Tikkun magazine wants you to take tshuvah seriously.
That’s why, for 15 years, a glossy yellow insert has accompanied each High Holy Days issue of the S.F.-based publication, advising its readers on how to do just that.
This year, the insert is called “Take Spiritual Transformation Seriously,” and consists of a workbook. Filling it out forces one to examine more closely one’s behavior of the past year.
According to Pesahim, the third tractate in the Mishnah, the concept of repentance was created before the world itself. Repentance, or the process of tshuvah, not only can prolong one’s life but it can expedite the redemption of the world.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun and spiritual leader of Beyt Tikkun in San Francisco, said he produced the supplement to provide a vehicle for tshuvah.
When he was growing up, “there was mention of tshuvah but there was no actual activity of repentance going on, as far as I could see,” he said.
People would say the prayers but Lerner saw no signs that they were engaging in the kind of soul-searching the true tshuvah process requires.
As his religious consciousness deepened in midlife, he began asking people if they felt they were experiencing spiritual transformation. Many said they were not.
“Nobody had ever been in a synagogue where people were involved in a process of inner transformation or repentance,” he said. While someone could be doing this personally, Lerner said, “during the service, there was nothing to create an opportunity for people to think about their lives and what has really been going on for them.”
Asking for forgiveness from those one has wronged was about as deep as it got, Lerner said. “There wasn’t anything about rethinking one’s life in a fundamental way.”
Furthermore, he added, whatever tshuvah process people were going through usually ended when they left services.
“I never heard anybody saying, ‘I need some time now because I need to reflect on my life and my tshuvah process.'”
Services, he concluded, just were not conducive enough to facilitating “the inner looking that Rosh Hashanah is supposed to be about.”
Enter the tshuvah workbook, which can be found at www.jewish.com/teshuvah. It consists of four pages, with space for detailing precisely how you have sinned. In the first section, you must list problems with parents, spouses, lovers, friends and children, showing how you have contributed to the problem.
A similar section follows, with space for outlining problems relating to work. In addition, the guide asks such questions as: “Did you show adequate respect for your body?” and “Are you taking enough time to nourish your soul?”
Then comes a section asking whether you are enough involved in tikkun olam, and whether you are helping to build a connection to the Jewish world.
The last section asks which of your personal traits need some work, listing things like “fear that others won’t or don’t like you,” “inability to express anger,” “excessive criticalness towards others,” “disorganization” and “manipulating others.”
The last section asks what, specifically, you will do during the 10-day tshuvah period to address those issues, and what you will do throughout the year.
While Lerner didn’t use any sources to compile the workbook, he said the concept came from the mentor with whom he studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. In addition, he writes, the categories are an elaboration of themes developed in his book “Jewish Renewal.”
Although congregants at Beyt Tikkun don’t write on the holidays, he encourages them to fill out the workbook beforehand, so they have something to refer to during the period. But he has also heard of synagogues interrupting the service to hand out the workbook with pens, and letting congregants fill it out right then.
Additionally, at Beyt Tikkun, those who wish can attend a tshuvah workshop, in addition to the service, so they can deal with these issues in a group setting. Lerner also suggests working with a partner, or buddy, who is there as a support system, adding that the other person should not be a spouse or partner.
The idea is for the buddy to call the other one to ask, “Have you worked on your tshuvah today?”
Having such a partner makes one more likely to get serious about the tshuvah process, said Laura Kosak, a former Alameda resident now living in Los Angeles.
Kosak worshipped at Beyt Tikkun, and said that the “space made for people to get together to do this in the synagogue was one of the most important parts” of the service. Additionally, she added, having a partner helps because “when you know somebody is going to call, it makes you do it. Just like working out.”
In general, Kosak found the workbook helpful because “tshuvah is such a huge concept, and having some specific questions that speak about everyday experiences helps break it down.”
In addition to the workbook, a revised, more contemporary version of the Al Cheyt confessional prayer is offered. It changes year after year. Lerner amends it by adding “sins” people have either brought up in shul or have mentioned to him.
In the traditional prayer, some of the sins mentioned are “stiff-neckedness, hardening our hearts and unchastity,” he said. Such sins don’t inspire most people to think, “Oh, they’ve got my number,” he explained. “The traditional list doesn’t provoke a moment of recognition that forces one to think, ‘I’ve got some work to do on myself or my community.'”
To strike a stronger chord, Tikkun’s version features sins like “feeling so powerless when we hear about oppression that we finally close our ears,” “not doing enough to save the environment,” “not doing enough to challenge sexist institutions and practices” and “not recognizing the humanity and suffering of the Palestinian people and the injustice they face living under the unwanted occupation.”
The updated version should not be used instead of the traditional Al Cheyt in the prayerbook, Lerner recommends, but in addition to it. He also encourages people to come up with their own additions, those that resonate more deeply with them.
According to Lerner, more than 50 synagogues have reported either using his version or building upon it for inspiration.
Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, spiritual leader of the Princeton Jewish Center in New Jersey, and author of numerous books, is one rabbi who has used it in his synagogue. He also included last year’s version in his recent book, “New and Old Prayers for the High Holidays.”
“I think it’s a very important contribution,” Elkins said of the updated prayer. His congregants “like it because it’s contemporary and relevant to their needs.”
While some of the sins listed in the traditional prayer are always relevant, Elkins said, some are rather “old-fashioned. These are specific contemporary sins, and people like that.”
The updated Al Cheyt was written not from the perspective of an editor or a rabbi, Lerner said, but from that of people who want to address their sins. “What it does is break through the distance that happens with so many prayer services, in which people are physically there but not emotionally present.”