Everything Has Already Been Planted

Shabbat Shuvah is not about repentance, it is about returning

We know this Shabbat is called Shabbat Shuvah, which means to return. Some think it is about repentance, about correcting ourselves so we can reconnect with the Light of the Creator. And there is some truth to that.

But, as Michael Berg taught in this live class from New York, the foundational consciousness of this Shabbat is far deeper and far more important than that.

The rain that already knows where to fall

In this week's portion there is a verse: יַעֲרֹף כַּמָּטָר לִקְחִי, Ya'arof kamatar likchi. It is the Creator speaking, today, to Michael, to you, to me: may my teaching, my consciousness, drop over you the way the rain comes down over the earth and makes everything grow.

You do not need to create anything new

We did the work together at Rosh Hashanah. We awakened and planted, with God's help, every seed that, over the next twelve months, will sprout into great blessings. After that work, we do not need anything external. The blessings are already, all of them, internal.

But just like the earth, once the seed is planted, is already ready to give forth everything that sustains and makes things grow, it still needs one force: rain. Not to bring the seed, and not to bring the blessing, but to allow the blessing to come forward.

The secret is being in the right place

The kabalists teach that all we ever need for blessing is to be in the right place. Sometimes that means a physical place, but most importantly, it means a place of consciousness.

And that right place changes every day. The right place of consciousness for tomorrow will be different from today's, and different again the day after.

A gift, not an achievement

Having the right consciousness is a gift from the Creator. We can ask for it, we can awaken the vessel to receive it, but actually receiving it is a gift from the Light of the Creator.

That is what Shabbat Shuvah is really about: not just returning, or even transforming on this one Shabbat, but meriting, for the next twelve full months, that our consciousness returns to its right place.

Beginning, middle and end are one

Michael Berg brought a teaching attributed to Rav Kook, a close friend of Rav Ashlag, on another verse of this portion: כִּי שֵׁם ה' אֶקְרָא הָבוּ גֹדֶל לֵאלֹהֵינוּ, because I proclaim the name of ה', ascribe greatness to our God.

The teaching holds that there are three awarenesses we must always sustain: the original thought of creation, that every being come to complete fulfillment and endless goodness; everything that happens in between, every moment of history bound to that first thought; and the ultimate end, the complete removal of pain, suffering and death. These three are not one, two and three. They are one and the same.

The seal of the Creator is Emet, truth: alef, the beginning; mem, the middle; tav, the end.

There is no such thing as small

If the thought, the process and the end are one, then everything that happens is bound to that original thought, and is therefore good and important the whole time. There is no small thing.

In the Torah, alongside the great revelations of Avraham and Yaakov, there is a lot that seems mundane: Avraham and Sarah cooking, Yosef's coat, Yehudah shearing his flock. All of that is also the Creator's work, Michael Berg teaches. If you separate the holy from the mundane, you have not understood anything.

Stop waiting to get there

We keep saying: when I get there, when my spiritual life, my finances or my relationship are where I want them, then. But that is saying the Creator is not involved now. Only later.

כִּי שֵׁם ה' אֶקְרָא, once you realize the Creator's hand is directing all of it, havu godel, you give greatness to everything you do, because the Creator is not involved in anything that is not great.

This is the gift of Shabbat Shuvah: not waiting for the right moment to start living as someone blessed. You are already, right now, inside the whole process, from beginning to end.