Below is teaching of Chaplain (Rabbi to be) Adam Ruditsky in conjunction with the book Preparing for the High Holidays
רפואה מן התורה
Seek my face, my heart repents, your
face, O God, do I seek (Ps. 27:8)
One of the better well known
passages of Torah comes from parasha Shoftim in Deuteronomy that says; צדק צדק תרדף, “Justice, justice you shall pursue.” The fact that justice appears twice should
not be missed. On one hand we must be “just”
in how we conduct ourselves with others, while on the other hand, we must be “just”
in how we self-evaluate ourselves.
Torah in general asks both of us; proper behavior and proper internal
conviction/awareness. The
inter-conscience is a vehicle for spiritual justice, it works to guide our
internal moral compass, our sense of ethics and the basic sense of right and
wrong. Aristotle held that the
inter-conscience is a natural part of how the mind works, but I also think we
need to grasp that in a slightly different way, hence the inter-conscience of
the mind is a part of human spiritually.
In that sense when we respond “justly” our spirit is responding to God
who fashioned us in that very way.
Likewise, when we seek God, particularly at certain times of life (such
as the holidays), we have the ability to embrace things like repentance,
because what is a natural part of our neshoma is awakened and becomes operational. Listen to that voice during this season, and
while that connection is always there, maybe right now we tend to seek it a
little more.
The
gates of repentance are always open
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