The Courage to Retreat

I was thinking about the concept of Teshuva (as one tends to do during the Aseret Yemei Teshuva) and what it's all about. Many define it as Repentance. Some refer to it as Return. I thought of another definition recently. Maybe Teshuva is about Retreat. I don't mean it in the sense of running away from something scary. In fact, Yom Kippur kind of gets a bad rap as a scary day when we beg God to have mercy. The truth is that Yom Kippur is the happiest day of the year. It's the day we are given a new chance, a chance to symbolically enter the Mikva and remove all the spiritual dirt. And it's also the day we received the 2nd Luchot after theSin of the Golden Calf.

A couple of weeks ago we took our Middle School students away for a 2 day Retreat at a campsite. It was a great trip, full of team building and group bonding. And it also got me thinking about this concept of Retreat. Maybe Retreat is about taking a step back from our day to day routine, and looking at the bigger picture. It's about seeing the forest for the trees. You see, we are all so busy with our lives and our day to day stuff that we often lose sight of where we are heading. Which, if you think about it, is kind of crazy. It would be like driving on the highway and only knowing where each new exit is but not our ultimate destination.

Maybe Teshuva is about retreating from our routine and taking a day to ask ourselves, what is this life I am living really all about? What am I trying to achieve? Where am I headed and am I on the right track to get there? Sometimes we ask ourselves these questions at this time of year and realize that we headed off course a little, like a sailboat caught in the crosswinds and currents. And so we use our compass, our spiritual GPS, and readjust our coordinates, so that we can get back on track.

This Yom Kippur, I wish each of us the wisdom and courage to retreat, to step back from everything we assume is working, and from everything we are used to and comfortable with, and to reassess if we are heading where we really want to be. Gmar Chatima Tova...