Reb Yaakov Krantz, the great Maggid of Dubno, related a timely anecdote:
There was a day laborer working as a porter who made his parnassah doing odd jobs, helping travelers load and unload their wares. When a visiting businessman arrived, he would shlep his merchandise from the carriage to the inn and take payment in relation to the size or difficulty of the load.
One day, he struggled under the extreme weight of a wealthy merchant’s trunks and bags that he had picked up at the curb. Krechtzing heavily and pouring with sweat, he slowly navigated the staircase, the unwieldy bags almost toppling him. After completing the job, he limped weakly back to the entrance of the inn and met the visitor. When the affluent businessman handed him just a couple of small coins, he was incredulous. “How dare you? After I shlepped so many heavy bags for you, how could you short-change me like this?”
The gvir replied, “My good man, I am traveling with one small, light suitcase. If you shlepped many heavy bags, I’m afraid you were carrying someone else’s baggage… not mine.”
The Dubner Maggid explained by darshening on the pasuk, “You did not call upon Me, Yaakov, for you grew weary of ‘Me’” (Yeshayahu 43:22). The Ribbono shel Olam is assuring us: If we are feeling weary under the yoke of Torah and mitzvos, it indicates something is awry in our approach, for it wasn’t really Hashem that we were calling on. If our Yiddishkeit is making us krechtz or kvetch, or if it seems to detract from our love and joy in being a Jew, it means that we are not following the Torah’s directives, but rather shlepping some other set of rules that we inadvertently picked up somewhere.
Serving G-d is all-encompassing and can feel demanding; we are entrusted and obligated with a myriad of mitzvos and halachic details and encouraged to continually stretch our capacity in depth of intentionality and full-heartedness. Yet, the underlying Divine motivation, so to speak, behind this is empowering: “Hakadosh Baruch Hu wished to confer merit upon Yisrael; therefore, He increased for them Torah and mitzvos.” If our observances don’t shine with “merit” or empowerment, if we have “grown weary” of them, we are most likely not carrying Hashem’s Torah and mitzvos in a most precise sense. They are “someone else’s”—there is, perhaps, the taint of an ulterior motive.
All of this is vitally relevant to this auspicious time of year and these days of heightened merit, when we are given an opportunity to embrace the mitzvah of teshuvah, returning to Hashem out of love and joy.
Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook writes, “The primary reason for our failure is a result of not believing that making teshuvah is easy” (Oros Hateshuvah, 14). Many of us have become prey to a “conceptzia” of the difficulty in successfully engaging in teshuvah. We prefer to remain in a fossilized state of self-imposed stuckness, paralyzed by the fear of failure. Entrapped in a reactive, defeatist mentality, blinded from seeing our personal and collective spiritual potential, we submit to faintheartedness. Believing, tragically, that our baggage is just too heavy for our teshuvah to be effective, we give up.
The truth is, teshuvah involves unburdening ourselves of our heavy past, and letting go of toxic baggage. If we would keep this in mind, teshuvah would be easy, joyful and invigorating.
Rebbe Simcha Bunim of Peshischa taught that it is understandable that people do aveiros—after all, we are human beings and are all subject to the various temptations that surround us. What is much worse than any aveirah, however, is that Hashem gives us the ability to do teshuvah at any moment, but we don’t avail ourselves of it and repair our relationship with Him. “In the Beis Din shel Maalah,” he said, “we won’t be asked why we made mistakes and did aveiros, for that is how Hashem made the world. Rather we’ll be held accountable for why we didn’t do teshuvah and fix what we had broken.”
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When Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok, the Frierdiker Rebbe of Lubavitch, would travel, large crowds would gather to greet and escort him, or simply to catch a glimpse of the tzaddik. Once, throngs gathered to see the Rebbe departing from a European train station. He greeted the assembled with a few inspiring words. As the Rebbe was giving berachos to eager chassidim and admirers, the conductor signaled that the train was about to depart.
The Rebbe’s personal gabbai exclaimed, “Rebbe! We have to move quickly… there is just a minute left!” The Frierdiker Rebbe closed his eyes and seemed lost in thought, experiencing a moment of deep dveikus. “A minute! A minute! In just one minute I could do teshuvah!” Overcome with emotion, the Rebbe stood immobilized until his assistant managed to finesse him onto the train.
Following his miraculous escape from the Nazis, Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok arrived in the United States and spearheaded a revolution of Jewish growth and engagement. The Frierdiker issued an urgent call to world Jewry, crying out from the depths of his soul: “L’alter l’tshuvah, l’alter l’geulah—immediately to repentance—immediately to Redemption!” This direct confrontation with exile, national and personal, is relevant today as ever.
May we seize the moment of l’alter l’tshuvah, l’alter l’geulah by taking the right “suitcase”—increasing in Torah and mitzvos with the ease borne of love and joy! n
Rav Judah Mischel is executive director of Camp HASC, the Hebrew Academy for Special Children. He is the mashpia of OU-NCSY, founder of Tzama Nafshi, and the author of “Baderech: Along the Path of Teshuva.” Rav Judah lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh with his wife, Ora, and their family.
