Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement is a significant holiday in Judaism and is a time when an individual reflects on the past year and repents for their sins. This Yom Kippur I delivered a speech to the congregation at my synagogue where I shared my personal challenges when it comes to teshuva, which means repentance in Hebrew. Even if you personally do not observe Yom Kippur, I hope this speech will prompt you to reflect more on your areas of improvement this past year and ways that you can strive to become a better version of yourself.

     There are numerous reasons why repentance is difficult. As I reflected on the single biggest challenge of doing teshuva for me personally, I came to the conclusion that it’s extremely difficult to think about repenting for one’s sins when one looks back on previous events and feels that their behaviors were justified. For example, my brother, David, and I have a system for whose turn it is to take out the trash each week. David and I alternate who gets to be what we call the “trash expert”. However, sometimes this system does not work if one of us (usually David) forgets to do their responsibility. Often when that happens my Mom decides to do it herself, and David gets the night off. Then the next week, when I technically have the honor of being the trash expert, I insist that David do it instead. I may have been a little meaner than necessary and insisted he do a whole week’s extra work instead of the one night that he missed.
Looking back at these incidents, I tend to feel I was justified in not taking out the trash and pinning it on my little brother.

      This is why I believe that when it comes to teshuva, a major challenge is accepting that one has done wrong. Especially when looking back, one’s memory is clouded with the false notion that previous behaviors were truly justified in that instance. It’s hard to remember yourself being wrong because we view everything we do from our own point of view.
     In Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s book A Code of Jewish Ethics, he outlines ten obstacles to repentance. Rabbi Telushkin states, “Pride is a seldom acknowledged but common obstacle to repentance; it can keep us from owning up to our flaws or admitting that we have done wrong. Yet, if we do not acknowledge what we have done, we will continue on the same path or do something even worse. Therefore we need to cultivate sufficient humility to acknowledge our faults and wrong behavior.” I will acknowledge that part of the reason why I have a hard time owning up to the fact that I was mean to my brother and made him do more than his fair share of chores is due to my sense of pride. 

     As I reflect back on these incidents I recognize now that I am at fault for feeling they are justified. In the future, I will try to recognize my own pride in the situation and embrace my role as the rightful trash expert. Pride is only one of the reasons why teshuva is difficult. It’s easy to blame others and to minimize the wrong. It’s easy to point to worse things others have done. Recognizing that it’s not easy to repent, let’s try to do our best this year.