Rabbi Akiva Rutenberg - How Can Sins Turn into Merits?

[Music] an integral theme of rosh hashanah and yom kippur is teshuva the concept of returning to hashem suva the torah tells us that there's two types of teshuva there's teshuva me ava and teshuva meera to shuva from love and to suva from fear returning to hashem because of love and returning to hashem because of fear and our rabbis teach us from the earliest sources that if somebody does teshuva meera if they return to god from fear their sins get erased but if they do to sugar me ah if they return from love their sins actually turn into mitzvot the sins turn into mitzvahs and the question of course is how does a sin turn into a mitzvah and i think to answer this question i'll ask another question as truth like to do that and the question is rosh hashanah is judgment day why are we so excited why are we so happy why are we eating and drinking and and and and living it up with festivities on a day that's that's that's uh we're being judged imagine you come to court in your world royce and you come out in your best suit and you're you're coming you're coming to this in this day how how do we understand why are we celebrating in rosh hashanah and we don't even do we don't say we don't say i'm sorry for my sins on rosh hashanah we don't cry on rosh hashanah what's going on it's judgement day shouldn't we be remorseful shouldn't we be sorry and i think the answer is is going back to the question we have to shuver me we said to shubham era to suvar from fear the sins get erased the shuffle from ava actually brings us the sins become mitzvos and how is this possible so i think the reason is like this what is a mitzvah we know a mitzvah comes from the word safta many commentaries tell us it comes to the word safta safta is a connector every mitzvah is a connector it connects us to something bigger than ourself every time we do a mitzvah whether it's between man and fellow man or between man and god the mitzvah connects us to a higher place it's like somebody repelling up a mountain and each time he does a mitzvos she does a mitzvah they put a peg into the into the mountain and climb up a little bit higher every mitzvah brings us closer to hashem and closer to our essence when a person does teshuva meera from fear because they're afraid of punishment afraid of something bad happening to them fear of god or of god then the shoot the the sins get erased but when a person does to shubham when they return to god because of love what does that mean it means that they feel such a closeness with hashem that they say hashem how could it be that i got so distant from you and then the distance actually becomes an impetus for the connection the sins actually become a source of connection the sins become a safta the sins become a source of connection to hashem because we realize how could i become so distant from you and through that feeling that distance they actually become closer we say bimakum shabbat triva or maid in the place that where about shuva goes even the greatest sadha can't be in that place because the baalshuva is able to bypass all those things and come to an even closer place and i think this is the idea because the balchuva went away and from that distance realized the closeness that they really want to have and this can be paralleled in all our human relationships when we're in a relationship sometimes we could change our our ways because we realize that we don't want to lose this person we don't want to lose this child we don't want to lose our spouse we don't want to lose this relationship so that's teshuvamira the shuva me ava is when i say oh my gosh i love this person so much how could it be that i got distant from this person and then the disconnect actually becomes a source of connection and i believe this is why rosh hashanah we go in like this we go in like why because on rosh hashanah is shiva me ava rosh hashanah we are connecting to hashem we're not focusing on the past it's like a couple that's renewing their vows and we're not going to focus on the mistakes that we made we're going to focus on the connection we're here to celebrate to uplift the world to daven and to pray and to connect and to be there with hashem and in that in that space we don't need to talk about the sins we don't need to talk about the mistakes because the mistakes are not even important right now we're focused on our relationship with hashem and the connection that we want to have and the ultimate judgment that we hope to get is the judgment that we give a loved one we want hashem to judge us the way he would judge a loved one because we're there with him we're connected but then if a person did not get to the highest level in rosh hashanah we have the rest of us of the the leads up to yom kippur and i would think that that's more like teshuva miyara that's true from fear where we focus on the mistakes and we try to erase the mistakes and we try to work out the mistakes but on rosh hashanah we are shuv me abba connecting to hashem from love from that connection of that place of connection may we all have a meaningful rosh hashanah of you of true connection and and purpose and bazaar hashem we will be able to connect with teshuva and miawa