התובה המגיעה לאזניו של אדם, מדשנת היא אמנם את עצמיו, ומאירה את פניו, אבל העיניים עדיין בעיין הן עומדות, ואין הדמעה מופיעה כתוכן; ורק כשהשמועה הטובה באה להפיג את המרירות שנצטברת בלב משמועה רעה קודמת, והשמועה הטובה מבשרת כי הצער נהפך לעונג, אז הבשורה הטובה חודרת היא למעמקים יותר גנוזים, ומולידה היא את דמעת השמחה בעין. השמחה המופיעה בפנים-של-בכיה, היא השמחה הבאה לרשת את מקומו של הצער שקדום לה. דוקא הפיכת האבל לשמחה מעמיקה היא את השמחה, ומפאת העומק המיוחד הזה היא מופיעה בדמעות של גיל על הלחי המאיר מתוך שמחה, ועל העצם המדושנת מתוך עונג.

When tears of joy come upon us, this crying testifies to a far deeper joy than joy expressed through laughter. The clear sign of the joy that appears with tears, unlike normal joy that comes with laughter, is that it always follows the sweetening of the sorrow that preceded it. When good news reaches someone’s ears, it may indeed nurture her essence and lighten her face, but the eyes remain unchanged, and the tear does not yet appear. Only when the good news comes to relieve the bitterness stored in the heart from the previous bad news, and the good news is announced that the sorrow has turned to joy, does the good news penetrate to more hidden depths, bringing forth tears of joy. The joy that appears with tears is the joy coming to take the place of the previous sorrow. Specifically, the transformation of mourning to joy deepens the joy, and from this special depth tears of delight appear on the cheek, shining with joy, and on the essence brimming with pleasure.
-Pachad Yitzchak, Yom Kippur, Maamar 10

The Pachad Yitzchak describes how the deepest joy comes not from laughter, but from the end of sorrow. The relief of the end of bitterness is far deeper because of the pain that came before. We can only reach the joy of redemption because of the agony of repentance which preceded it.

While we’re still in sorrow, the Pachad Yitzchak’s image of deep joy feels intoxicating and impossible. No matter how much we long for it, when one is in the depths of grief, it’s hard to imagine a way to reach the dancing and joy that might follow. Can we, should we, move on from tears? Or rather, should we move on through tears?

Crying is the first step. The challenge, then, is how to go on. It is tempting to cut off the feelings, or cut off the process of teshuvah, to simply not engage. It is also tempting, like Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya, to curl up and cry forever. Dwelling in our wrongdoings without progressing (as the Talmud poetically puts it, “like a dog returning to its vomit” – Yoma 86b) is not enough. Teshuvah means grappling with the worst parts of ourselves, our worst feelings, and working through them. We have to travel on an inner journey that is impossibly far and impossibly close: from tears of sorrow to tears of joy. Yom Kippur asks us to move through the grief of wrongdoing to the relief of repair. Only then will we be ready for true redemption.

Rabbi Jessica Spencer ‘24 is currently studying for a PhD in religion at Columbia University. She has taught Talmud and rabbinics in various settings including Limmud UK, Lehrhaus, and Azara, the cross-denominational yeshiva she co-founded in the UK.

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